Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Knicks Are No Longer New York's Team (Feat. Francis Ellis)

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

This week Andrew, Akaash, and Kaz are joined by Francis Ellis to discuss his recent departure from Barstool Sport, DLO to the Warriors, Nets being the official New York team, Pit Bulls worse than guns..., Harvard vs Asians, and much more.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 February 6th, 2019. Let's be honest, just for all the Knicks fans out there. We're not getting anybody. No one. I don't believe that. No, no, no. No one. I don't believe that.
Starting point is 00:00:16 KD, where's the camera? Are you on me? Not coming. Okay. Kyrie. You have inside sources? Yeah, yeah, yeah. History.
Starting point is 00:00:27 History. Kyrie, not coming. Okay? You know who the best bet that we're going to have is? This is best case scenario. I think it's like Tobias Harris. Tobias Harris. Who's no scrub.
Starting point is 00:00:39 Kemba Walker. Who's no scrub. And then we're going to act like he's the truth because that's what we fucking do. This is what the Knicks need to do. All right? God God bring the flood Okay You say about the Do not build the earth I will kill Noah before he can build the ark. Let us all drown
Starting point is 00:01:16 What's up everybody and welcome to flagrant to no easy buckets analysis by assholes water cooler commentary for your sports needs I'm Andrew Schultz. I'm here with Akash Singh Kaz ain't here yet. He acting like he's pregnant your girl's pregnant Okay, you got no excuse to be late okay but we're starting to show anyway we're not gonna tolerate the lateness i got alex media here edin rodriguez what is your last name again martinez on the ones and twos um we have uh this episode is brought to you by the one, the only, Skeptic. Skeptic, you know Skeptic fucks with us and we fuck with Skeptic, man. Skeptic Distillery, not playing around. Do we have that beautiful vodka on the screen right there?
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Starting point is 00:02:36 Be the nets of whiskey, okay? You got to try it, man. You got to try this shit for real. Now, you have a lot of big name artists and influencers. They rep liquor brands and the smart brands attach themselves to these popular influencers. This is why Skeptic fucks with us because they know our relationship with y'all. I've had people buy it, reach out, say it's delicious. Listen, I'm not even the biggest gin guy in the world.
Starting point is 00:03:04 I like a little vodka soda from now on. But gin, not the biggest gin guy in the world. Okay? I like a little vodka soda from now on. But gin, not the biggest gin guy. I rather enjoyed the gin when I tried it. I really did. So you can go online to enjoy it as well. You go to shop.skepticdistillery.com. Okay? Shop.skepticdistillery.com.
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Starting point is 00:03:51 let's get down to business okay guys uh matador tour first of all i gotta give a huge shout out to uh denver and houston uh denver i man. Amazing comedy club down there, Comedy Works. Go check it out. Thank you all for coming out. Sold out all five shows. That was unbelievable. But Houston, bro. Houston is a real market.
Starting point is 00:04:12 Son, they love us. I did not realize that Houston is a real market. I think that I'm guilty of what so many other people do is they assume that Dallas is the only big market in Texas for whatever fucking reason. Austin gets a lot of, I guess, notoriety in the kind of super liberal world, definitely in the comedy world. But Houston, we did two shows at the Houston Improv, great club, 450 seats. It was un-fucking-real man unreal thank you guys so much for coming out amazing fans like super diverse it's like asian indian mexican city in the country is it i mean it's just it's a fascinating fucking city it's like they really got their own thing going on and um i was just so grateful man
Starting point is 00:05:05 that everybody came out so i'm definitely making that one of the guaranteed tour stops every single tour but uh new shows coming up toronto uh the first show sold out second show is getting close so dandruffshows.com get those tickets july 13th i'll be there uh after toronto i'm going to be at the just for Laughs Comedy Festival I'm doing two of my own shows that we do on this which is Inside Jokes so if you guys have seen the Inside Jokes show we do on YouTube we're going to do that live at Just for Laughs
Starting point is 00:05:33 and then we're also doing Unsafe Sets so I'm going to get a bunch of comics that are going to do their most unsafe, unapologetic, unfiltered material it will be a surprise but make sure you book those too. And then I'll also be doing the Nasty Show, which is part of the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival.
Starting point is 00:05:49 So make sure you get tickets to those. But if it's up to me, you get tickets to the unsafe sets and the inside jokes one because those are the ones that I'm putting on out there. And then, yeah, more shows. TheAndrewSchultz.com. I'm coming to Russia.
Starting point is 00:06:03 We're going to Australia. All those tickets are on the books. You can go get them right now. TheAndrewSchultz.com. We're coming to Russia. We're going to Australia. All those tickets are on the books. You can go get them right now. TheAndrewSchultz.com for more dates. We're adding shit every day. Yo, this weekend, July 5th, New Orleans for Essence Fest. Duce Palooza is pulling up. Special start time, midnight to 5 a.m. at the House of Blues.
Starting point is 00:06:20 We got DJ Willie, Miss Nix, Mike Swift, Austin Mills, DJ GQ, and a special performance by Mr. New Orleans Willie, Miss Nicks, Mike Swift, Austin Mills, DJ GQ, and a special performance by Mr. New Orleans himself, Juvenile, will be performing. Oh, shit. Can't wait for that shit. It's going to be fucking nuts.
Starting point is 00:06:32 And New York City, we are coming back one day only. I mean, my fault, collaboration with our good friends out of our brunch mounts. August 18th,
Starting point is 00:06:43 we are back at the Brooklyn Mirage. We came to see our Ducey Palooza just passed a couple of months ago with YG. We're coming back to shut down the Mirage again. August 18th, one day only, Brooklyn, New York. Get your tickets at ducepalooza.com slash tickets. Yo, we're building out this tour. We do not have ticket links yet.
Starting point is 00:07:04 They're fucking up. But we got dates in Houston, San Fran, and L.A. September 6th, Houston. First city we booked out because I know how much love y'all give us. Andrew was right. Two shows at the Secret Group. The Piano Fight, September 13th in San Francisco. And September 19th, the Comedy Store in L.A.
Starting point is 00:07:20 We're coming through. Hell yeah. And I will be at Bananas Comedy Club in Hasbrook Heights, New Jersey August 2nd and 3rd. And then I will be in Zanies, Nashville on September 26th. I love Zanies, man. Nashville's such a great city. Hell yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:39 Really great city. Everybody keeps saying that. I gotta go to Nashville. It's fun. It's very fun. It's like down South Vegas or some shit. It's so unique. I gotta check it Nashville. That's fun. Very fun. It's like down South Vegas or some shit. Yeah. It's so unique. Yeah. I gotta check it out. Biggest bachelorette party destination in America.
Starting point is 00:07:51 Yeah. No shit. Yeah, we think that everybody, it's just everybody in New York and LA goes to Vegas. Yeah. Everybody in the middle of the country goes to Nashville. Is gambling legal? Sorry? Is gambling legal?
Starting point is 00:08:01 In Nashville? Yeah. Maybe. I'm not sure, but there's like a downtown bar scene that's got live music. It's fucking... I went alone. I just hit up all the little country music spots. National Country Music Hall of Fame was fun.
Starting point is 00:08:12 It's great. Princess Fried Chicken, dope as fuck. Great, man. Great city. But yeah, man. Thank you all so much. All right. Let's get back to the show.
Starting point is 00:08:19 Akash, you think that Kaz is late maybe because he knows The hellacious ass whooping That I'm about to give him For what happened to the Knicks In free agency Please answer that question Please Oh it's gonna be just like last week With you and the cop
Starting point is 00:08:34 What happened? When you said the cop We don't gotta bring up old shit So what I'm saying is Why we gotta bring up old shit bro Why can't you just roll with me Yes ands dog Improv games
Starting point is 00:08:44 Can you let me go? Holy shit. I know you need to go, but we need to go. Well, let me finish the question. God, you're acting like Nick's management. Trying to take this fucking bit before we get it off the ground. So what's the greater prediction? The greater prediction for what?
Starting point is 00:08:59 Kaz saying the cop didn't punch him aside. Or you saying three months ago, Nick's not getting anybody. To be honest, I still believe that Masai punched the cop. I see why you thought I was stopping the momentum there. Okay, okay, I got you. I got you, I got you. So, joking, but all joking aside, I'm smiling to hold back from the tears. But there is something very important, and I'll look into the camera. I'll look at you, Akash.
Starting point is 00:09:31 I'll look at Alex. I'll look at Ed. A very important thing happened yesterday. And what happened yesterday is that the Knicks, Akash, are no longer New York's team. I, yo. They are no longer New York's team. And it yo. They are no longer New York's team. And it is a tough day for me to sit here and admit this, but we will no longer tolerate the abusive relationship
Starting point is 00:09:53 that the Knicks have bestowed upon us as Knicks fans. It's a good thing. They are taking advantage of our loyalty. They are taking advantage of our passion. They are abusing our heroes. What they did to Charles Oakley alone should have made us take a step back and just re-look at this relationship that we're in and see if we maybe need to get our groove back do you know what i mean see if we maybe need to you know to the left to the left to dolan etc
Starting point is 00:10:14 but in my personal opinion dolan has no interest in making a winning basketball team i think he raped a girl i think he either raped a girl or he had sex with an underage girl and I think someone is privy to that information and he's doing anything he possibly can to bow to the whims of that person. They're basically like, listen, we got this on you. Maybe it's not an underage girl.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Maybe it's some big business deal. Who knows what the fuck it is. Maybe he's got bodies. But something is happening where he is actively trying to keep the Knicks from winning. Because it's not like he's got bodies. But something is happening where he is actively trying to keep the Knicks from winning. Because it's not like he's even trying. When I found out that he didn't offer KD the max.
Starting point is 00:10:52 That he didn't offer KD the max. That means it was on the table. That means KD's coming to the Knicks. Is that real? Yes, it's real. I have two things to tell you it's real. Not only did they not offer the Macs, the Knicks are such an incompetent Franks and Beans organization
Starting point is 00:11:08 that DeAndre Jordan, who was playing on the Knicks last year, convinces Kevin Durant to go to the Nets. And guess what? Take less money? Wow. He could have gotten more money to play on the Knicks, but DeAndre was like, you don't want no part of this. And then we have to go back and we have to look at what the organization is.
Starting point is 00:11:34 We have to look at the people part of this organization. Why are you hiring these frankest of beans people? Was it Scott Perry, Steve Mills? What have they really done in their careers? What successes have they had? None of us can name. How do you end up being the president and GM of the Knicks when you've done nothing in your whole fucking career to deserve that position? Maybe because you want them to fail.
Starting point is 00:12:02 Maybe because you want incompetence in your organization because you can't have them winning. Maybe you choose Mello, a proven loser, over Phil Jackson, a proven winner, because you want incompetence. You want them to fail. Maybe when your number one goal in the offseason is to re-sign the unicorn, Chris Fapp's Porzingis, right? The number one thing is maybe to sabotage that, you hire a coach that has already proven he has no clue how to communicate with heroes, okay?
Starting point is 00:12:32 He destroys his relationship in Memphis with Marc Gasol, right? Comes to the Knicks and wins fucking 13 games or something like that. This genius coach, everybody thinks he's a genius coach. He's a genius coach for high school kids, okay? If you want to make a bunch of like disenfranchised youths believe in themselves then go for it Fizdale this is the fucking real deal
Starting point is 00:12:50 okay this is professional sports dog shit coach I don't give a fuck yeah maybe congeals gets all the young kids to believe they're part of something suck my dick part of something we're fucking adults we're here to work okay you need to be part of something when We don't need this part of something. We're fucking adults. We're here to work. You need to be part of something when you're not paying them. Now we're paying you millions of dollars. You fucking better be part of it. You hire this coach, completely incompetent with communicating with Euros. You send Przingis away.
Starting point is 00:13:20 He's out there getting knocked out in his own fucking hometown in Latvia, breaking his bones all over in his body. Marc Gasol, what happens when he leaves you? What happens when Marc Gasol wins a championship? Well, what do you say? Well, what do you say? So you hire incompetent president, incompetent GM, incompetent coach, and then you expect this GM and president to make free agent moves when they don't even understand the collective bargaining agreement?
Starting point is 00:13:43 These fucking Franks and Beans retards don't even understand what to do with salary cap. You're signing two-year deals? You're signing two-year deals to guys when you could have just waited, and I'll give credit to Bill Simmons on this one because he shouted it out before I even put the math together. You could have waited to see which teams needed to dump players and scoop up one-year contracts if you just pushed the brakes for a little. But instead you get Taj Gibson, Bobby Portis.
Starting point is 00:14:17 Bobby Portis? That's a villain from an 80s movie, Bobby Portis. Taj Gibson? What is that? I don't even know what that is. You don't need nobody with an Indian name. No, you don't. I'm saying that right now.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Jesus. Any other dude coming from that? Is Kunal Jakmara coming as well? What other guys are we bringing in? Eskimos? Who the fuck are you drafting? It is unfathomable that you could sign these fucking deals, bro. Can you even name the Knicks starting five?
Starting point is 00:14:50 Who's this Bullock guy from the Lakers? I don't know. I don't know why. Yeah, with two years, they're trying to gear up. They think they're going to make a run at Giannis and whoever the fuck else is coming in two years. You're not getting nothing. You're not. You're not getting nothing.
Starting point is 00:15:05 You're not getting nothing. You're not. You're not getting nothing. You're not getting nothing. You're not getting Giannis. They don't realize they're the laughingstock of the NBA. The laughingstock of the NBA. Oh, excuse me. I just burped. Don't worry about putting
Starting point is 00:15:17 any images on this thing. It is. I'm telling you, the Knicks have taken advantage of us for too long. The Knicks taken advantage of us for too long. The Knicks have abused that relationship for too long. They've spit in the face of our support for too long. And all the while, there's this other team out there, right?
Starting point is 00:15:38 Another team out there in New York. And another team out there that, like so many of our parents, immigrated to this city. Like so many of our parents, grinded hard, worked hard, never asked for a fucking thing. Never asked for a fucking thing. Proved it. Went out there and proved it with nothing. Beat all the odds to actually make it into the playoffs. And you know what?
Starting point is 00:16:08 I'm not saying I'm going to buy gear, but I'm going to cheer. I'm not saying that I'm a Nets fan, but I'm open. I'm open. I'm going to attend games. I've already canceled my season tickets to the Knicks. Good for you. It's over. You got to speak with the dollar. I will not buy a season ticket to the Knicks.
Starting point is 00:16:30 I will not buy. I can't believe you're wearing that hat. Take that off. I will not buy Knicks merch. I will not watch Knicks games on television. Wow. Nope. If I want to enjoy basketball, and this is what all New Yorkers should do, if you want
Starting point is 00:16:44 to enjoy basketball, go to the N all New Yorkers should do. If you want to enjoy basketball, go to the Nets. You know what they've done? How convenient they've made it? How fucking Asian this team is? All they are, are Asians, man. They just come to America, work their ass off, make a great product, and they're like, hey, when you're ready, you want to come
Starting point is 00:17:00 by? You know, you can take the train. It drops you off right here. It's right here. Every line goes there. Every line! Do you know how to get to fucking Penn Station? You gotta walk four blocks in Herald Square or wherever that nonsense is behind buildings, all this bullshit. More trains go
Starting point is 00:17:15 to Atlantic than Penn. More trains go to Atlantic than Penn. They made it convenient to us. They earned it. And you know what? If I want to watch a game, I'm going to Brooklyn. I'm going to Brooklyn to watch it? If I want to watch a game, I'm going to Brooklyn. I'm going to Brooklyn to watch it. If I want to watch a game on TV, I'm going to find out whatever fucking channel the Nets play. I'm not even sure.
Starting point is 00:17:31 I don't even know. But I'm going to watch that because I'm not supporting these Knicks. And if you're a real New Yorker, I'm not saying we abandon the Knicks forever. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you cannot allow someone to abuse you and think they'll stop if you keep on supporting them it's like watching a tyler perry movie you're in this you're in this abusive relationship then here comes this beautiful light-skinned team just ready just treats you right treats me right doesn't expect anything never mad at you doesn't spit in your face doesn't disrespect you that's
Starting point is 00:18:03 it and wants nothing they don't want no commitment sexy as fuck that's it shamar more over here right here more basketball team ready ready to go little hazel eyes and shit that diary of a mad white andrew right here that's it bro for real dude i'm telling you we have to boycott the knicks we have there is nothing good that can come from the only thing these people understand like you were saying, is money. That's the only thing. They truly do not understand anything else. If we boycott the Knicks,
Starting point is 00:18:32 I don't care if tourists go to the Knicks. Yeah, a bunch of people come here from Czechoslovakia, Spain, London, they want to go watch a game. Go watch a fucking game. I don't care. But New Yorkers, they don't deserve us. And I know it's going to be hard. I'm 35 years old. There's people
Starting point is 00:18:47 55 years old. They've watched the Knicks their entire lives. And you know what? Those Knicks earned your support. They won them championships. And even the ones that didn't. We had some fucking ballsy powerful teams, Akash. The Pat Riley teams. The Jeff Van Gundy teams. Fighting. Dogs. Tough.
Starting point is 00:19:04 They were New York. When you watch the Knicks now, do you see New York? 20 years since you've been a threat. Legit 20 years since you've been a threat. What is a Frank Nicolini? What is that? Why are we hiring French guys? Stop it.
Starting point is 00:19:19 The last French thing America ever should have accepted was the Statue of Liberty. That's it. We don't do no more French. We don't do it. Okay? You hire American black guys. Get the job done. Names like Oakley, Johnson. I don't know what Ewing is, but I'll take it. Okay? Anthony, it okay anthony starks these are good names nika lika lena what is that what is that akash what is it it has to stop we have to withdraw all our power we have to boycott and anybody that doesn't boycott is enabling this abuse you have to boycott i've said this you're not not watching on tv i respect a lot because i'm a cowboy fan i won't give them any money i'll still watch on tv i'm not watching the next yeah this is hilarious i'm not watching
Starting point is 00:20:16 this so police brutality you won't take the d with cap and boycott the nfl but the knicks drop the ball with this tree. What's a greater crime against humanity? Hold on one second. Don't get me wrong. If the NFL was out there abusing black people, yes,
Starting point is 00:20:37 I would boycott it. What the fuck does the NFL have to do with the police department? No, I feel you. It's just funny. And I don't see you out on your boycott police stations. Oh shit Back to what we're saying before you try to throw me under the racism bus Yeah, he's still here Now but Andrew Kaepernick, I'm taking the knee with you. Good. Yeah, I'm taking the knee with you.
