The Drop | NBA Sends Message About Tanking & All-Star Weekend Predictions

Summary

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No Dunks – The Drop | NBA Sends Message About Tanking & All-Star Weekend Predictions

Date: February 13, 2026
Podcast Hosts: J. Skeets, Tas Melas, Trey Kirby, Jamie
Episode Overview:
This episode of No Dunks dives deep into two central themes: the NBA’s controversial fines against teams accused of “tanking” and bold predictions for NBA All-Star Weekend 2026. Skeets, Tas, and Trey react to news headlines, debate the league’s handling of tanking, break down recent game highlights, and have some classic No Dunks fun with rapid-fire questions and Worst of the Week. The episode maintains the hosts’ signature irreverent, basketball-nerd energy, packed with inside jokes, candid opinions, and friendly banter.

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Main Theme: NBA’s Crackdown on Tanking + All-Star Weekend Preview

I. NBA Fines Jazz and Pacers: Sending a Message on Tanking

Key Points and Discussion:

• The NBA fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 and the Indiana Pacers $100,000 for sitting healthy players, citing threats to the league’s integrity.
  — "The NBA on Thursday night fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 and the Indiana Pacers $100,000...saying both teams sat healthy players in recent games while noting that the moves compromise its integrity.” (03:00)

• Utah Jazz specifics:

  • Jazz benched Lowry Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. for 4th quarters in close games.
  • Owner Ryan Smith’s public pushback: “Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined. That makes sense. Bruh.” (04:00)
  • Skeets and Tas wonder how the league can dictate rotation decisions and discuss the “slippery slope” of policing minute allocations.
    — Tas: “Can Adam Silver basically say, hey, you guys need to play your guys in the fourth quarters? That’s the issue here.” (04:36)

• Fairness and consistency:

  • Trey points out that both the Jazz and Pacers were winning games, not just tanking, making the narrative complicated.
    — “Same with the Pacers. They both got fined after winning back-to-back games...It basically comes down to the league not wanting to look bad post-Super Bowl when all eyes are on basketball.” (06:17)

• Tanking as the never-ending debate:

  • Skeets: “This isn’t new—the Raptors did it last year, others have done it. Maybe it’s starting earlier this year because of a loaded draft class, but everyone’s fixating on it more than usual.” (07:00)
  • Discussion on how outrage over tanking often comes from non-fans of the teams involved; actual Utah/Portland fans don't seem bothered.

• NBA’s motivations:

  • Skeets speculates that the timing of the fines is for PR: “Silver can get up there at the All-Star Weekend podium...and use [the fines] as wins in his press conference. This is just a show.” (06:57)

Notable Quotes:

• Tas Melas (on tanking crackdown):
  “You’re basically telling owners, telling coaches that guys need to play certain times of a game—how do you navigate that slippery slope?” (04:36)
• Trey