Starting point is 00:21:05 Fuck that. Don't get me wrong. I'll boycott abusive police every single day of the week. I'm 100% supportive of that. And that's what these Knicks are. They're abusive police. They're the direct abusers. They're the direct abusers.
Starting point is 00:21:16 That's what this organization is. And any one of them cops, you know, do the shot, Philando Castile, all that shit. Fuck them. We got to get them out of here. I've been very vocal about that from the jump. You know who Philando Castile is? James. No,, Philando Castile, all that shit. Fuck them. We got to get them out of here. I've been very vocal about that from the jump. You know who Philando Castile is? James, no, not Philando. The guy who killed Philando Castile, that Mexican, Eddin.
Starting point is 00:21:32 Your people, Eddin. You know what I mean? Real talk. What's that other cop? Scott or something like that? Who's the cop that shot Mike Brown? What was that guy's name? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:21:48 I don't know. What about the other Mexican down in Florida that shot the kid with the hoodie and the skittles? Zimmerman. Yeah. That's the Knicks. James Cullen is Zimmerman. Okay?
Starting point is 00:22:02 Perry Zimmerman. Mills Zimmerman. That's what they're doing to us. That's the type of abuse, bro. No, Weinstein. Bro, it's Weinstein. It's Zimmerman. It is the sports equivalent.
Starting point is 00:22:13 They've been raping us. Every time I watch the Knicks game, I want to shower. I want to take a shower and wash off that rape. After this free agency, bro, I felt I felt Knicks management
Starting point is 00:22:27 Come leaking out of my orifices Because I was raped I can't believe you had season tickets for so long Bro I'm glad you cancelled though You know Dolan got on Twitter yesterday It was his first tweet ever Knicks fans
Starting point is 00:22:39 Basically something like Knicks fans I know you're upset I really believe Dolan or Perry I thought it was Dolan Or Sims I thought it was Dolan Whatever What Sims? I thought it was Dolan. Whatever. What's up, man?
Starting point is 00:22:47 Stay right there. We're going to get to you in a second because you're very important for this, but go on. I thought it was Dolan. I think it was Dolan. He said basically, Knicks fans, I know you're upset, but I truly believe this is the path to a winning team. It's not. Let me tell you something, Akash, and I mean this
Starting point is 00:23:03 sincerely. If you see me in a Knicks game, just know Dolan's getting milkshaked. You know what those fucking, you know, what is it, the Antifa? Those gay guys in Portland.
Starting point is 00:23:19 You know what Antifa is? Oh, you're talking about just everyone in Portland? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But whatever. But you know how they protest by throwing the milkshakes? Yeah. Let me tell you, I'm throwing something at Dolan. I'm throwing something at Dolan.
Starting point is 00:23:31 I'm throwing something at Dolan. It's gonna happen, dude. I'm telling you, if I see him, and you know what? I had the shot. I had the fucking shot. But, you know,
Starting point is 00:23:41 Benders was coming out and it was on his channel, this, that, the other. You realize, I'm willing I know if I do it I'm a New York legend forever. Yeah, but I'll never perform at the garden and I'm think I'm willing to sacrifice before me at the car hairs
Starting point is 00:23:57 You got a nice arena. That's more convenient to get to one barrel away. I ain't going all the way to Brooklyn, Paris. I'll still do York. I'll still do York, though. You know? You can support Jay-Z, Biggie. Honestly, the goats come from Brooklyn. Why you gonna do this to me, bro? I'm telling you, I'm trying to make it easier.
Starting point is 00:24:24 I'm trying to make Shemar more and more available, son. He's there. He's calling for you. Muscles gleaming. Son, I cannot. It's just something that I'm going through right now that's too difficult. You feel the temptation. You feel the pull.
Starting point is 00:24:35 I don't know. I'm pulled. I'm pulled. I'm pulled. It's over. It's done. I'm away. What I'm saying is.
Starting point is 00:24:41 I'm buying you a Nets jersey, son. And that's fine. I'm not going to wear it. My boy Jason and I have a rule. Jason and I share the season tickets with. We say... He invented this term. Cheer no gear.
Starting point is 00:24:50 You know what I mean? Cheer no gear. Which means we're going to go watch basketball because we love it with the Nets. That's where we're going to spend our money. We're not going to wear Nets stuff. He is a kid. He's like, do I start making the kid the Nets fan right now? No, no, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:25:04 Yes. Not just yet. Not just yet. Okay. He's like, do I start making the kid the Nets fan right now? No, no, no. Not just yet. Not just yet. It's okay. Let him build. Let him build the support. Put yourself in the same shoes. Cowboys. They've been abusing you for a while. I'm ready to jump.
Starting point is 00:25:18 I'm ready to fuck any other team that comes to Arlington. Would you go to Houston? Houston, man, for a second, that ain't no borough. That's fucking four hours, dog. Is it? Yeah. Let Fort Worth
Starting point is 00:25:29 get a football team. You run both comedy clubs. That's an hour. Fort Worth get a football team. I'm ready. Oh, and they get fucking marquee players.
Starting point is 00:25:38 It's over. It's over. It's over. It's over. So now you understand where I'm coming from? Yeah, I'm not understanding where's your jersey.
Starting point is 00:25:46 Let me quit. Okay. It's not there just yet. I still, listen, I still love the Knicks, but I can't support this ownership and I can't support this management. I can't do that anymore because it's only going to prolong the devastation and destruction of the Knicks that we know and love. There's a chance, Akash,
Starting point is 00:26:08 that in my lifetime, the Knicks won't win a championship. There's not a chance. It's a certainty. A virtual certainty. That's just a cruel thing to say right now. I'm leaning into how bad this is. Tough love. It's kind of tough. It's a little tough for me. It's tough love. I'm trying to pull you over to the side. Listen, the Nets had Prokhorov. I think
Starting point is 00:26:23 he was a fucking idiot. I don't know if he learned or if he sold. Either way. They got Carl Lentz, love. It's tough. I'm trying to pull you over to the side. Listen, the Nets had Prokhorov. I think he was a fucking idiot. I don't know if he learned or if he sold. Either way. But they got Carl Lentz, dog. Son, they got the most powerful man in basketball, Carl Lentz. He brought everybody over. Brought Kyrie. He's your boy. Brought KD.
Starting point is 00:26:36 He's your boy. Carl hit me up on the way to the podcast. And he was like, well, what a crazy day that was. Or something like that. I was like, you motherfucker. The most powerful man in basketball. He goes, don't worry. You were with us when we were shooting in the gym.
Starting point is 00:26:49 So he invited you over. I was like, all right. Hi. I'm not in the Spanx's yet. But Nick's got to make some moves. You know? You're foolishly loyal, man. This fucking Dolan guy.
Starting point is 00:27:02 This fucking Dolan guy. This fucking Dolan guy. So nice of you to join us, Kaz. In his makeup. So nice of you to join us. Man, makeup, son. Son, you got great skin. Why'd they put so much makeup on you? It's because of TV, bro. Shiny.
Starting point is 00:27:18 I missed too much. No, you didn't miss anything because I predicted this. We all knew this. This is something that we all knew was going to happen. What I want to talk about, first of all, it's hard to look at you with this makeup. I'm ready to directly off the staff. I didn't even wipe shit off. I think they make you darker, bro. Did they?
Starting point is 00:27:33 I think so. If by darker you mean more dudes want to fuck them, then yeah, for sure. The sexy guy, man. Okay, so. Let's get into it. You can't look like Stranger. Okay, we've already... Only because I'm beautiful.
Starting point is 00:27:48 We already spoke about this for a while. And here's the thing. Kaz is suffering from Nick's delusion syndrome. He has the... I'm not delusional. He has the KDS. But not only does he have the KDS, he's also clearly being paid by
Starting point is 00:28:06 Dolan and the Knicks organization to spread good vibes and we understand how the media works. Nick's Traumatic Stress Disorder. Nick's Traumatic Stress Disorder whatever he just said the acronym for it that's what we're going to use. PTSD with a K. That was great. I just didn't know how to put the letters in front of it. So my point is Kaz, it's just, I find it curious, right? I find it curious that no matter what the Knicks do, Kaz goes, now that I think about it,
Starting point is 00:28:30 this is a good move. I like it. Bobby Portis, 17 years, $4 billion contract. I like it. This guy's got a future. Have you not been critical once of the Knicks on Twitter?
Starting point is 00:28:43 You're getting paid, bro. You're getting paid. I've been critical of the Knicks on Twitter? You're getting paid, bro. You're getting paid. I've been critical of the Knicks all year long. Name one free agency move. Last night he was pissed, but I'm sure he's convinced himself it's okay. This is what convinced himself. That money, bro.
Starting point is 00:28:58 That money. They coughing up that money, bro. You're part of it, bro. You're part of the problem. Here's my thing. You're enabling this shit. Here's my thing, right? You can't even think of a lie. That's how fucked up this shit is, bro.
Starting point is 00:29:15 You can't even make up a lie, dog. Just admit you're getting paid. I'm not getting paid. You are, bro. I'm not getting paid. Last night was the most damning evidence that James Dolan needs to sell the team. He absolutely needs to sell the fucking team. Where have you been the last 10 years?
Starting point is 00:29:32 20 years. He needs to sell the fucking team. Without him being on the front line saying this is going to be a great free agency for us, yada, yada, yada. Looking at what they've done without the fucking Katie and Kyrie Koch dream that we've had for the past seven months. It wasn't a dream. It was a reality. It was there, and they fucked it up. It was there.
Starting point is 00:29:51 And it was even easier once his Achilles got torn. They just had to sign the check, and he would have walked all over, limped all over. That's it. But why didn't he do it? Isn't that same old Knicks, though? What you mean? If KD doesn't come back the same way.
Starting point is 00:30:03 You take the risk. You take the risk. You take the risk. You have to take the risk just to be relevant again. Yeah. You have to take the risk. They're always relevant. No, they're not. They suck.
Starting point is 00:30:10 It's over now. They're still relevant. I'm shocked how much we talk about them on this podcast, and it's only because of y'all. I'm telling you, none of my other group chats with friends who don't live in New York do they talk about the Knicks. I was hanging out. I was hanging out with some people. You're not relevant.
Starting point is 00:30:22 They're in the league. Okay? When I tell you this, these are people that were in the league. Okay? When I tell you this, these are people that are in the league. They're working for teams. When I tell you that the Knicks are the laughingstock
Starting point is 00:30:31 of the league, when I tell you, like, even when I bring it up, I'm not even talking about presidents of teams. I'm talking about guys who work on management
Starting point is 00:30:41 positions on teams. They're the laughing stock of the league. Dude, when they speak about Perry and Mills, they roll their eyes. They can't believe that people that retarded have jobs in those positions. They truly they literally go, dude, I don't know what's
Starting point is 00:30:58 going on. It is mind-boggling to people that work in the NBA. Something's up, dude. It's a conspiracy. I promise you he fucked an underage girl. I promise you, Dolan. You know the thing that...
Starting point is 00:31:11 I believe it, but I don't know what that has to do with the Knicks. I just believe it because he's a rich white dude. He fucked an underage girl, and then somebody knows that it happened. And said, you have to make the Knicks bad, or I'm going to tell everybody? Exactly, because they are a big fan of the Celtics. You know how billionaires do. It's just like fun shit. Like know your knicks are gonna be bad something happened you know what they say about magic johnson yeah he never really had aids he
Starting point is 00:31:32 just an underage girl they're like you got to say you had aids or else really i've never heard that before that's a big rumor about that isaiah thomas magic johnson ship i've never heard that that's the rumor about about magic and that's why he's so good with the 8s. That's why he never really affected. He beat the 8s. He wasn't really 8s. Anyway, that's what Dolan has. I promise you, somebody's got something on Dolan.
Starting point is 00:31:55 He's doing everything he can to squash this team. It's just fucking sad. It's just sad. Listen. It's sad. Did the cast break finally? It's sad. It's just fucking like
Starting point is 00:32:06 it's it's i can't i can't if you if anyone was near me this entire weekend yeah like i felt the fucking doom and gloom since like thursday yep i'm like it's i'm like the the more the days came i was like this i'm like it's gonna be the next it's going to be the next fucking bullet point on the fucking dark days of being a fucking Knicks fan. If they would have went anywhere else, if Kyrie would have went to L.A. or KD stays in Golden State, we're like, oh, well, you know, we gave it a good college try. You signed KD to a deal specifically because he's not playing for a whole year and you can continue the rebuild that you want, that you think is better. You can continue that. How? That's $140 million to somebody. You can't continue to rebuild that. You're Mr. We love the rookies.
Starting point is 00:32:52 I do love the rookies. Hold on. Hold on. Listen, you tank again for another year. You get another high pick. Now you have two blue chip players. You got two more draft picks coming from the Mavericks. Probably another draft pick. Oh, by the way, thanks for KP. You haven't seen a picks coming from the Mavericks. Probably another draft pick. Oh, by the way, thanks for KP.
Starting point is 00:33:08 You haven't seen him play yet. Only move the Mavs, man. You haven't seen him play yet. And we signed him to a max deal. All right. If he goes in and stinks it up, then what? Then we're the Knicks. Worst case scenario, we're the Knicks. You guys could have at least said, hey, we can get you.
Starting point is 00:33:20 You had the idea. Hold on. You had the idea. You had the idea. You were here on. You were getting other had the idea. I'll throw a time. You'll get another check. Let it flood. Let it flood.
Starting point is 00:33:29 You're having the idea. Get out of here. The idea. Let it flood. The idea that you're nearly, I think you guys think it's you and the Lakers in terms of relevance. It is the Lakers, then the Warriors. Who says that shit?
Starting point is 00:33:40 I think the way you read it. Who says that shit? All I'm saying is like, yo, literally, all I've said all year is like, I want to watch games for the Knicks past February. That's all I've said. Well, you're not going to. That's all I've said. You're not going to.
Starting point is 00:33:51 But you know what? That's all I fucking said. The Knicks are no longer New York's team, so you don't have to be concerned about it. The Knicks aren't going to be good next year. The KD's not playing. The Knicks are no longer New York's team. So look, here's the reality of the matter. Well, real quick, here's my point.
Starting point is 00:34:02 You sign KD to a four-year contract. It's a three with a fourth-year player option. He's going to opt out. Or you might even get him a team option if you want to say, look, team option maybe. Maybe you can get that. So you're bad for a year. You tank again. You collect a high draft pick.
Starting point is 00:34:15 You have one year. KD comes back. Then the next year is probably the last year of his deal. That's how all these contracts work. They're all short-term deals. You sign him to a max just to show the rest of the league, hey, how all these contracts work. They're all short-term deals. You sign him to a max just to show the rest of the league hey, look, we're relevant.
Starting point is 00:34:30 And then next year, you still have cap space. You had cap space for two max players, right? You signed KD. Then next year, when you say KD is going to be healthy, that's what you sell next year's free agency crop on. Yo, KD is going to be healthy. KD do the selling for you. Hey, come on, let's go. Come play with me.
Starting point is 00:34:45 Just like Kyrie did to him with the Nets. Listen, I think we can all agree that we had a horrible week, right? I think we can all agree on that? Terrible week, man. Terrible week. Now, that being said, I thought that there would be one possible way to make us feel a little bit better about our weeks.
Starting point is 00:35:01 And that was if we bring someone on that had quite possibly a work week than us. Guys, give it up for Francis Ellis. Francis Ellis, guys. One of the most prolific and profound writers of our generation. Who's the guy that wrote Catcher in the Rye? J.D. Salinger.
Starting point is 00:35:24 He's the new J.D. Salinger. Francis Ellis. What's the Johnny Depp movie where he goes to Vegas and he does a lot of drugs? You look like that guy. Oh, yeah, dude. You're on full-time journalism, man. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson.
Starting point is 00:35:36 Hunter S. Thompson. So this makes me so happy that you could come here and be our emotional cushion because obviously this show is going to be a complete train wreck. We are just going to start smacking mics away probably end up in an all-out russian brawl you know there's like four on four fights that they do i love those that was going to be nuts yeah but put them through this fucking table i hear about this amazing story uh that you went through this week and as miserable as i was about the Knicks free agency decisions it gave me a little bit of joy to know that there was somebody
Starting point is 00:36:08 that was more miserable than me I'm really probably good until Thursday that's a friends of four it had been going so well for so long
Starting point is 00:36:23 for me that I don't blame God. I don't, what do you want me to say? Like, it had to happen. It had to be
Starting point is 00:36:34 an over, a correction. And, um, you know, I tried to reach Carl Lentz, he didn't pick up.
Starting point is 00:36:44 I was like, Carl, I'm ready. And he was like, not now. Who dis? Dude, I didn't even tell you the craziest part. Can we give background to the story for people who don't understand? Why can't we know the craziest part? No, no, no. Trust me.
Starting point is 00:37:03 No, we don't. Okay, so just background to this story Okay I'll let you give the background Of the story to Give all the perspective Yeah Additional background
Starting point is 00:37:13 He already gave quite a bit So on Friday I was at work When I had This was back when I had a job Yeah And I Barstool Francis
Starting point is 00:37:22 Is now just Francis Yeah And I Wrote I saw a blog a story about this girl who had gone missing in utah her name was mackenzie lewick and it was kind of a story that had been covered by a lot of different news outlets and there were lots of developments in the case she'd been missing for a week and the latest update was that her instagram had been active that she'd liked a post on Instagram. So her sorority sisters thought this was a very hopeful sign.
Starting point is 00:37:50 And they put that over to the FBI. And I was like, oh, wow, there's an interesting thought that in the age of social media, sorority sisters are finding clues that the FBI is missing. There's your first like possible joke in a blog and then i read um a headline from an article three days ago on abc news that said no foul play is suspected at this time and even in the the most recent article i had read they were like yeah now they were saying like no comment about the foul play thing but i just thought that the signs were good you know about this girl who had gone missing and i was like okay well you know uh and then i also looked at her instagram based on the whole thing and i saw that she was a huge fan of one of our podcasts
Starting point is 00:38:37 call her daddy and i thought all right yeah this is a story that our audience at barstool will want to see do you know what i mean and so i chose to write about it and i didn't even really write any jokes uh i started out by saying like let's hope she's okay um and then i was like and it's good news that the sisters at the sorority are have found this what was the account that she was liking the posts of and then I included a couple of the posts from that account it was an account called fatherless and it was about it was like girls that have daddy issues or something and like proud were proud of it and so I included to like thong shots of girls of that account.
Starting point is 00:39:25 Not her. No. And I was like, this is like, okay, whatever. I made a couple jokes about that. And then I ended the blog by being like, you know, let's hope she turns out okay. And that our girls that call her daddy can send her some merch when everything turns up okay. Thoughts and prayers, period. Everything turns up okay.
Starting point is 00:39:42 Thoughts and prayers, period. Within 45 minutes of me posting this blog, the news changed and was like, now we have a suspect for her murder. And then an hour after that, it was we found her murdered. And at that point, I took the blog down and I was like, I am in big trouble. And then. Listen, listen, listen. Every news outlet. Joel Azarand doesn't sound too bad. I'm telling you, like, then the Daily Beast, Deadspin, the Washington Post, Fox News, everybody emailed me and said,
Starting point is 00:40:22 Hi, I read your article about Mackenzie Lewick and I'm just wondering what the fuck were you thinking do you care to comment and that was when I was like yeah this is this is really bad my boss Dave reached out and fired me. It's just a funny sentence. Because you don't often hear reached out and fired me. How did he fire you? Did he give you like a review? He called me. Did he walk out of the room?
Starting point is 00:40:52 No, he was away. Did he give you an article like a pizza? You know, I think... Two out of ten, you're fired, Francis. Yeah, I think at some point he was just like, we don't have a choice here. And I totally get it. And then I started working on my statement for all these news outlets.
Starting point is 00:41:11 And I put that out. And, you know, you guys, like, look, you guys know me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think I'm the type of person that would have written a lighthearted, humorous blog about a girl that I thought was murdered? Of course not, right? Not right away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Tragedy plus time. I made a very, very careless mistake. You forgot the time, dog. It was one of those things where I just wasn't i wasn't paying attention unfortunate and i don't even think i was trying to be funny in what i was saying about what i thought was just a missing girl that that for whom the news was good and i'm not defending my actions you know i totally understand barcelone's standpoint i had a wonderful time there and um well they had to fire you yeah right But they also had to fire you because they're the type of people that want to tow the line.
Starting point is 00:42:06 And they're going to get a lot of heat for towing the line. Right. When they cross the line, they got a clip because they know there's a bunch of people out there waiting for that line to be crossed. And the timing of it, because I think they just did like the HBO thing a couple days ago that was just like. Chernobyl? No, not Chernobyl. No's Chernobyl no no Barstool didn't do that that was a great piece that was a great piece by Chernobyl no they did some more real sports where they just kind of like went inside Barstool and like all in their workings and you know everybody had their own
Starting point is 00:42:37 Chernobyl? no the play I wish I had been on that piece you are a little bit radioactive right now I've been on that piece I wish I had You are a little bit radioactive right now I've been that way since I was three When the hair Anyway I don't even like
Starting point is 00:42:53 I'm so just like dazed And kind of like Worn out I mean it's been insane But I will tell you guys this Hey you know what Every time you think about how shitty it is You could always be The girl Oh my god But I will tell you guys this. Hey, you know what? Every time you think about how shitty it is,
Starting point is 00:43:07 you could always be the girl. Oh, my God. Oh, I should have run this by my agent. I knew I should have. God damn. Moments like this, I need her to sell me. I know what's coming. I saw you. I saw a winding up in your fucking head. A self-imposed restraining order. I'm going to deflect a little bit here.
Starting point is 00:43:37 He called me and started advising me on how to handle it. And I won't even do him the disservice of telling you what he told me to do. Because what he said was so insane to me. It was like, you've got to lean in, you've got to be cracking jokes about it. No, I didn't say it exactly. No, but you told me what you would have done. You know what's funny is you said you weren't going to say it, and then you immediately said it. I'm beginning to think you've got a little problem with saying things you know you shouldn't say.
Starting point is 00:44:08 Oh, God. Where am I right now? So, I get it. As soon as I saw you, like, I went in the group chat and saw you were coming to the show, I was like, oh, no. I wanted to ask, man. I got a couple texts. I got a couple texts. KFC hit me. A couple other people hit me. So, I was like, what's going on? I go look at it, and I call to ask. I got a couple of texts. I got a couple of texts. KFC hit me.
Starting point is 00:44:26 A couple of other people hit me. So I was like, what's going on? I go look at that. And I call you immediately. You were doing something. So we spoke the next day. Yeah. And my feeling for you, just as your friend, I was like, okay, there's a lot of gravity
Starting point is 00:44:39 on you right now. You need to make a decision that's going to be what's going to happen after barstool yeah so you could use the gravity to make a move right and we basically had the conversation which is what is that move going to be do you do you want to be the dark dude do you want to be or do you want to go hey this is a fuck up of mine and there's no way in hell i could possibly you know predict the future. Which is, I think, what really happened here. And after we spoke on the phone, the sentiment I got
Starting point is 00:45:10 from you, why I want you to come on and talk about it, is this... What is it? The chain of events that happened. It is comically awful. Like, the fact that she gets announced dead.
Starting point is 00:45:24 On a sitcom, I'm thinking it's hilarious. Within 45 minutes of the article coming out. It's almost as if they were waiting for your article before they, you know, did the deed or whatever, right? Because, like, you never see this kind of thing happen, and it sucks
Starting point is 00:45:40 because if Barstool wasn't already super edgy, let's say this was New York Times or something like that, and you were writing an article for the New York Times. I don't think you lose your job. Yeah. I think they go, there is no way in hell he could have possibly predicted this. There's no way in hell. Right.
Starting point is 00:45:57 Look at anything he's written in the past. Has he ever put anything out there that was nefarious or malicious intent? No. Without a doubt but because they are already operating in that edgy world they had to protect themselves like oh look at these barstool guys again look at them going by jumping i told you i told you i told you yes yeah and and you guys know i mean look uh this was not on barstool at all no um and i made sure i tried to make sure that people knew that that the news knew that like we are given liberty to publish our own work once we've proven
Starting point is 00:46:33 ourselves there and i've been there for two and a half years for the first year that i was there i had the training wheels on i had the editor-in-chief checking all of my work before it was posted and uh and then i had been you know promoted basically to being a senior writer and for a year and a half i put out you know thousands and thousands of pieces of content you're writing how many a day four so he's writing four blogs a day so think about this i don't miss those days but you're doing your how many days a week you working every day five so what is it what does that're doing – how many days a week are you working? Every day. Every day. Five. So what does that end up being, like 300 days a year or something?
Starting point is 00:47:08 Yeah, I don't – yeah, it's five-sevenths of 365. There's no off day when you're doing, like, news media. But point is – 50 days a year. Point is it's – About 1,000 articles a year. Minimum 1,000 articles a year. Right.
Starting point is 00:47:22 You're one – Dude. There's one with blowback.back i mean you've had other ones where people had negative opinions towards but it was never like how could you right clearly this was not your intent right and what we've always said at least on this show is like we're judging people based on their intent not your interpretation it's easy to interpret this as you're a piece of shit right in the article but clearly if you knew that the person was dead wouldn't you have mentioned it in the article it's obvious you didn clearly, if you knew that the person was dead, wouldn't you have mentioned it in the article? It's obvious you didn't.
Starting point is 00:47:45 Absolutely. Yeah. You're expecting the vast majority of— I was not betting against this. I think you should have got fired. No. I think you should have. I was in the text.
Starting point is 00:47:55 I don't get it. Akash immediately defended it. Yeah, me and him were in a group chat going back and forth where I was like, clearly, I didn't want you to lose your job. But I'm like, I understand why Barstool had to do what they did. And he was like, I have no idea why they did what they did. And I'm trying to explain to him. And he literally had no idea why. I don't.
Starting point is 00:48:10 You're Billy Bush. Do you remember when Billy Bush got fired because of the Trump grab the pussy thing? I do, yeah. It's like, you didn't do anything wrong. The girl was alive when you wrote it. As far as I knew. But you know what? Let me tell you what i did wrong okay i was
Starting point is 00:48:28 lazy i could have read more and researched the piece more and i would have seen signs that said this is not looking good don't touch it and i didn't and it was just a really careless thing that came off as wildly insensitive. If you actually break it down to a human level, you remember this is not a young woman who was a tabloid
Starting point is 00:48:59 story. This was a young woman with a family that had been going through the horrors of not knowing where she was for an entire week a a community that was fucking bereaved and freaking out and anxious to all hours of the night and here i come some comedian trying to profit off of it for the sake of laughs i mean it's it's hard it's perverse in a way is it though isn't that what we do well it wasn't that funny that was my big issue it wasn't it wasn't here's where i realized my question was why would you write the article and now i hear you have to
Starting point is 00:49:35 write four articles a fucking day so you're looking for that's a lot you're just trying to find something that i can write about yeah and exactly and it was like with some connective tissue right you saw the Call Her Daddy thing. You're like, okay, this comes back to Barstool. Let me have a take on this. Yeah. That's exactly right.
Starting point is 00:49:51 And I'm not defending my decision. I am. I'm qualifying it. I'm defending it. Well... But that's okay. You don't have to be... You wouldn't have written it though, right?
Starting point is 00:50:02 Oh, I'd definitely write a joke about it. If she wasn't dead yet. If in my mind she's not. I mean, I have a joke. I have a joke about Bundy. And I don't even want to get into it, but it's like pretty bad. And they are all dead. Right.
Starting point is 00:50:15 Do you know what I mean? We workshopped this joke on this podcast. Did we? The Bundy one? Not the Bundy. But there's another element to it, which is that you have established yourself as a person who goes there and has, as I've said to you, has a mastery of delivering those jokes where even the most ardent, angry person can't help but see the humor in what you're doing. And as Akash said, I mean, who knows? If somehow I had made it funny
Starting point is 00:50:46 it's not a discussion maybe it's not as bad i don't know i don't know dude maybe if it was humorous they look at it like there's no possible way he could know that this person is dead right and then and maybe the fact that it wasn't maybe the fact that it was quite literal they were going oh shit look how evil this guy is. Yeah. Someone wrote, like, look. Perfect storm, man. The Washington Post and the Deadspin were fine.
Starting point is 00:51:11 They were fair. And then there was one guy at the Daily Beast. I want to say his name. That was the one. They suck, by the way. That one was so insane. He said that his title was Barstool Sports blogger slut shames a murdered girl or something like that. It was slut shames.
Starting point is 00:51:30 And if you look at the blog that I wrote, no rational person would ever say that. That's insulting to her that he said that. Are you familiar with Daily Beast though? Not really. It's kind of what they do. that he said that. Are you familiar with Daily Beast though? Not really.
Starting point is 00:51:43 So Daily Beast, yeah, it's like, they are the clickbait, Buzzfeed, periodical of, I think, England,
Starting point is 00:51:51 right? Aren't they out of the UK or something like that? You got something in the beard right now. Oh, my fault. You're good.
Starting point is 00:51:55 So it's like, they're gonna, they have to put the buzzwords in the title. So they're like, okay, what's a buzzword that could go with
Starting point is 00:52:01 dead girl? Slut shame. Boom. Yeah, I mean, and then in the article, you know, he goes back through work that I've written over the last two and a half years. And I had written once a blog about how attracted I was to a fellow male coworker.
Starting point is 00:52:15 And it was a whole fantasy piece about how I wanted to have sex with him. I got a lot of those in my diary. And he wrote that I was homophobic. Because you liked your male co-worker. Yeah. So this is the article I read. And I read the excerpts he put out because the blog's been deleted. I would love to get that, by the way.
Starting point is 00:52:33 I didn't see what was so, like, fireable. What was the thing that I'm like, oh, that specific thing. It was the choice to touch it at all. Yeah. It was off limits. I honestly think if it was, if you, and Andrew brought it up before, if you wrote that for any other publication, they're not firing you for that. Because it happens literally every day.
Starting point is 00:52:56 Even if I had written a blog that was like, this girl's missing. If anyone knows where she is, report it to your authorities. Let's hope she's okay. Period. End. I don't even know if that, like, people would be like, why did you do that? if anyone knows where she is reported to your authorities let's hope she's okay period end i don't even know that like people would be like why why did you do that i wouldn't get fired obviously but they'd be like don't don't fucking what's not what we're doing here yeah so it's like if you're if you're watching 2020 or like fucking one of them back in the day shows like a current affair about like missing peoples or america's most wanted whatever like yeah you're
Starting point is 00:53:23 not gonna get mad at fucking what's the guy's name john walsh what the fuck his name danny wall oh the guy who would do it at the end like literally he makes a living off of this stuff and it's not just oh like it's a missing person support there's always like a story that makes them relatable it's like oh man this could have been somebody you're friends with like that's what makes it a story that's what makes it a series like You don't fucking go shit on Joe Walsh or Jim Walsh, whatever the fuck the guy's name is, for that kind of story. But I honestly think it's the Barstool name. If it was anywhere else, they'd be like, oh, man, it's just fucking unfortunate. And that's fair.
Starting point is 00:53:56 And if that is the case, then Barstool still isn't to blame for me being fired. Of course not. I don't think so. Because I have to know as an employee there where I am. And that I can't do certain things. You know? As freeing as it was to write there, and knowing you could kind of go as close to the edge as you possibly wanted, more than anywhere else,
Starting point is 00:54:21 there is a responsibility that comes with that, which says like hey you know if you go over the fucking line they'll cut your toast and uh and that's what happened to me so what do you think uh what do you think you do now man you know i'm i i want to say this you got a bit the whole well i i am working on a bit about that which was that I was fired on the way to meeting my girlfriend's parents for the first time. Holy shit. I was on the train down to their lovely bucolic home in Pennsylvania. And I walked in as everyone was already seated at the dinner table.
Starting point is 00:55:00 A fired man with a story that I had to tell. Why did you get fired well i tried to make light of a girl that was kidnapped who had been kidnapped and murdered but no you didn't know she was murdered just kidnapped right yeah i didn't even know she was kidnapped you didn't dude i thought she was just when they when i saw no foul play suspected that registered to me as she's gone off because she wanted to. Oh, if you didn't even know she was kidnapped, then you're completely innocent in this whole thing. They should have never fired you at all. Well, they have to.
Starting point is 00:55:35 You can't predict the future. Fuck, they have to. Now I'm really upset about this. No, because then I saw, then I did see that they had changed the status from no foul play is suspected to no comment. But didn't you also write in the article that, like, how do they not suspect foul play? No, I didn't say that. And I said no foul play was suspected, which was looking good. But now they're saying this and they're digging in the neighbor's backyard and it's not looking good.
Starting point is 00:56:04 Well, all right, whatever. It Doesn't matter. Let's go back to you telling your girl's parents. So how did that happen? So I sat down and I'm meeting her parents and her stepdad is a pilot so he plays the whole world by the book. The guy is so by, you know, doesn't do any... He's looking for
Starting point is 00:56:20 a provider for his daughter. Yeah, and he's just on time and a fucking Boy Scout. And here I come, you know, unemployed, fired, and written about in every outlet. And how did they take it? They were pretty cool about it. Really? For the sake of being on stage, I'll probably change that story.
Starting point is 00:56:41 Or maybe make them cool about it. When they ask what you do for a living They say Francis Tell them about your job What did you say? You told them? I said I was just fired actually Yeah And why? And well because I
Starting point is 00:56:52 I wrote a blog What could that have been? Oh wow Had to kind of get into the whole story So The thing I want to say though is this We live in And I know you and I have had many conversations about this. We live in this cancel culture.
Starting point is 00:57:09 Right. This moment gave me hope. Right. It was encouraging to me. Because once I put out my statement and I told my story, the overwhelming response on the internet was forgiving. People made it clear they were able to differentiate between my mistake and all these people who have come before me that we've canceled. And I had the executive producer at the Ellen DeGeneres show tweeting kind of his forgiveness and support. I had a writer at the new york times this woman
Starting point is 00:57:46 who also said this is a tremendous apology you know good luck or whatever i mean it wasn't the scalping that i thought i was gonna walk myself into yeah and um that that gave me hope yeah well it's because you didn't do anything bad in in my opinion. Like, let's say this girl just didn't call home for a little while, and then she was found. That article's completely fine, right? I wondered about that. What do you think? You're fine. You think if she turns up and she just was, like, camping for something?
Starting point is 00:58:18 I honestly don't even think if she gets found alive or dead or not. I really thought it was just because it's a Barstool article, and it's, oh, here come these Barstool fucks again. Like, not giving a fuck. Like, they already have the reputation that they have. But if she doesn't die, right? She just comes back. She was like, my bad, guys. I was in Dubai.
Starting point is 00:58:35 I didn't have my phone. I couldn't do this. All of a sudden, you're just a guy who wrote the article that was, I guess, accurate in this certain situation. And you're not a piece of shit. Not everybody's upset because she's alive right they're so happy that she's alive they're not worried about your little article the only problem is is that she ends up dead and you had no clue that she would be dead right i mean yeah and and you know what's crazy i wasn't even playing the odds it wasn't it
Starting point is 00:59:01 wasn't a coin flip to me i thought because i made a fucking assumption right i had convinced myself she was alive and fine and that's uh that's where i went wrong uh can you write an article about uh the knicks management and front office because i would love it if they were found dead that would be perfect if you could write your first blog about uh perry mills dolan and fizzdale that would be perfect i i i don't i will happily write uh i'll have to just come up with my own fucking blog you know check me out at uh wordpress.com yeah there you go oh yeah So what do you think's next, Francis? Talk to us. I'm going to start a podcast. Good.
Starting point is 00:59:47 Good. That's good. Good. I want to get all of you on it. Please. Hey, buddy. It's going to be the four of us every episode. And there we have it.
Starting point is 00:59:57 This is my podcast. And I'm thrilled. We're all set up here. We will support that. You're welcome. And, you know, I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm going to start a podcast. we're all set up here we will support them you're welcome and no I appreciate it yeah
Starting point is 01:00:07 I'm going to start a podcast and I think a lot of people who loved hearing me on on Sirius XM every morning with Willie and Large are going to be
Starting point is 01:00:16 you know excited to tune in I hope and I don't want to be seen as like profiting from my demise at Barstool but I just
Starting point is 01:00:24 this is what I do. This is my job. I'm a comedian, and I'm going to move forward and try to build things. And I have no intention of switching industries. Obviously, this was a huge blow, losing a tremendous job at a great company. You'll be all right. But that's what I'm going to do. I mean, you weren't going to be at Barstool forever.
Starting point is 01:00:43 Yeah, you'll be all right. You did your time. You'll be fine. Yeah, you'll be all right. You did your time. You'll be fine. Yeah, you put in your time. Now you've got to find a way to harness all the fans and supporters that you made over there. So podcast is good. That's the guy I talked to. This is Mr. Independent right here.
Starting point is 01:00:54 I know. Yeah, let's talk. He's a chance to rap or a comedy. Well, I do want to talk to you. I want to talk to you about all the different vessels through which one can build a podcast. Let's do it. We'll definitely have a talk. But I agree. I think the tricky thing, and we spoke about this over the podcast. Let's do it. We'll definitely have a talk. But I agree.
Starting point is 01:01:06 I think the tricky thing, and we spoke about this over the phone. He's busy, so you're going to have to. Your schedule is wide open. His is not so much. It is wide open. I mean, the Hamptons are only so nice this time of year. So it's like, oh, how do I maximize my time on Dad's boat? The tricky thing really is, I think, and we had this conversation,
Starting point is 01:01:23 is you straddling traditional industry and independent career path. And both are still viable options for you. I think you got out of this scandal pretty well, to be honest. I think we're in a time where people aren't just looking at headlines and being like, oh, fuck, get this guy out of here. People are actually starting to use their mind to be like, all right, well. The worst I could probably hear somebody saying is like, oh, it's just fucking unfortunate for that family and that girl to probably have to read that and all that shit.
Starting point is 01:01:56 But nobody's like, I don't think anyone's like, this guy's a fucking piece of shit or anything like that. This is not a pattern of my behavior. Yeah, man, I think. You'll be all no i think you i think you'll be fine i think you just got to figure out exactly you know what it is you want what is that you're going to do and i think it's got to be a compilation of both i don't think anybody can do like just traditional media i think they got to do some independent stuff as well totally and it's out there you know there's no better time to do it than now man but yeah but people i mean you didn't really fucked up things were fucked up that happened and yeah you are
Starting point is 01:02:26 worried about the trauma that maybe was caused you know with the family you know I mean I mean who knows that family was probably trying to get a little bit of distraction from their missing daughter probably reading Barstow articles man this one fucking guy who cracks me up you know I mean I love this guy he hates pitbulls I hate pitbulls there There you go. You know yeah, I hope they weren't While we're making enemies, why do you hate pitbulls so much? No one hates pitbulls more than friends When you first moved to New York did you live around a lot of Puerto Ricans or something?
Starting point is 01:03:07 A lot of DMX videos growing up. You know, I was a huge Mike Fick fan growing up. And then all that happened. The pitbulls took him away from you. We missed his prime. Three years of his prime. He never gave the pitbulls. How many MVPs would he have won?
Starting point is 01:03:24 How many scramble yards? How many walk-off scrambles? He was forgave the pitbull. My God. How many MVPs would he have won? How many scramble yards? How many walk-off scrambles? He was made for today's game. God damn it. I had a red authentic jersey when he played for the Falcons. I spent all my raking money. I would rake yards
Starting point is 01:03:38 for my neighbors. I spent all of that money on buying that jersey and the moment I bought it, he went to prison. Greatest video game character of all time, by the way. Madden, was it 07 or something? I think so. buying that jersey in the moment. I bought it. He went to prison greatest video game character of all time Yeah, man Oh seven or something. Yeah
Starting point is 01:03:49 Him and Bojack and in tech mobile like the two most unbelievable Game players that ever yeah So the pitbulls take Mike Vick from you they take him and then and then you start to have a little disdain for these pitbulls Yeah, well, I started reading the statistics and and it was pretty damning and then what start to have a little disdain for these pit bulls. Well I started reading the statistics and it was pretty damning and then what are the statistics just to fill us in?
Starting point is 01:04:10 The Philadelphia Children's Hospital I got this bro. Are you a pit bull owner? Are there any pit bull owners in here? If only you did this amount of research
Starting point is 01:04:21 on another story. Absolutely. At least then they'd be like well he's he's an asshole, but he did the research. He's a journalist, too. He's a journalist, goddammit. Doing his job. Go on, Children's Hospital. Philadelphia Children's Hospital did a study of all dog attacks on children for like a seven- year period from like, you know, 1999
Starting point is 01:04:46 to 2006 or something. And of all the dog... I got it, son, I got it. Go on. Of all the violent dog attacks, 51% of them were from pit bulls.
Starting point is 01:05:01 The next highest breed was Rottweilers at 14 percent wow that's a big drop off and then it went to like six percent at like dobermans dalmatians whatever down from there it was so lopsided and how many golden retrievers were labs as far as i know zero wow it's almost like those dogs are wonderful it's almost like there's certain dogs that are bred to be nice and pets and other dogs that are kind of bred to just eat people that's right that's children's faces and i had all the pit bulls are raised though does it it does dude i've seen some cuddly ass pit bulls bro like yeah well here we go yeah everyone can find a picture of an adorable
Starting point is 01:05:42 pit bull yeah how about you google like like a nightmare pitbull in the fucking in the fucking yeah okay let's go to that that's the pitbull i know just imagine a nine-year-old's face in between those teeth right there yeah so fine i i wrote this blog after an emotional support pitbull attacked a young girl in the portland oregon airport and immediately the pit bull lobby came after me. And they were, I mean, they were more vicious than the dogs. I don't know about that. It's hard to be, but they were like threatening my life and all this. And then, I'm not kidding you, six months later,
Starting point is 01:06:20 my dad, my mom, and our two delightful yellow labs, Milou and Rosie, were walking down the dock at the marina for a picnic on our boat, and they passed it on. Oh my fucking goodness. Oh my fucking goodness. It gets less funny. Sorry for you.
Starting point is 01:06:40 So your mom and dad, who are still happily married, 33 years. 33 years. You and who else? I wasn't there. And there are two dogs. Milou and Rosie, both Yellow Labs.
Starting point is 01:06:53 And they're older Yellow Labs, 10 and 11, were walking happily down the dock. And there was a guy in his boat. And he had, I think, two pit bulls with him. And one of them jumped out of the boat. And the guy was like, wait. But it was too late. And it latched onto Rosie's neck and bit down. And they couldn't get it detached.
Starting point is 01:07:16 And Rosie didn't know what to do. She wasn't fighting back. She was being mauled. And my dad tried to push the dog off. And it bit him through the webbing of his hand so rosie had like 16 staples in her neck and they had to put a drain in my dad had to get stitches all through his hand and um it was almost like pit bulls had read my blog honestly it was like yeah yeah you're saying about us well we're gonna do exactly what you think we're gonna do and they fucking killed my family and uh i can show you guys the pictures of it it was insane to me it was so karmic um and so that just completely reaffirmed
Starting point is 01:08:00 every thought i ever had about pit bulls and uh that's why i don't like them so we should get rid of pit bulls is what you're trying to say no make them illegal to be pets it is a look i don't know where you guys stand on guns but it is exactly the same fucking argument that we have about guns sensible people right sensible pit bull reform okay okay i see where you're going with that pit bulls it's good so many of the uh owners refuse to get them neutered or spayed right and in a lot of countries uh states that's required a lot of cities i think it's new york it is but a lot of these places they don't do it and something like some vast majority of the pit bulls that do commit these vicious attacks are unneutered, unspayed. And if you did that, you are lowering, especially with the males, you are lowering their testosterone and you are making them a lot more docile.
Starting point is 01:08:54 And it's the same thing where it's like, okay, do we really need fucking people to be able to buy AK-47s and semi-automatic assault rifles? It's almost like somebody should have a fucking screening to be like, hey, you probably shouldn't have a fucking machine gun. Right, bump stock, the high caliber, whatever, the huge magazines of bullets. But do you think it's similar to a gun where once you own one, you're like, oh, no, this is the shit? It could be.
Starting point is 01:09:22 I definitely think it's a gun. You know who's a huge fan of pitbulls burr willie girls wow i mean no clothes uh it's it's it's women who jog at night yeah that makes perfect sense for sure it's a guy they're a big fan of guns too there was an article i wrote about any girl who's not a fan of getting raped in a park is probably a fan of and that's most women yeah yeah one girl would not want protection as she's running at night right right well why would you run at night not trying to blame you but like of all the times you could run why the fuck do it at night in central park the answer to that is that some women's work schedules only permit them to run at night oh yeah
Starting point is 01:10:00 what time are they waking up to work uh i don't know maybe they work two or three jobs a woman working two to three jobs are you out here i don't know where they are this girl is describing that she's working two to three jobs this would have gotten me fired wow dude our fourth job is one of them god damn everybody
Starting point is 01:10:30 but no there's no way you know a girl that has two to three jobs no who has two to three jobs I don't know the other argument is why don't they run on a treadmill and it's like well they shouldn't have to do that.
Starting point is 01:10:46 The problem, of course, is with men who attack women who are jogging. And that's absolutely true. But having said that, because I covered this whole story too. If I don't want to get hit on, I don't go into a gay bar. Now, it's not their fault. Now, yeah, maybe they shouldn't sexually harass me by grabbing my butt. That being said, I'm increasing the proximity of my ass to guys who are going to grab it by walking into the gay bar.
Starting point is 01:11:09 How many gay people hit on you? Say again? How many gay people hit on you? I'm just giving you the hypothetical. Not enough for me. I'm actually offended by how few. Now, the hypothetical I'm giving you is that I'm putting myself in a position where that could potentially happen.
Starting point is 01:11:24 Unfortunately, Andrew, this does place the blame inherently on the women. No, it doesn't blame them for doing it. The action is always the person who commits the crime. What I'm saying is you're making a conscious choice to put yourself in a position
Starting point is 01:11:39 where crimes get committed. For example, if I'm walking around with my brand new Ferrari and I'm leaving around with my brand new Ferrari and I'm leaving the keys in in a bad neighborhood and it gets stolen, what do people say to me? That was stupid of you.
Starting point is 01:11:50 You shouldn't have done it. But are you victim blaming me for shouldn't I be allowed to park my car in any neighborhood I would like to park it? Right. No, my shit got stolen
Starting point is 01:12:04 because I made a decision to park it in a neighborhood where shit gets stolen so so your point is is fair in in what i would add to it is that even as a man and a larger man i would not run through a bad neighborhood at night gender be damned it's irrelevant like if you think that where you're running requires you to carry mace don't do it now we're not victim blaming we're protecting you we're trying to put like what would you tell your daughter it's very simple and i would ask women to do the same thing what would you tell your daughter would you advise your daughter to run in the park at night if you found out your daughter moved to new york city right you're about to have a daughter yeah what would you tell her if she
Starting point is 01:12:49 wants a little jog at night i got a treadmill at home why is it crazy when you give people advice i mean we obviously people you know people who think like us don't think like that right you know i'm saying obviously we would love to live in the world where I can park my car wherever a woman could wear whatever she wants and there's no rapist yeah but like this is the world we live in yes we live in reality we live in the world where like these things happen and we try our best to minimize damage and we also know it's like these people that are like rape and shit these people are animals right
Starting point is 01:13:22 they're not human beings so they're not operating on the same empathetic level that we operate on right so what do you tell people when there are animals around very similar to this pit bull situation right it's like yeah they're criminals like criminal like they're deranged people that will not abide by the structures of society so stop hoping that they will right exactly you're in a zoo you're in the fucking zoo yeah so don't be surprised when the animals do fuck shit. Basically, that's what it is. Now, Francis, if you'll continue to join us,
Starting point is 01:13:49 hopefully we've done some good PR for you. Maybe we've ruined your career. I wonder. I might need to look at this. You might need to. It's fine.
Starting point is 01:13:56 But I think that we've got a lot of good sports stuff that we need to touch on, man, a lot with this free agency. Man, great. A bunch of very interesting stories. A whole lot. One I'd like to touch on, which is a little bit odd,
Starting point is 01:14:07 and I don't think it got enough buzz, but I was fascinated by it. Nikola Miritic. Four years, 100 million. From? Orlando. Oh, no, no, no. This is a different one.
Starting point is 01:14:20 This is a different one. So Nikola Miritic played last year for the Milwaukee Bucks. Yes. Incredible season. Was very effective on the Bucks. Was looking to, I think, this year get a contract worth something like maybe $60 million. $60 million. Four years, $60 million, something like that.
Starting point is 01:14:36 Chooses to leave the NBA and play for Barcelona in Spain. Got $80 million in Spain tax-free. Wait a minute. American dollars. And I did not know what he got offered. What was the offer? Four years, in Spain, tax-free. Wait a minute. American dollars. And I did not know what he got offered. What was the offer? Four years, $80 million tax-free in Spain. See, that is fascinating.
Starting point is 01:14:53 That is fascinating that other countries are outbidding. I thought he went because he didn't want to play with this American style. He wanted to be a starter team. I'm sure that figured into it, but it's like... Four years, $80 million tax-free. That is literally... $160 million. That's like be a star of a team. I'm sure that figured into it, but it's like... Four years, 80 million tax-free. That is literally... 160 million. That's like signing a $150 million deal.
Starting point is 01:15:09 Yeah, exactly. Holy shit. It's enormous. And just a quick side note. You know where this is... Nowhere is this more poignant than with women basketball players. Oh, for sure. They go to Russia.
Starting point is 01:15:23 Yeah. than with women basketball players. Oh, for sure. They go to Russia, and the oligarchs in Russia have this weird-eyed thing going where their favorite hobby is to buy women's basketball teams and spend as much money as they can, and all the best WNBA players are going over there because they're getting paid
Starting point is 01:15:40 fucking orders of magnitude more than what they can make in the WNBA. It's their dogfighting. Yeah. Well, Jesus. Wow. It is their dogfighting. Yeah, well, Jesus. It is! It really is! Or like, what is it? Cockfighting or whatever like that, right? It's the cocks.
Starting point is 01:15:54 Yeah, literally. It's just a fun little thing to watch them play. And it's no different than having a yacht or it just becomes one of their luxuries in life. It's no different than having a yacht or it just becomes one of their luxuries in life. Right, because it's not profitable. The fact that you own a female basketball team.
Starting point is 01:16:08 But I also think there's part of it which is there's a little part of them that's going, I'm buying Americans. Oh, interesting. And I think that they know they can't afford to get the American male basketball players, but they do like the fact that these Americans need them. Especially American women. Because what do we do? We buy their brides, right? Oh. I mean, it's not all American women on the stage. We're going to cook up, oh, you guys are going to buy all our women? Alright, boom. We're going to buy
Starting point is 01:16:36 some of yours. We're going to buy your best because you guys can't even afford to pay them what they deserve in America. I think there's a little bit of that. You're like the only person I know who could possibly have come up with that. I don't know if that's a compliment. I'm fascinated. I'm going to Russia to do shows, by the way.
Starting point is 01:16:51 Shouts to Russia if any of you guys listen. But I'm fascinated with Russia because I figured out why Russians got the hottest chicks in the world. I put it together. So World War II, how many Russians die? Tens of millions. 25 million minimum.
Starting point is 01:17:06 That's the rough estimate millions 25 million minimum yeah that's the that's the rough estimate 25 million minimum yeah didn't stalin kill like 10 million of his own yeah yeah yeah and i think stalin was responsible for killing tons of his own bunch of them just freeze etc but 25 million russians die right now these are russian men keep that in mind right so now you have this massive surplus of women in the population okay so any dude that makes it back from war has his pick of the litter and if he's not ptsd or alcoholic etc if he has any semblance of a job he has 10 chicks i was speaking to a buddy of mine who grew up out there he said 10 chicks minimum like 10 women minimum and they're willing to be on port. So, you have the hottest women
Starting point is 01:17:48 on the, already very attractive, right? And men who have their pick of whoever. So, you're just breeding with the hots. The uglies die out.
Starting point is 01:18:01 Fuck. So, now you have two or three or four generations later, only the attractive, the most attractive of Russian women could get dick. Fuck. So now you have two or three or four generations later only the attractive the most attractive of Russian women could get dick.
Starting point is 01:18:09 Right. Only them. So now these babies for the next three or four generations are just based on hot Russian pussy. And now if you go on
Starting point is 01:18:18 Instagram right now you got a million different Russian Instagram model pages where they all have a million followers and they're the baddest bitches you've ever seen
Starting point is 01:18:24 in your life. So I'll be there in september wow what now now what is the language like i, do they have bilingual comedy clubs? And how does that work? I don't know. We're going to figure it out. I'm just going to look at those stupid cathedrals they got with the pointy tips. But you're performing, right? Yeah, I'm going to do one show.
Starting point is 01:18:56 And then the rest is just kind of like looking at shit. That's pretty cool. That's how you write all your expenses? I think I'll go for like four or five days. That's great. Or we'll go for like four or five days. Hopefully Alex can get in. He is an international failure.
Starting point is 01:19:05 I was about to say, like, am I? Okay, but not to- They didn't take your passport? No. Okay, cool. But not to get too crazy or not to get too off topic. I just find it interesting when players that could play in the NBA choose to play overseas. There was somebody else who went overseas, too, right?
Starting point is 01:19:20 Josh Childress was the first one to play in Greece, and I heard he got fucked over. I heard they didn't even pay the whole thing. Really? And that is a problem in some of these countries. You go play in Turkey, and they're like, oh, yeah, we got you, $20 million. And then that check doesn't get cash. Sean Livingston went over there, I think. Oh, really?
Starting point is 01:19:33 I think after he broke his leg. Yeah, he brought his knee. Yeah, he went abroad. Sasha Vujicic went abroad. I mean, that's obvious. Pat Bev went there for a little bit. Barcelona. Yeah, Barcelona. Spain, you went there for a little bit. Barcelona. Yeah, Barcelona.
Starting point is 01:19:45 Spain, you're good. Spain, you're good. But if you go to certain places, it can't get dicey. You might not get paid. Oh, for sure. Well, the highest, I thought I was under the impression the highest market was in China. I was about to say, I just hosted the thing for Slam about Stefan Marbury. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:20:01 About how much money he made over in China. And they are basketball. Almost probably to the same effect of you with Russian women and how they love men's basketball and shit like that. He's like Jordan over there. He's definitely made way more money over there than he did in the NBA. Business-wise, not his contracts. His contracts were high, but he would be paid like 90% of the team salary right right right he was a superstar he was the
Starting point is 01:20:29 only face in china that anybody cared to go see um and then jim or fredette spent a long long time over there too it's interesting because um why don't nate robinson do that dude he he should he would get i think he's still got dreams of being over here. A lot of people. Literally any NBA player with any name could go over to China and make tons of millions of dollars. Dude, especially if you learn some of the language. Sometimes I'll watch these YouTube videos of black guys that speak Chinese or Japanese speaking to Japanese people and surprising them. And it's just the best.
Starting point is 01:21:01 Like what, kawaii? They cannot believe. Black guys that are fluent, they cannot believe that the black guy speaks and at first they're like a little nervous and they're like how do you know that it's not even because like it's not for for for black people in china more so than just being good at basketball like they just don't see black people at all period over there so like when they go over there like one of my boys over there went to go play in china and they just come up to you and, like— Touch you.
Starting point is 01:21:25 Touch you and, like, touch your face, like, oh, my God, never—you know what I'm saying? So it's almost like you're a fucking—you're an attraction. You're a celebrity. Just being there, especially if you're already famous. I'm curious as to why they can't play defense against guards. Like, China makes decent tall guys, right? They make decent power forwards, and, like, some of them have some of them have had somewhat success in the league. Yeezy and Lean.
Starting point is 01:21:47 Yao is obviously the biggest one, but they've had other power forward type players that can play that kind of stretch four, right? Or even stretch five. But for whatever reason, the guards, I don't know if it's genetic, I'm not sure what it is, they just cannot keep up with these American washed
Starting point is 01:22:03 athletes. Like Bonzi Wells goes over there. Bonzi Wells couldn't score 10 points a league, 10 points a game in the league. Goes over there and is dropping 60 points a game. Bonzi, you know what does well? There's the athletes who don't really understand the game here. Bonzi, good athlete, low basketball IQ. Steph, good athlete, low basketball IQ. No, Steph had decent.
Starting point is 01:22:22 Steph had good IQ. Steph had good basketball IQ. I think he just started to lose his athleticism stuff stuff's one of those guys that like never thought he was I think I think he lost a little bit of that was as a man he just kind of love this only cuz I saw the documentary he just lost the love of the game right yeah but he's one of those guys were like 41 like yeah 41 you're busting these guys ass yeah I mean Mac went over there right i don't think so i don't know i think he put i think he did they just loved him because he played for the rockets yeah oh yeah he had those
Starting point is 01:22:51 like those rocket like those chinese jerseys that they made for the rockets like those like huge sellers or whatever but anyway it's an interesting thing when you know the international market starts to scoop up legit nba players yeah i'm that's that's happening and especially now where social media and internet's so prevalent that there's going to be a lot of guys probably this year. Once the free agent market clears up and there's nowhere for them to go, they're like, fuck it, I'll go make a quick $30 million for one season in China. So how long is it until we have a Champions League version of basketball?
Starting point is 01:23:23 I think 10 years at least. I think it's going to be a while really what do you mean so champions league in soccer is the best teams of each separate division in europe right so like the best teams in spain a couple of them the top four teams in spain from the previous season top four in england top four in france top four in holland they'll all compete in their own league right so i could see in maybe not the near future but let's say 10 years the best let's say two teams in the nba two teams in uh spain you know two teams in where who else has a decent basketball well china israel israel argentina that's right maybe even bra Brazil. What if we had a fucking tournament?
Starting point is 01:24:05 It didn't even have to be... Like a FIBA Cup. I'm about to say, it's kind of like the FIBA World Cup, but I guess you're talking about club teams. Yeah, with club teams. It's a great way to grow the game. It'll take a minute. It'll take a minute.
Starting point is 01:24:16 I think 12 years, 10, 12 years. There needs to be more of an exodus from the NBA and not only that, but like, okay, if you compare it to the Olympics, like why was the US basketball team so dominant for so long? Well, it's because American players were the best, but only when we
Starting point is 01:24:37 saw players like Pau Gasol and really flocking home and taking it seriously to play with their national team, could those other teams actually hold a candle to America? The Dream Team made that happen. They've never even seen players like that up until 1992. And then years later, you ask all these international guys,
Starting point is 01:24:58 when was the first time you saw basketball? Oh, the Dream Team. Dream Team. You know what I mean? So that's kind of what happened this week with baseball. They sent the Yankees and the Red Sox over to fucking London to play games over there for the first time. Stage that game. Stage that shit.
Starting point is 01:25:12 They got the Yankees fucking smacked 14 home runs and shit. That was insane. Did you see that? I didn't see it. Give it like 12, 14 years. They played in London, and the game, I think the final score was like 17-13. Beat the shit out of the Red Sox. Wow. Beat the shit out of them.
Starting point is 01:25:21 But it was a good, both teams put up crazy numbers. It was the perfect display of them But it was a good Like both teams Put up crazy numbers It was the perfect Display of baseball All the fans Got baseball They got fucking Home runs They take home
Starting point is 01:25:30 Foul balls Ground rule doubles And all that type of shit In like 10-20 years You're gonna see like A huge top prospect Coming from over there And be like
Starting point is 01:25:39 The first time I saw baseball Was like going to see The Yankees and Red Sox Yeah you need to get it out there Yeah That's how it always happens I mean that's how it always happens. I mean, that's what baseball is trying to do, man.
Starting point is 01:25:48 They're falling behind with the NBA and the NFL and everybody else being an international game. I mean, they've got to figure out something because – America's pastime doesn't mean much right now. Yeah, you're literally a pastime. Okay, what else? I mean, there's been so much free agency shit, so maybe we could just do a rundown. It was the craziest day ever in free agency.
Starting point is 01:26:01 It was unbelievable. I think the decision was crazier because we'd never seen it before, the super team, but this was just unreal activity. day ever in free agent. It was unbelievable. I think the decision was crazier because we'd never seen it before. Yeah. The super team. Yeah. But this was just unreal activity. So let's go to the other thing I think shocked all of us
Starting point is 01:26:10 which was D'Angelo Russell going to... D'Angelo Russell is a fucking warrior. The Warriors. I heard he's getting traded. Then the next day it got reported
Starting point is 01:26:17 they don't want D'Angelo Russell. They just didn't want to lose KD for nothing. So they were like let us get somebody we can trade for something else. Wow. Okay. Savvy move. Savvy move. So they're like, let us get somebody we can trade for something else. Wow.
Starting point is 01:26:26 Okay. Savvy move. So this guy is good. Meyer? Is that his name? Bob Myers? Bob Myers, yeah. This guy is fucking sharp, man.
Starting point is 01:26:34 This is the difference between the Knicks and an actually classy, intelligent organization. I don't even think it's that. I think it's when you have a player of value and you treat them well and you have a good relationship with them. We wouldn't know anything about that. Yeah, we don't have a player that good that could be them well and you have a good relationship with them. We wouldn't know anything about that. Yeah, we don't have a player that good that could be like, okay. We could have figured out something to do with that, but we didn't. And you could have had a player of value.
Starting point is 01:26:53 You just traded him. No, you just didn't offer him the max. We just didn't offer the max. KD could have been. Very easily. Very easily had KD. And then we could have traded him. That's the other thing.
Starting point is 01:27:00 We could have gotten KD for the max and then traded him halfway through the season. What I thought was going to happen with KD was I thought that the Warriors were going to sign him. And I wasn't the most wrong. I thought the Warriors were going to sign him. I thought give him the super max and then he was going to stay halfway through the season and the Warriors were going to
Starting point is 01:27:19 tell the Knicks which guys they wanted them to draft in one year deals. And then halfway through the season they were going to do the swap. I heard about that. I heard something about a delayed sign-and-trade or some shit like that. Now, the problem with this is executing these things. Teams talk about this all the time with each other. They've got to trust you.
Starting point is 01:27:35 You can't trust the other team. They've got to trust you. Well, what has to happen is you need to get Dolan. And who owns the Warriors? Lakeham? No, Lakeham. Lakeham. Joe Lakeham.
Starting point is 01:27:42 So he's retiring KD's number, by the way. We'll get to that in a second. Yeah, I wanted to get to that. You fucking scumbag. You fucking scumbag. Exactly. That's all I want to get to. A jersey in the Raptors for your fucking Achilles.
Starting point is 01:27:53 That's a piece of shit. That's the cost of a jersey in the Raptors. I can't wait until Kevin Durant finally has his fucking tell-all and finally says how he really feels about that shit. I got good insider information. Same. I got good insider information. They did exactly what I told you
Starting point is 01:28:06 all motherfuckers they did. Forced his ass to go on out there, lied to him about the injury, put tons of fucking pressure. But I digress. What were we just talking about? Oh, the sign of trade, right? Delayed sign of trade
Starting point is 01:28:17 with the Knicks and the Warriors. So you basically need Dolan and Lakem to get on the phone and go, we're both doing this, right? Yeah. Like, you and I, this is a handshake agreement, but this is real handshake agreement,
Starting point is 01:28:25 but this is real. And the problem is, it's very rare that you can get two owners to have that conversation. It's worse. Or to hold their word. Or to hold their word. I was with fucking Ian Begley just before shooting this shit,
Starting point is 01:28:36 and he was basically like, the Knicks never even got a meeting, bro. It was between the Knicks and... It was between... Son, I wanted Katie to go to the Knicks. I can't believe I wanted you guys to be happy. I wanted Katie to go to the Knicks. I was't believe I wanted you guys to be happy. I wanted KD to go to the Knicks. I was like, the best case scenario, Kyrie goes to Brooklyn, KD goes to the Knicks.
Starting point is 01:28:50 Exactly what I said. Tank for another year. Get another great draft pick. Barrett will be better by the time KD's healed up. You have another draft pick ready in the wings. You got Mavs picks. You're set the fuck up. Kaz has sources.
Starting point is 01:29:03 Everybody says KD's going to the Knicks. I thought it was locked up. I was excited for y'all. I'm like, yo, it's happening. Put money on this if you want. And then they didn't offer him the money.
Starting point is 01:29:12 I would have put money on it. From people that I talked to that have told me. I did put money on it that he wouldn't go. Really? Yeah. I want a hundred bucks. And I want a hundred bucks from a guy who represents players in the league. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:29:23 Who really thought that he was going to the Knicks. I knew he was fucking up. Literally, it was the one thing that everybody had written in the stars. Oh, yeah, he's definitely going to the Knicks. But it's Dolan, and it is the fucking most damning evidence that that motherfucker needs to settle.
Starting point is 01:29:36 Fish rots from the head down. You don't get rid of Dolan, you don't change the franchise. Simple as that. It's going to be... The pitch worked. That's the sad thing about it. The New York pitch worked.
Starting point is 01:29:47 They just didn't want to play for that New York team. and honestly, I blame DeAndre and I don't blame DeAndre because DeAndre is just saying what happens. No, he went in there
Starting point is 01:29:54 and was like, this is what happens. This ain't it. This is what he said. Yo, New York is the greatest city so if you could play here, do it. But if you could not play
Starting point is 01:30:01 for the Knicks, do that too. Oh wow, there's a Nets team? Oh yeah, let's go over there together. Motherfucker took less money. You know who set this in motion
Starting point is 01:30:10 a decade ago is Jay-Z. New York is there for the taking. This motherfucker saw it 15 years ago. Did he get bought out? I think he sold his shares. When he formed Roc Nation, he couldn't have conflict of interest. I have missed a lot of the free agency stuff.
Starting point is 01:30:28 Were you busy doing something else? I have been, yes, busy with my own things. Where's Kawhi going? Kawhi, we still don't know. Still haven't decided. Leaning heavily toward the Lakers is what we're hearing. We still don't know. Kawhi's staying.
Starting point is 01:30:40 You think? I don't know for a fact, but this is my assumption. You think? I don't know for a fact, but this is my assumption. I think that Kawhi's uncle, who's been doing most of the behind the scenes stuff, Uncle Dennis, is actually a shrewd. I think he's a shrewd business person. He's just sloppy because he's new to it. So I think what these meetings are that are happening now are him living up to his word. I think Dennis
Starting point is 01:31:08 spoke to the Lakers. He spoke to these different teams. He spoke to the Clippers and he said, hey, I'm going to give you guys a meeting with Kawhi. I told you that before we won the championship and I'm going to live up to that. But what happens
Starting point is 01:31:24 is he goes into the meeting, they pitch Kawhi, and then he finds a way to politely say, listen, you guys did a great pitch. But we like where we are right now. He's never gotten that experience, I think. I think Kawhi. I don't think Kawhi has ever been recruited in his life. Right. He wants to feel it.
Starting point is 01:31:40 Everyone wants to feel loved. Everybody wants to feel like that. Because even if things don't work out in Toronto, you want to be like, man, remember that fucking pitch with the Lakers a couple years ago? Boom. Wouldn't mind that. You still got to pitch these. People always think because if you lose a pitch, you lose a free agent, that one summer that you lose them forever. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 01:31:56 You need to be able to give them that reassurance. Like, yo, things don't work out in two or three years. We got assets. We'll make something happen. We'll bring you here. It's great. You know what I mean? It's fun.
Starting point is 01:32:05 I get it. I remember when I left an agency, it was fun hearing the agent's pitch or the manager's pitch. It's fun walking into the room, letting them sell you a shit. I've had to pitch motherfuckers. I was recruited for lacrosse.
Starting point is 01:32:18 Really? By all the schools. And did they offer some pussy up like in He Got Game? No. No. The hoppers would be taking that shit, son. They offered us
Starting point is 01:32:27 canoe paddles with our names engraved on them. The one thing that I remember Dartmouth did was they had a picture of like a Dartmouth
Starting point is 01:32:37 player celebrating. You just get whiter and whiter. And then on the back they had like superimposed my name, Ellis. And then they put
Starting point is 01:32:44 my like high school number which was 16. And then they were like, we want my name ellis number and then they put my like high school number which was 16 yeah and then they were like we want you and i was like dartmouth is cool i was sold by that i thought that was cool then why'd you choose harvard that was a way better school there you go i mean i had way better incrementally better harvard was way better dartmouth admissions like they acceptance rate is 20 22% you did? yeah for what?
Starting point is 01:33:07 I don't know bro I just sent an application on a whim wait a minute I thought a whim? I thought Dartmouth is an Ivy
Starting point is 01:33:14 it is it's not one of the more elite ones how many are there? Yale and Harvard are like the Ivy's is just Princeton
Starting point is 01:33:20 Harvard Princeton Yale Cornell Columbia Harvard Princeton Yale Columbia Brown Penn Dartmouth It's Princeton, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Cornell. Columbia. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Penn. Dartmouth, and then Cornell.
Starting point is 01:33:31 Cornell's the worst? Cornell's a piece of shit, dude. Really? It's a piece of shit. Now, are there better schools that are not Ivies? A thousand percent. Stanford, for example. Well, Stanford is right up there with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Okay.
Starting point is 01:33:45 But then all the NESCAC schools. The what? NESCACs, like New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference. Oh, like Amherst? Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Colby, Wesleyan. These are good schools? Those are better schools than Cornell. And then beyond that, if you get into University of Chicago, that's a way better school.
Starting point is 01:34:05 Probably some of the state schools. U of M is supposed to be real good. Michigan. Yeah. Michigan. Michigan, absolutely. People respect you more. The Ivy's is just like the ACC, the Big 12, the Ivy League.
Starting point is 01:34:16 It's just sports shit. It's a conference. But they're all old school, so they have a lot of prestige. And some of them are fucking, Princeton is incredible. Harvard is incredible. Yale is incredible. And then the rest, they're good. Like Brown is good.
Starting point is 01:34:26 Brown's really good. Brown is a very good school. Brown, Penn, with Wharton, some of the, like depending on their, you know, graduate schools, those are like tremendous schools.
Starting point is 01:34:33 Cornell's the bastard child of this. What school do you go to? I went to a little tiny ass college nobody's heard of called Austin College. It's not even in Austin. I've heard of Austin College. Nah, it's,
Starting point is 01:34:42 it's not that one. It's like an hour over Dallas. You went there if you were pre-med, basically. Dude, Berkeley's a better school than Cornell. Berkeley's a great school. And probably Dartmouth, I would say. Just a lot of hair on the way. USC.
Starting point is 01:34:54 USC is good. I think USC's a better school. I would rather go to USC academically for prestige than Cornell. What about, which one is better, Princeton or Harvard? Depends on what you're evaluating them on. one accepts more chinese gotta be harvard they got jeremy lynn yeah but harvard's now under a lot of like pressure they're in big trouble right now they're being too many chinese by that's a problem not enough they're not enough not enough yeah they're asian american yeah because here's what happened and this is a topic, and I'm excited to get your opinions on this.
Starting point is 01:35:25 Yeah. So here's what's happening at Harvard. The Asian American students, and I think in representing Chinese students abroad as well, but I could be wrong about that, are suing Harvard and specifically the admissions committee because Harvard put a quota on the number of asian and asian american students that they would admit because they said we need to do this in the interest of diversity we could fill our entire incoming class with asian american students with perfect board scores perfect grades the most brilliant kids you've ever met. But that would be boring. We want a tapestry of race and background and ethnicity and all of this.
Starting point is 01:36:14 And it's interesting because not only did the white students, of course, come to the defense of Harvard's admissions committee, but so did the black students. So did the Indian students. So did all the other races other than asian so uh on one hand when you say quota you mean like a cap like you can't go more than this yes right and the asian students are saying well the admissions committee should be blind to race it's racist of them to target us and limit us because we're too good yeah and then everyone else is saying well we need to protect racial diversity and limit you because of us so this this goes back to my point which is nobody cares about diversity they just care about opportunity and access to resources because the second you got to give up a little bit
Starting point is 01:37:05 of something for diversity it's like whoa that's racist yeah so the idea is always hey white people you guys just got to be diverse and then when non-whites have to be diverse it's wait a minute we earn this shit through hard work and the asians are put in this position because obviously they're better at school than anybody else it's without a doubt they're the best at school we'll throw you guys in there as well yo son i was you're asian you're asian adjacent you're asian adjacent you're like they're indian adjacent whatever who got a nuclear weapon us too i bet so uh but the reality the matter is is is now and we look at this in Hollywood all the time. Everybody's like, we need diversity.
Starting point is 01:37:50 We need diversity, diversity, diversity. And then people are like, well, should Tyler Perry movies be more diverse? They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? That's absurd. We created this only thing, et cetera. So again, it's access to resources. And I don't blame anybody for wanting
Starting point is 01:38:05 access to resources everybody wants to keep theirs republicans want to keep their money democrats want to get some somebody else's money why not just fight for resources it's really not that crazy i think that harvard's not being that honest though because i spoke to a guy who went to harvard he's a teacher at harvard And he also has a book out called – oh, fuck. He wrote a few books. I'm going to get it. And he met his wife who I think was also a teacher at Harvard who's Asian. He's a white guy, but his wife's Asian.
Starting point is 01:38:34 And he had something to say. Heck. I can't say his name. Do you know what he taught? I'll tell you afterwards. But I have to probably – Because he told me to tell me this off the record. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 01:38:42 And this is what was – and he has an Asian wife. Keep this a month. But he goes, I think they're restricting Asian enrollment because... How do I phrase this in the way he said it? He said it was off the record? Yeah, it was off the record. But I'm not going to say his name. But he just said he has a book in it.
Starting point is 01:38:58 We've drawn a few roadmaps to this guy. It's probably best you don't remember the name of the book. Yeah, I'm not going to say the name. roadmaps to the sky yeah so he basically said uh how do i say it uh harvard is in the interest of accepting people that could potentially go on to do like groundbreaking things right to do groundbreaking things change the, be these thought leaders and world leaders, essentially. And he goes, the issue with Asians and Asian Americans is often that they achieve elite status in school and then go on to be lawyers, doctors.
Starting point is 01:39:42 Do regular shit. Be very good at these good jobs but they don't exceed past that they're not going to be the head of a tech company they're not going to be the president there's a lot of andrew yang's out there right exactly right so it's like and isn't that more racist though well here's the thing right so the way that you know the way an elite institution like that is going to look at things, they're going to look at data. Right? And they're going to go, okay, who is, who is changing tech right now?
Starting point is 01:40:11 Who is changing what is called Silicon Valley? Who is changing what's outside of tech? I mean, who's like, who are the thought leaders of our generation? All these different things. Who are the people that actually influence the world and doing that and he broke it down to almost a cultural thing which is there is something communal within the asian culture that makes you go i shouldn't go out here and be better than everybody else i should do i should obviously succeed and i should do well but putting myself ahead of my community and my people would be a disrespect to that community. Whereas the Western philosophy is often, I got to get mine.
Starting point is 01:40:51 I mean, that's capitalism versus communism. So to bring it home, so it seems less whatever you can, Scottish culture, you've told me is kind of similar. Whereas like your mom had to, like they look down on her a bit for trying to achieve. How dare you think you're better than your people? How dare you think you're better than being a working class, know factory person and it might not be as pronounced in these other cultures but that is a thing that sometimes exists in cultures yeah 100 but i thought it was i thought it was a fascinatingly honest and pragmatic approach to admissions which was yo we want the people that are going to be billionaires so they could keep donating to this institution so we could
Starting point is 01:41:20 keep on having that rep and if we just have a a bunch of guys who end up being good dentists. 100,000 heirs. 100,000 heirs. It's not going to make Harvard. Make Harvard Harvard. And then that becomes we want the people who will donate the most money back to the school to preserve our $40 billion endowment. Back to what I said earlier, which was access to resources.
Starting point is 01:41:47 I'm just curious to your take on it do you think that there could be that look there's that conspiratorial i i would have to see i mean if if that's coming from that guy if he's seen the numbers then then then maybe um it's it's so hard to know it's like i i can't imagine a world where there aren't asian people running massive businesses i i thought that never thought never occurred to me that like asian americans weren't running silicon valley corporations or making massive advance i'm sure we could all go on google right now and find plenty. Yeah. But the percentage of, or like how successful and amazing Asians are in school
Starting point is 01:42:30 and their acceptance rates to these different things for how small their population are and the ones, I guess, that end up coming out of them to be the Zuckerbergs. It doesn't translate as directly. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:42:40 And the fact that we're sitting here right now probably kind of struggling to figure out, like we can name a couple of Indian CEOs for Google that have been. I think their current CEO is Indian. Right? I mean, my thing is this, though.
Starting point is 01:42:51 Like, there's not a whole lot of, like, dumb Asians out there. But that's not the point. They don't exist in dumb. Yeah. They do not. They are by far the best in school. The fucking, the starting point is so much higher for them. best in school.
Starting point is 01:43:02 The starting point is so much higher for them. So it's like, you know, I always, you know, clearly I don't know a ton of Asians, but like I watch a lot of movies
Starting point is 01:43:09 and I see like, oh, you know, whatever, you know what I mean? So a lot of those movies they're like, oh,
Starting point is 01:43:14 you know, a lot of times the Asian doesn't do like the traditional doctor lawyer thing. I'm a comic, I'm a this, I'm a that. Right.
Starting point is 01:43:20 And they almost get looked down upon for doing that. Same pressure you have as Nigerian, I bet. Yeah, yeah, same shit. But it's like for Nigerian, I bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:43:25 Same shit. But for them, it's like, well, if the starting line is so much higher, wouldn't that push other people to kind of get on their level? Or does it not work like that? What do you mean by push other people? Do they set the bar high? That's what I'm saying. You mean by push other people? So if there's so many. Do they set the bar high?
Starting point is 01:43:43 That's what I'm saying. Like, if the bar is set so high that they push, you know, if regular fucking achievement is just like everyone makes a half a million dollars a year, like minimum. Yeah. Because they go to Harvard. Wouldn't that just push everybody else to strive for higher? 100%. If like, you know, if they just like, fuck it, we're just going to take the best people, whatever, right? And it's just mad fucking Asians.
Starting point is 01:44:09 But they're just so fucking good, everybody else has to step their game up just to catch up. Doesn't that work better than just... You're making the conservative argument against affirmative action. Okay. Which is, and I'm not saying that's wrong but no i'm listening which is the idea that like hey uh here's here's the here's the problem with the argument right is that like uh that argument hinges on level playing ground and the reason why affirmative action exists is because oftentimes the playing grounds are level sometimes you don't even have a playing ground. Yeah, I was about to say, like, that was my rebuttal for black people in America.
Starting point is 01:44:49 Of course. So when we look at Asians, right, we look at them as a minority and oftentimes give them the same situation that blacks have, right? So a lot of times minorities benefit from the black experience because people go, well, black people are a minority and they have disadvantages. Indians aren't white, so they must have disadvantages like black people. Asians aren't white. They must have disadvantages like black people, right? But in reality, Asians and Indians are coming from two-parent households often. In America, we got a great –
Starting point is 01:45:16 This enfranchisement is very different from Indians and black people. Two-parent households, educated parents often doing incredibly – like two Indian doctor parents having kids that they're intimately involved in have a way better chance at succeeding at least in the on the collegiate level than anybody from a single parent regardless of race and maybe you know maybe harvard is like this really small example of how we have to look at a privilege outside of just your skin color right but rather the situation that you're born into. Yeah, I always thought
Starting point is 01:45:48 affirmative action makes the most sense socioeconomically based. Not that poor black people have it worse than poor white people, blah, blah, blah, but I think a poor white person had a tougher life than Jaden Smith. You know what I mean? 100%. And some people won't acknowledge that. DJ Envy wouldn't acknowledge that to me.
Starting point is 01:46:05 I was like, I think Jaden Smith's got it better. That was my example. And he was like, no, not really. I was like... How many Jaden Smiths are there, though? Sure. But I guess the issue is like... That's why I think...
Starting point is 01:46:13 I'm not saying there's more. It's not about the number of rich black people. I'm saying if you look at it socioeconomically as opposed to by race, then you're still getting the black people who are in unfortunate circumstances. You're just also getting, you're not screwing out. I would get it over a white person who's poor in a trailer park.
Starting point is 01:46:31 I shouldn't. My parents made decent money for a long time. What if you're looking at it as the institution, you're Harvard, right? And you got the opportunity. Let's say, Kaz, right? You got a 1600 on your SAT, but you had both parents in the household,
Starting point is 01:46:44 educated parents well off you had access to tutoring all this shit right and then let's say you had this kid francis right who was actually an orphan grew up in foster care um was started living on his own at 16 manages to get the same 1600 give me francis how the fuck did he overcome all that shit to get a 60 imagine i give you some resource and opportunity. You're going to blow this shit out of the water. Yes, you happen to be this white kid, right? And you happen to be a black kid.
Starting point is 01:47:14 But your circumstances might have provided you with way more privilege. And then you could flip it. I want the black kid that has one parent that got the 1600, not the white kid that had SAT tutoring all fucking day. The thing is with that, though, especially in America, most times the white kid who has, you know, who's come up from whatever situation that was not as ideal and still managed to get the 1600, isn't that, it doesn't occur that often. You know what I mean? it doesn't occur that often you know i mean like especially in the system that america is like where damn near every black person at one point started off behind the fucking behind the fucking starting
Starting point is 01:47:52 line not even on the starting line like on the fucking bench you know i'm saying like where whereas a lot of white folks when you're when you're white in america you at least get to start at the finish at the at the starting line That's a pessimistic view on black America in 2019. I'm saying in some cases. He's saying historically, like redlining. But we're in 2019 right now, right? I understand that. You have a lot of black families that grow up and they make six figures. Of course.
Starting point is 01:48:15 Absolutely. But I'm saying like just in the way America was shaped. Sure. In the system, the systematic oppression of it. But we exist where we are now. Of course. I'm not saying you're wrong. What I'm saying is systematically, white folks, a lot of white people,
Starting point is 01:48:31 didn't have the same disadvantages. Nobody's denying that. And that's why it was really important, affirmative action. That's why these things exist in the first place. I think that's why we have so much support. What we're now saying is we've come into a situation where
Starting point is 01:48:42 you have black kids that are raised in these families that have a lot of stability, a lot of money. They own houses. It's not like redlining is stopping them from owning a house. They're passing down wealth from generation to generation. Yeah, but like the generation, maybe like one generation. Sure, there's a lot of white people. This is our first generation America, right? Here's what we're saying.
Starting point is 01:49:02 It's not like all white people have been here forever. No, I'm not saying that. I'm first generation America. If what I'm saying is the case, which is a first generation America, right? Here's what we're saying. It's not like all white people have been here forever. No, I'm not saying that. I'm first generation American. If what I'm saying is the case, which is it's based socioeconomically, the idea is not to leave out poor black kids. Yeah, I'm not saying that. The idea is to look at the income as opposed to, and that way, like I think you seem to have a pretty decent life. So I would think you would need less affirmative action then. I was a big brother, big sister.
Starting point is 01:49:22 I was a big brother to a white kid in a trailer park in texas like this kid was it was fucking hopeless you go to that trailer park just his mom smoking chain smoking cigarettes i don't know what happened to this kid you know yeah he could use some help i think uh to your examples of the well-educated uh black kid versus the poor white kid orphan those two people are not vying for the same spot it's not him versus me it's the white the poor white kid who made it out of trouble versus the wealthy white kid who has the strong board scores and harvard does take that into account and they will always absolutely admit the the perfect board score black kid um but but they're not they're not leaving him out in favor of the kid from worse socioeconomic background do you know what i mean yeah that makes sense
Starting point is 01:50:18 they take all that into account and that's something that came out and drove people fucking insane when we read about all of the college admissions scandal stuff with the recruiting, where parents were paying off coaches. And then by extension, the Barron Trumps of the world were having gymnasiums named after them. And therefore, based on the $2 million gift, their applications were going to the top of the pile. You're a legacy student. Yeah, that bothered people in a big way because there was preferential treatment based on financial means to white kids.
Starting point is 01:50:56 And we shouldn't have that. Yeah, I agree. I'm against it. I think, I guess, what is the, what is it, this is what it is. It's, you're judging like – you're judging vertical leap. You're not judging how high a thing you can touch, right? So if you want to judge vertical leap, you have to judge how far from the ground your feet end up at the top of your jump, right?
Starting point is 01:51:21 Not what part of the wall you can touch with your hand because if you're seven foot seven foot seven it's easier to grab it's easier to touch something but if i'm six six it's more impressive that i'm fucking that's a really that makes sense so and the metaphor works like this because i was very confused so the white kid who grow up grows up with money and legacy in america is seven seven right so he's touching that 10 foot rim easily but his vertical leap does not have to be as much right to touch it right the black kid or the indian kid or somebody who's went through a lot might be six six so he has to jump higher to get there and if i'm a organization i'm judging vertical leap i might judge i might want that five eight white kid who found a way to touch that 10-foot fucking rim somehow being 5'8.
Starting point is 01:52:08 So if we start just looking at circumstance rather than just skin color. Yeah. I think the thing is with that, what gets, what factors into that a lot is that, you know, America a lot of times have given to indigenous people. Right. Have given them their sort of, I guess, for lack of a better term, their reparations as far as like land and money and all that shit. Casinos. Casinos, all that other shit. Many people that have, you know, literally bled for this country and be like, and the government collectively saying, hey, kind of fucked up what we did.
Starting point is 01:52:42 Yeah. Here's some shit. Yeah. You know what I mean? saying, hey, kind of fucked up what we did. Here's some shit. You know what I mean? Like almost every nationality of people in America that has had that happen to has had some sort of reparations for that.
Starting point is 01:52:52 Native Americans fucked it up for black people, yo. Because if they actually did something with the reparations, then I think that the argument would be made for black people. What fly casinos? They put the casinos into the ground. Then they had to hire some Jews to actually get them out of the ground. But they literally gave them land. They said, here's a printing press of money.
Starting point is 01:53:11 And they somehow managed to bankrupt these fucking casinos. So I think initially the reaction to reparations from that is, whoa. We've got to be careful with just giving people printing presses because oftentimes you could lose money on a printing press. with just giving people printing presses because oftentimes you could lose money on a printing press so if they had let's say the native american community after getting casinos managed to fucking flourish and reverse all these horrible stereotypes but it's not about let's say let's say for example let's say they did all of a sudden that would be the proving ground for why reparations are so effective were so effective. To me,
Starting point is 01:53:46 I don't think it's about a government giving Native Americans any type of money and be like, oh, so you fucked it up. We can't do it anymore. It's more about the government and Americans being like,
Starting point is 01:53:55 hey, we cool now? Doesn't matter what you do with it, what you not do with it. That's stupid, Cass. It's not stupid. That's stupid, Cass. It's not stupid,
Starting point is 01:54:02 especially when this country was built on a lot of blood, sweat, and tears from black people. And they haven't. There's been no type of, yo, our bad. Not even a formal our bad. Yeah, there is. No, there hasn't.
Starting point is 01:54:15 Not from America. No, there never has been. There's never been. What are you talking about? There's never been an official document saying, like, yo, our bad for slavery. Ever. Dude, what about, like mean the 13th amendment what do you mean outlawing sales yeah you outlawed it but like okay for example and i watched the show on the shop with uh on uh on hbo yeah seth rogan was talking about
Starting point is 01:54:37 yo i was doing a comedy show on uh indian burial ground or whatever and it was like people everywhere bro that shit annoys me i know it's like everything's a burial ground or whatever. They be burying their people everywhere, bro. That shit annoys me. I know. It's like everything's a burial ground for these people, man. So they said that, and it was like, before the show even starts, every time they started, the fucking guy who owns the venue or somebody gets on the microphone and is like, hey, I just want everyone to acknowledge that this is an Indian burial ground, and they just have a moment of silence, and then they continue on with the fucking show. But here's the thing with that.
Starting point is 01:55:06 I don't think they had cemeteries. I think wherever the person died, they just put them in the ground. Exactly. That's why everything's an Indian burial ground. But we know why they died, though. They know why they died, and it's just the acknowledgement of it.
Starting point is 01:55:17 Just the acknowledgement of it. Whether it be monetarily, whether it be fucking... What would that do for you? It doesn't matter what it did what it would do for us fighting a war is acknowledging it it wouldn't be it would do the civil war was like yo this is fucked up we're willing to have a million americans die so that this doesn't have so it's been cool for blacks ever since the civil war you asked for acknowledgement you didn't ask
Starting point is 01:55:36 for cool i'm talking about what you're asking for yeah right the i mean having you have multiple presidents come out brett lincoln for the first, come out saying the evils of slavery. Yeah. And why we're going to end it. That's acknowledgement. Yeah. For you to say that it hasn't been acknowledged at all, it's just historically inaccurate.
Starting point is 01:55:53 You know what it sounds like? You ever get in a fight with your girl, and she knows she fucked up, but she won't just admit it? It's like, no, I need you to say, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, but we. Maybe it's emotional. Maybe it's pure emotion, but it's like, I need you to say. What I'm saying is we have like
Starting point is 01:56:05 over and over and over again they want like an official we've said it they want like an official politician president white dude in particular to say Abraham Lincoln
Starting point is 01:56:13 I'm sorry is the guy who did it yeah but I think things continue to be fucked up for like a century after that nobody's saying it wasn't fucked up
Starting point is 01:56:21 it was acknowledged that this was an awful thing yeah right and that's why it was worth you know losing a million American lives to stop right i mean this is the greatest you know loss of american life in the history of the nation right so clearly percentage of i don't want to talk about i don't spend a ton of time on this i do get though i do get though
Starting point is 01:56:38 like if you cheated on a girl all the time and you're like what i stopped cheating that's an apology right she would still need the apology you can't be like well i'm faithful now bitch like i acknowledged it come on now i don't think you're listening to what i'm saying so are you familiar with lincoln at all in his speeches and how he spoke about slavery publicly no probably not as much and if you if you were dad is the lincoln guy and if you were you would know that he you know was vehemently against slavery and he said this publicly upon his campaign trail, while he was campaigning to be president. I mean, like, there's an entire group of the Republican Party, the radical Republicans, that built their whole platform
Starting point is 01:57:11 on the abolishment of slavery. So to sit here and go, this never existed, it's just not right. Again, though, there is a gap between the slavery and the... And the what? Equality, like actual equality. Yeah, again, we were discussing... That's the pace of recovery, which like actual equality. Yeah, again, what we were discussing. That's the pace of recovery, which we have an issue with, right? And I think everybody agrees.
Starting point is 01:57:31 100%. It should be a lot better than it is. But to his point, the Continental Army, I mean the Union Army, was not just black soldiers fighting to abolish slavery. It was the entire north that said this is a horrific institution and we are going to go to war with our countrymen this is a horrific institution that now we can no longer profit from yeah and we're not there's some self-interest in that i mean there was definitely there was definitely a lot of uh arguments to keep slavery
Starting point is 01:58:03 for monetary reasons. 100%. The North just couldn't – it just wasn't profitable for the North anymore. So they were like, okay, now you guys shouldn't have it down south either. But the acknowledgment that it was fucked up was there. Again, speed of recovery is definitely something that we could speed up. It's something I think a conversation we have every single time. The joke I was making about reparations was just like, if we had done a better job with natives,
Starting point is 01:58:26 if it had been more effective, I think you would have seen that money injected immediately into black communities. But the fact that it just truly wasn't. And really quick, I just read a book about the Comanche Indians. And the problem with what happened with the native americans was that you know every single uh deal that was ever inked by the u.s government with the native american tribes every allotment of land was fucking torn up and then they would shrink it they would just constantly take more they would
Starting point is 01:59:02 give them massive massive reservations and say you can live here and we're not going to touch it and then they would take more of it so the native americans i mean it wasn't fair yeah you know like they didn't get what they were promised and they were it was broken thousands of times yeah yeah no we've done a shitty job plain and simple yeah we can do it we can do better that's all We can do better. That's all I ask. I'm like, there's things that could be done to make the relations from all races, especially for this country,
Starting point is 01:59:32 a little better. Let's talk about some fucking basketball. Here's a question. Do you get reparations? Do I get reparations? Let's say if the reparation check comes in.
Starting point is 01:59:38 I would think so because I'm first generation. Right. That's a tricky one. That's the thing. Of course, I want reparations for black people
Starting point is 01:59:45 But I'm like I'll be okay if I don't Shit I'll take some But I'll be okay If I don't get it Because I'm first generation My mom came here Like she was the first
Starting point is 01:59:53 Of my family My mom and dad Were the first of my family To come here So like my family To my knowledge Right Weren't slaves
Starting point is 02:00:00 Right Weren't any of that So But at the same time You might be treated differently Because of the color of your skin. When somebody's racist towards you, they're not going, he's first generation. No, of course not. You're just black.
Starting point is 02:00:12 Of course not. I'm just black. But at the same time, it's like I know whose ancestors truly suffered through this. And to my knowledge of my grandparents and great-grandparents, like maybe the last three generations, that wasn't mine. They were all Nigerian. They were all in Nigeria. Your answer will not be unanimous across all people because many people will say, well, the vestiges of slavery have prevented me from potential employment opportunities. from potential employment opportunities.
Starting point is 02:00:42 Therefore, I am- Which is why I say I will take it because I understand that because of what has happened in this country and what I've had to, and people like me have had to take in because of things that were happening beyond my control. Yes, of course, it's going to affect me.
Starting point is 02:00:59 But did it affect me directly? My family? Probably not. But I know people who like their actual grandparents were slaves. Like I'm talking about like not even a generation ago. Like their grandparents were. You know what I'm saying? Which is fucking nuts.
Starting point is 02:01:17 Or they called it something. I forgot what the fuck they called it. They had some fancy fucking name for it that wasn't quite slavery. Indentured servitude. That's sharecropping? Sharecropping. Sharecropping. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 02:01:24 That's what the fuck they were. So Sharecroppers. I think that we could start by making a difference on this very podcast. I think from now on, you'll only have to be here for 80% of the episodes. You can come in 30 minutes late to every episode, and we will treat it as if it's the exact same amount of time.
Starting point is 02:01:41 You can come for three-fifths of the episode. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have. It was too easy. Come on. Come on, you guys. I got another job. You know what it's like, right?
Starting point is 02:01:54 It'll be easier for me, but... There you go. Okay, good stuff. All right, let's talk a couple more topics and then we'll get out of here That's the craziest thing Is Mad Basketball talk D-Lo
Starting point is 02:02:07 We didn't talk about The Dubs trading Iggy Well we talked about D-Lo A little bit But like how did they look What did they trade him for Because of that breakfast club Hell yeah he did
Starting point is 02:02:14 Now here's the thing Now what did he say Exactly on the breakfast club They didn't treat the They said the medical staff Could have been better Medical staff could have been better Which is
Starting point is 02:02:23 A massive bomb to drop On the biggest hip-hop platform on the planet, especially when you're entering free agency. I mean, this is crazy. Iggy wasn't no free agent. No, but the friends about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like, do I want to come to that team that doesn't care if you get injured and they push you back out there and make you tear your Achilles?
Starting point is 02:02:44 Coming off the heels of what happened to Kevin Durant, you cannot talk spicy like that. I think Iggy, here's the thing with Iggy, Iggy's a really smart guy. When you see him, like fucking sharp. But here's the problem. He's a pain in the fucking ass to have on your team. I think he's so good, you're like
Starting point is 02:03:00 I'll put up with it. But eventually I think he bit off a little more than he could chew. I think he's still an employee at the end of the day, and if you come at the medical staff after someone's Achilles just got popped, really thinking you can't get traded, you're going to get a rude awakening. I think that's a big loss for the Warriors. I think he was big in the locker room.
Starting point is 02:03:18 I think he was an important piece. I think he was, but I think he was also breaking down. I think he got one more year left, tops. What's interesting is when he gets bought out, where does he go? Lakers. Or Nets. Or Nets. Apparently he's gone.
Starting point is 02:03:30 Or Philly. Philly, we didn't talk. I think Philly got better. He was an all-star in Philly, right? Yeah, that's when he started his career, man. That's when he had some of his best scoring seasons. Okay, so he has maybe one or two seasons left, right? The body's already breaking down.
Starting point is 02:03:45 He was injured throughout the playoffs. Half of the surprise teams that I think are going to look really good next year. Okay. Utah Jazz. Jazz looking nice. The New Orleans Pelicans continue to get fucking richer. Who'd they get? Redick and who else?
Starting point is 02:03:57 They got Redick and I don't know, but they got Redick. You need Redick. You need a veteran. He's also a dookie. Yeah, and he had his pick of the litter where he wanted to go wanted to go he could go anywhere yeah why do you think he chose new orleans that was decent money right no he got some good money one year 20 or something i think i want no no i don't even remember but he got some solid money because i from what i was told like he was signed to and delivered to brooklyn like signed to them that would have been lovely that's where
Starting point is 02:04:21 he was and he loves new york he lives he lives. I think he has a place in Brooklyn. He lives in Dumbbell. So why the fuck doesn't he go? So Reddick got $26.5 million for two years. Yes. That's been a four day. They're maxing out Durant. They're maxing out Kyrie. They got to sign DeAndre.
Starting point is 02:04:36 He ain't taking nothing. Yeah. They already had to take less money to sign DeAndre Jordan. Do you think KD looks good going to the Nets? What do you think? Yeah. Dude, I think so. I think so.
Starting point is 02:04:44 Yeah. I think it's a good look for him. I think his injury completely changed the public perception of him. That's true. That's true. You want to know something? He's happy now. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:04:54 Yeah. He's happy that he got injured. No more burner accounts. Real talk. He finally got the love he was yearning for in Golden State the whole time. Because he still had a tweet like, he still had an Instagram post like, nobody can judge what you do except you or something like that. Yeah, I respect it.
Starting point is 02:05:09 Because he still went to team up with his friends. If you went to the Knicks, that is your team. It's still his team. Brooklyn is still his team. It's not a super team. It's different. I think it's different. And there's nothing wrong with playing with another elite player.
Starting point is 02:05:21 I mean, that is the nature of the game, right? And Kyrie might have to deal with the fact that he's a bait on this team, but maybe he feels like he isn't. That doesn't really matter. He'll have a nice year to prove that he's not. Say again? He'll have a nice year to prove that he's not. Kyrie historically plays better when he is
Starting point is 02:05:38 slightly less good than the best guy. That year he had with them when the Cavs won. I mean, he was spectacular. I can't help but get fucking early good than the best guy yeah that year he had with the one that calves won i mean he was spectacular yeah i can't help but get fucking early 2000s orlando magic's vibes from this deal you did tweet that and i thought it was uh nobody called it too i'm like y'all remember this i'm like this is this is exactly what happened orlando they got grant hill yeah who's the young up and comer uh no trace me grady who's the young up and and Grant Hill, who was just off of an injury.
Starting point is 02:06:05 Yeah. They thought he was going to be all right when he got back, and he never was. And that tandem never really worked out the way people expected it to work out. So, I mean, TMAC was great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think Kyrie's going to be great for Brooklyn because I think Kyrie's happy. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:06:17 I think he hated being in Boston. Yeah. He got traded there. He actually got to choose a place he wanted to go to. Yeah. He's right in his backyard. He donates a shit ton of money back to the Patrick School and still is very active over there.
Starting point is 02:06:28 And all his family's here. So I think he's going to be happy. I think he's going to play well. And I think that Brooklyn team's makeup is conducive to a guy like Kyrie where it's not so much fucking pressure of the historic, you got to be a historic Boston Celtic. No expectations. Like none of that shit. He Boston Celtic no expectations like none of that shit
Starting point is 02:06:45 he was better with no expectations the day they signed to Brooklyn they are fucking heroes to that franchise for the rest of their life if they would've signed
Starting point is 02:06:52 to the Knicks it'd be like alright but where the chips where the rings it's still New York you gotta deliver he'll be alright you still gotta deliver
Starting point is 02:06:58 if they don't win then nobody's gonna give a fuck nobody nobody really gives a fuck now but the Knicks got all the headlines the eyes are on them now and people are we're boycotting the Knicks gives a fuck now. The Knicks got all the headlines. The eyes are on them now, and we're boycotting the Knicks, so now there's no more Knicks fans.
Starting point is 02:07:09 We're looking for something else to do, and you've got to fucking deliver. It's going to be a lot on KD. The front page article on ESPN was Zach Lowe saying, how did the Nets pull this off, and where do they go from here? So they're getting headlines. Everybody's talking about the Nets, and it's just going to be more and more. People are going to monitor that Achilles injury.
Starting point is 02:07:24 If KD thought that he was under the spotlight in San Francisco, he just going to be more and more. I mean, people are going to monitor that Achilles injury. I mean, if KD thought that he was under the spotlight in San Francisco, he's going to be under the spotlight in New York. We're talking about every time you walk out of a fucking rehab facility, there are going to be paparazzi there. We're going to know exactly how that ankle feels. That's really a two-year injury, honestly. He'll be back next year, but he won't quite be the same. He's not going to play next year.
Starting point is 02:07:43 No, he's not playing the entire year. He'll miss a year. He'll play that next year, but he won't be quite the same. He's not going to play next year. No, he's not playing the entire year. He'll miss a year. He'll play that next year. And then he'll still be trying to get his... 2021, 2022 is when I think he'll be back to full form. Halfway through? Yeah, I think so. Halfway through the contract. It's a tough deal to take, but you take it.
Starting point is 02:08:01 No, you gotta take it. Because it's Kevin Durant. Like, yeah, people don't come back as good, but a guy that good has never really blown his Achilles in his prime like that. So, I'll take 70% KD if that's as good as he gets back. You gotta take it. What does this team without KD look like next year?
Starting point is 02:08:18 Are they a fifth seed? Who cares? I don't know if they make the playoffs. You don't think they make the playoffs? Come on. I don't know if they make the playoffs. How much't think they make the playoffs? I don't know if they make the playoffs. How much did they lose in trading for these two guys? Nobody. They lost D'Lo. Dude, they were pretty good this year.
Starting point is 02:08:32 They lost D'Lo and Jared Dudley. I think they lost D'Lo and they got Kyrie. Do you think D'Lo is better than Kyrie? I think I'd rather have D'Lo on my team than Kyrie as an alpha. Well, you know that. Yeah, we know how to feel about Kyrie. Okay, then your theory is fine. Because you think D'Lo's more effective.
Starting point is 02:08:48 But I think Kyrie will be better than D'Lo. I think that... He is better than D'Lo. I have no doubt he's more talented. No, I think Will be better for the team than D'Lo. And I like D'Lo. I just think he will be better for the team. And I think that they'll curate the team around Kyrie's talents.
Starting point is 02:09:01 And I think his biggest issue in Boston was that they didn't curate it around his talents. Ooh, that was something I wanted to bring up with you guys. The fucking Boston media was at it. Did you guys see that this week? They waste no time. The guy who owns, I forget if he owns the Celtics, also owns the Boston Chronicle.
Starting point is 02:09:20 Is that it? He owns the Boston Chronicle. He owns some radio station. So it's the same. It's like top-down, right. Owns the Boston Chronicle. He owns some like radio station. Yeah. So it's the same, it's like top down, right? They control the media. We always talk about on this board, on Flavor 2
Starting point is 02:09:30 about how Boston media is essentially a vacuum and it puts out whatever theories, narratives, storylines that they want for their teams.
Starting point is 02:09:40 And once you cross them, it is blatantly obvious that you cross them in the news. So once they can't get this meeting with Kyrie, Kyrie says, I'm not even going to meet with Boston. I'm not going to meet with the Celtics. I don't want to come back.
Starting point is 02:09:51 Immediately, a story comes out about how Kyrie refused to sign a ball that was, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. This is why it's brilliant. The wording is so brilliant. The ball was for charitable sponsors. Now, charitable sponsors sounds like charity. Charity.
Starting point is 02:10:10 Do you know what a charitable sponsor is? Someone who gives a team money. An insurance company. Ikea, Geico, Pepsi, right? But putting charity in there, look at that, right? By charitable purposes. Balls for charitable, for charitable for charitable charitable charitable he's the douchebag that refuses to sign a ball for some sick kids with cancer in a hospital that's what it looks like when in reality it's just some big corporate
Starting point is 02:10:36 nonsense do you know that for a fact dude does it go in to say what those charitable purposes were sound so what my understanding is those charitable balls get sold like two or three times before they even. Oh, okay. Right. It gets sold to like a autograph agency. It gets sold to something else before. And then those be like, oh, you want to. Then they say it's like Steiner Sports or whatever.
Starting point is 02:10:57 Yes. Like, oh, we got this autographed basketball and proceeds go to yada yada. So he's like, okay, I'll sign. First of all, in the past, this guy tweeted me. He's like, I have a signed ball that was's like okay i'll sign first of all in the past this guy tweeted me he's like i have a signed ball that was for charitable purposes from kairi he did in the past he's no longer on your team he's like i'm gonna go sign charitable balls in new jersey the second i get that i'm not gonna stop signing charitable balls you guys are fucking douchebags i don't like you i don't want anything to do with you i'm gonna keep it moving this is a story that
Starting point is 02:11:24 you can keep locked but once he leaves all of a sudden it's all over the airwaves so how much of so we both think Kyrie's cancerous do you think he will continue
Starting point is 02:11:33 to be on Brooklyn or how much do you think was he was actually cancerous and how much is just Boston media I think he's cancerous but I think that he won't be
Starting point is 02:11:41 as long as you give him what he wants and that is the offense has to be curated around him until Big Daddy comes back. And when Big Daddy's back, I think Kyrie will be like, okay, we can share this. Next year will be interesting if what we think is true,
Starting point is 02:11:54 KD comes back and he's not full strength. Big Daddy back, but he ain't Big Daddy. I'm still the better player. You know who likes that? Kyrie loves it. Kyrie's fine with that. He's got that alpha. But the offense will be curated toward KD at that point,
Starting point is 02:12:07 No, no, no. I think they'll recognize that it's like a Gordon Hayward situation where they go, okay, you can't handle the load. We'll work KD into this, but Kyrie, you still handle it. And I think that's exactly
Starting point is 02:12:18 the situation Kyrie wants. I think... Right. All right, what else we got? Because we're coming up on time We got Lakers Kemba we haven't talked
Starting point is 02:12:27 Horford we haven't really talked Jimmy Buckets we haven't really talked There's some massive moves Yeah The Jimmy move to Miami Is interesting But I don't think they I don't care
Starting point is 02:12:36 Make a fucking noise Why'd he go there He likes Miami He's always liked Miami He's always liked that city Like you know Well I think he just wanted the max And they were the only team
Starting point is 02:12:44 Willing to give him the max I think it's as simple as that I think a couple teams city. I think he just wanted the max, and they were the only team willing to give him the max. I think it's as simple as that. I think Kemba teams are awful. I think Boston got worse with Kemba. Let's talk about Boston versus Philadelphia. Because Philadelphia is interesting now. Oh, Holford is an upgrade, man.
Starting point is 02:12:58 Josh Richardson is a sneaky good pickup for them. He gives you the things that Jimmy Butler gives you without the headache. Maybe a little less points, but he still guards up. Still a very tough guy to defend. Very tough guy to get past. He can knock down shots.
Starting point is 02:13:13 He's a smaller 3 and D guy. And Ben Simmons is going to be your point guard anyway so that kind of can't split each other out. You've got to get rid of Ben Simmons. I like the fact that you have your 4 and 5 can stretch the floor. Oh, yeah. And the problem with Philadelphia was shooting, right? Ben Simmons is such a god-awful basketball
Starting point is 02:13:30 player that you're really playing five on four. Especially the players. The guy has zero gravity around him. He cannot shoot a basketball. To save his fucking life. Busting that test with no jump shot. Did he, though? He did. I think it was game four ass though with no jump shot. Did he though?
Starting point is 02:13:45 He did. I think it was game four or five where he went off. He had one good game? Yeah, he had like 30 something. The day after the fucking Jared Dudley, the fucking bullshit. Yeah. And then like Ben Simmons went off like 30, like all layups and dunks. Right.
Starting point is 02:13:59 Yeah. But he's the guy who goes 30 and then has four in the next game. Joel Embiid is that guy, too. No, Joel Embiid is legit. Embiid just needs to get in shape. And I think Al Horford is the perfect guy to get him in shape. Al Horford is the slowest person to ever play basketball. When he has the ball, you think he's like a retired guy.
Starting point is 02:14:18 Oh, he takes forever to shoot. But it's money more than half the time. I don't know. How old is he? He seems like he's... He's 33, I think. They gave him a lot of years. That's what's shocking. I think they gave him too many years. Four years, 109, I think. He was 33. Yeah, so he's 33,
Starting point is 02:14:34 four years, and he's also Dominican. He could be lying like those pitchers in Little League. That's fair. So he could be 42 right now. We have no clue. It's beneficial in Little League, but not the NBA. Not at all. Not at all.
Starting point is 02:14:47 Okay. Which team do you think lost free agency besides Knicks? Besides Knicks, I think Celtics. I think Celtics lost. I love Kemba, and I think he'll be fine over there. And I think that he— Boston's going to love Kemba. I just don't think they got better. No, no, I don't think they got better.
Starting point is 02:15:04 But I also think he fits that IT mold way better than Kyrie does. So remember how effective IT was in Brad Stevens' offense? I think that's what Kemba will do. And Kyrie is unique in his talents. He is not that explosive.
Starting point is 02:15:20 Kyrie is a shorter Kobe. Yeah. He's a shorter Kobe. That's all he is. He plays exactly like Kobe Bryant He's explosive IT was explosive Yeah But Kyrie is like A lull you to sleep
Starting point is 02:15:32 A little bit Type of guy Get you on your hip Kyrie's thing Is degree of difficulty For shots Yeah Just cause you can make
Starting point is 02:15:39 These good These crazy difficult shots Doesn't mean you should Take them all the time Yeah Kemba takes good shots. Puts in the same numbers. Damn near identical stats
Starting point is 02:15:48 as Kyrie Irving. And I think he'll be great in Boston. I think Boston will love him. Gordon Haywood needs to step it up, bro. If Gordon doesn't step it up this year for Boston
Starting point is 02:15:56 it's going to be a long season. Oh yeah. Yeah. And Jalen Brown. Because Jalen now is going to actually have to play his part. This is his fourth year
Starting point is 02:16:04 and his third year. We've been talking about potential. Put up a shut up for both of them. I think Tatum has already shown some promise. Jalen has been the one that we've been going, he's so skilled. He's got so much potential. I think everybody progressed with Kyrie.
Starting point is 02:16:19 Regressed. I'm much more excited about Tatum than Jalen Brown. I'm more excited about Tatum Than Jalen Brown And I'm more excited about Tatum Than Ben Simmons Which I think everyone thought That Ben Simmons was going Yeah, exactly
Starting point is 02:16:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah Now Ben Simmons is horrible, man I would never ever sign him To anything whatsoever I mean, awful Can't shoot a basketball How do you not be able to shoot a basketball When you're in the NBA?
Starting point is 02:16:43 All you have to do is practice shooting the basketball Didn't you think something was wrong with the... Oh yeah, he has something physically wrong with the way he holds the ball. He's a lefty, and we all know what they're like. Yeah, pieces of shit. They're horrible. Don't accept them to Harvard. Fucking Dartmouth. Go to Dartmouth with Cornell.
Starting point is 02:16:58 Fucking weirdo. If this team doesn't get Kawhi, is the Clippers a big loser? Yes. In this free agency? Apparently, they picked up pieces in the Jimmy Butler four-team trade. They got another draft pick. Yeah. And they got a salary dump, which, I mean, that's fine. You got space for that.
Starting point is 02:17:13 They paid Pat Beverly a lot of money. The Mavs lost. They got Pat. Pat Beverly, three years, $14 million. Why did the Mavs lose? Aren't they picking up Drogic? Goran Drogic? No.
Starting point is 02:17:22 Why did the Mavs lose? Because they wanted either Brogdon, that was ideal, or Tobias Harris. They had 30 million. They had a max slot, and they didn't get anybody. They got Seth Curry, 4 for 32. They extended their guy Powell. Seth fits into that system well. Seth fits pretty well.
Starting point is 02:17:39 They extended their guy Powell, but that's it. And Przingis. Pat Beverly, you would love a dog for Luka to not have to play so much good perimeter defense. Pat Beverly would have been good. Three for 43. And they didn't offer to. And I don't think they made the move because three for 43 is a four. They wanted Brogdon.
Starting point is 02:17:55 Brogdon went to Indiana. A lot of people were saying, I don't know what they wanted specifically, but a lot of people were saying Brogdon fits perfectly on this team. Again, great perimeter defender. Good three-point shooter. Luka's going to drive. Kick it out to you, open threes, knock it down. This is the perfect guy for you. Four for 85 he got, but the Mavs didn't have the assets to trade, I guess, for a sign-in trade.
Starting point is 02:18:15 But, like, you could, I mean, I don't know if they made the offer. They offered a less-than-max at Tobias Harris. He stayed in Philly. I think you guys are okay, though. I think they'll be okay. Mavericks have got Luka. You've got Porzingis. We still don't know how they're going to operate together. It depends on Porzingis' health.
Starting point is 02:18:28 Let's see how they do. And Porzingis is what? He's had a whole year and change to recover? Allegedly, he was good to go end of last year, and they were just like, nah, we'll just wait. Let's just get this pick. And just keep working on his core or whatever he needs to do. And that's the thing, if Porzingis stays healthy, they're fine.
Starting point is 02:18:43 I saw a video of him. I mean, clearly it's off season. Everybody looks great. Like, I saw a video of him in the gym. Like, he looks like he put on some pounds, too. He needs to learn how to duck because my man stays getting snuffed. Did you see that video of him knocked out, wobbling around the streets
Starting point is 02:18:57 in La Vie en la Batlle? Oh, yeah, I did. Work on a bobbing weave, homie. Or jump. I don't know that he needs to duck. I think he can jump over the punches. You know what I mean? Yeah, bend, I did. Work on a bobbing weave, homie. Yeah, or jump. I don't know that he needs to duck. I think he can jump over the punches. You know what I mean? Yeah, bend your head up.
Starting point is 02:19:09 Or just do it the fucking grade school way. Just use your fucking leg. Learn how to mush, bro. Charlotte Hornets took an L, I think. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Fucking Jordan. They got a tank.
Starting point is 02:19:19 Get a lot of money for Terry Rozier. And that sign and trade for Kemba. Why would they do it? I don't understand why you don't. You're not bringing anybody to free agency, right? I don't understand why you don't pay Kemba and then you get a less talented version of him than Terry Rozier. It doesn't make much sense to me. Yeah, it's just mind-boggling to me.
Starting point is 02:19:42 Lakers, if they get Kawhi, are the biggest winners in history. If they don't, I don't know who they. I mean, I guess you've got to sign a trade for D'Lo or something. They're good. They're good. Yeah, they're good. They're good, bro. I've said this from John. Danny Green going to be great. Iggy going to be great.
Starting point is 02:19:57 They do need pieces. Right now, are the only players they have on a contract? AD and LeBron? Kuzma, AD, and LeBron. Which is not bad, right? You have Kuzma, AD, LeBron. You need is not bad, right? You have Kuzma, AD, LeBron. You need four other guys at least that can play and then a couple depth guys. Sure.
Starting point is 02:20:09 Maybe you do exactly what the Knicks should have done, which is just wait. Be patient. People are going to need a dump salary. The buyouts? You can get them buyouts. Get AD. They need shooters. Get these people. They need shooters. Well, they have JR, right? So JR's coming over. So now you have your shooter. You have one.
Starting point is 02:20:25 At least Guy can stretch the floor. A.D. and LeBron can actually shoot. And Kuzma, you better fucking be putting up them threes in the offseason. The thing that worries me about the Lakers is that you know LeBron and A.D. are playing 50 games max. Yeah. Maybe 60. Yeah. So you're going to need to win some of those games with none of those guys.
Starting point is 02:20:42 And who do you win with? Yeah. You need some more pieces. Here's something I want to discuss because this is two interesting things that happened. One, Enos Cantor signs a two-year $10 million contract with the Celtics. Good pickup. You heard the story about that, right? Is that low?
Starting point is 02:20:56 That feels shockingly low. You heard what he said on Instagram. About Julius? No, about why he signed to Boston. Why? Apparently, Portland gave him a deal. said on Instagram about Julius no about why he signed the boss why apparently Portland like gave him a deal and he's like yo they literally gave me like six minutes to decide and he was like y'all wanted I want to take some time and
Starting point is 02:21:12 they're like no no no we need you to decide now now now and he was like fucking I'm out and then took a deal with Boston but isn't that low you have a what is he 610 611 he's11? He's great He's a double guy He looks like a Bond villain He's a double double He does look like a Bond villain He's a guy that you would get 10 million a year you would think The president of Turkey
Starting point is 02:21:28 Wants to kill him Yeah Erdogan Erdogan yeah I'm about to say You would think Boston's probably not the best place To fucking go
Starting point is 02:21:36 That's what I'm saying You'd think you'd want to be As far away from Turkey as possible Right Then again They could just probably Have some Turkish dudes Dress up as Antifa
Starting point is 02:21:44 And just murder that dude Milkshake the hell out of him Yeah Right in public Right, right. Then again, they could just probably have some Turkish dudes dress up as Antifa and just murk that dude in milk. Milkshake the hell out of him. Yeah, right in public property. Okay, maybe, I don't know. I just thought that was really light. I think Boston's going to be all right. Yeah, maybe.
Starting point is 02:21:57 So Portland ends up signing. They traded for Whiteside. Hassan Whiteside. Which is a good pickup. I didn't like it at first because I don't like Whiteside, but $21 million expiring at the end of the year. Dude, that's... That's nice. That's nice.
Starting point is 02:22:10 And then Juerkic or whatever is going to work his way back. By the time he's ready, you got a nice one-two punch. Hey. Big man. I think it was a savvy move. They might have a nice little squad. Yeah. I mean, even CJ, Dame, and Whiteside. That's a lot.'s a lot else you can do a Whiteside
Starting point is 02:22:27 if a player becomes available the trade deadline boom oh yeah 21 million dollar expiring contract yeah big piece that was a good get a lot of shit happening I like Hawaii no way what what huh I thought I thought I thought I had a world's mom so you think Kawhi is staying Did Varus hear anything Or did you Or are you just Nah this is just my thoughts
Starting point is 02:22:48 I think he's staying though And you think he just wants to get recruited Cause all the ideas Like He wants to get recruited I think his uncle is Is Made some promises
Starting point is 02:22:57 That he You know have some meetings happen And he's just fulfilling those promises So So you really believe That he will be He will remain a Toronto Raptor Do they pick up anybody else No not to my knowledge But Just run it back He's just fulfilling those promises. So you really believe that he will remain a Toronto Raptor?
Starting point is 02:23:06 Do they pick up anybody else? No, not to my knowledge. Just run it back. I mean, my theory is also like, if you're Kawhi, why not just sign? Get the five years. Then we could do whatever you want after. Can we just say, like, the beautiful thing is— Like, you have nothing to lose by just signing to the Raptors. Oh, you don't want a player?
Starting point is 02:23:21 Okay. Trade me. We have the most valuable player in the league right now who is— every team wants would just make a the Raptors. Oh, you don't want a player? Okay. Trade me. We have the most valuable player in the league right now who is, every team wants, would just make a trade for you. But just get the five. Why not? Get a five with a no trade clause. They'd give it to you.
Starting point is 02:23:33 And then you can go to a team where it's like, I'm going to get traded to a team where we're still going to keep good pieces. But you're a free agent already. Why would you need to wait for that? Why would you need to get traded? Why not get five? Because you can get the Supermax, right? Get five.
Starting point is 02:23:44 That'd be alright. 200 plus million. And to be fair, his health is an issue. for that. Why would you need to get traded? Why not get five? Because he can get the Supermax, right? Get five. 200 plus million. And to be fair, his health is an issue. We don't know about Kawhi's durability. Just take that 200 plus million. He didn't kind of limp through to the finish line
Starting point is 02:23:54 even though he killed. It's crazy that limping Kawhi still got his head. Still killed. But it's great though. I really think this is the most
Starting point is 02:24:02 wide open the league has ever been. It's quite possible. In a long time. I literally can't call it who's taking it next year. Who's the clear-cut favorite? Toronto, mad salaries coming off the books next year. Lowry, $33 million.
Starting point is 02:24:15 They'll re-sign him. Gasol, $25 million. Yeah, but you're not going to sign for $33 million a year. And I think Lowry might take a discount to stay. He might. The thing is, there's nobody really available next year. Like, Draymond Green's like the top. That's fine.
Starting point is 02:24:26 You could also sign one-year deals or whatever, and then next year, motherfucking Kawhi and Giannis would be insane. Yeah, that'd be stupid. Insane. Or if Giannis is like, I want out, trade me. If you have pieces. That's another deal. If you go quietly, a loser might be Milwaukee.
Starting point is 02:24:44 Because you got to get him some pieces. They lost Brogdon. They kept Middleton. Kept Middleton. I think Robin Lopez will play over his head with Brooke. I feel like twins are just always better together. Wait, wait, wait. They got both?
Starting point is 02:24:55 They got Robin Lopez for the mid-level. Yeah. That's hilarious. That's perfect. They paid Brooke a lot of money. I still think. No, Brooke deserves it. Brooke stretched the floor.
Starting point is 02:25:02 No, he was probably the third best player On that team That was perfect They got George Hill To resign They brought Middleton back Middleton to retine If Giannis learns to shoot Again, this is I think
Starting point is 02:25:11 Like Boston and Milwaukee It's on their stars Yeah Y'all gotta hit another level And then you're fine At the end of the year Giannis was hitting those He was hitting like
Starting point is 02:25:19 Some wide open threes They're just a better Philly I mean, think about it Right? They have their two bigs That can shoot threes Yeah That's my only shit With Ben Simmons I mean, think about it, right? They have their two bigs that can shoot threes. Yeah, that's my only shit with Ben Simmons
Starting point is 02:25:26 is like, my dude, you gotta at least take the shots. You gotta at least be a fucking threat. Like Giannis at least took the shots and now he's actually
Starting point is 02:25:33 making them. Somebody said that, I don't know if it was Kenny or what, but somebody was saying when I was getting better at three point shots, my coach was like,
Starting point is 02:25:39 just shoot one every game. You just have to shoot one every game. I don't care if you make or miss. Shoot one. Yeah, you gotta at least make somebody go like this. At least. Just go like this. You just have to shoot one every game. I don't care if you make or miss. Shoot one. Yeah, you gotta at least make somebody go like this. At least. Just go like this.
Starting point is 02:25:48 You hit one. To get the confidence so it stops feeling so big. I shoot one of these every game. That's fine. Yeah, but think about how embarrassing it was back when he would shoot one earlier in the season. He'd make it and then the audience would clap like he was the autistic. That was Markel Fultz, right? Oh, it was Fultz. That's right. Remember Markel Fultz?
Starting point is 02:26:04 Yeah. See, that's why I'm not crazy about Knicks going for draft picks and shit, because you got to hit on those draft picks. You never know. You just never fucking know. Everybody thought Markel Fultz was the next fucking Westbrook. Anyway, guys, we've done a long podcast, okay? We've discussed Francis's career, what's going to happen, what has happened. Hopefully, we've dug him out of a tricky situation.
Starting point is 02:26:23 Come back sometime. I know you're available. I appreciate that that i'll be in france for two weeks now so yeah enjoy see you in essence fest this weekend i'm gonna be in essence fest that's my version of reparations i do essence fest for free every single year um and uh so i'll definitely see all of my black queens down there at essence fest can't wait to see you guys again it's my favorite time of year this is uh this is like black burning man that's what i call it milwaukee bucks uh just signed uh wesley matthews oh that's right that's right i think it's a good move three and d that's all they need for yannis really anyway but guys thank you so much for listening to uh flagrant two no easy buckets uh we will see you guys on patreon friday
Starting point is 02:27:03 uh appreciate you guys so much. Francis, tell them where they can find you. Well, keep an eye out for my podcast. We'll have you back on when it happens. Yeah, but you can follow me at Francis C. Ellis on Twitter, at Francis C. C. Ellis on Instagram. I don't know how that happened. That was a mistake.
Starting point is 02:27:23 So it's two Cs. Yeah, on Instagram. I don't even. Can you get back to Francis C.'s two c's yeah on instagram i don't it's i don't even can you get back to francis c it's not the biggest mistake you've ever made all right guys that's another episode in the books peace

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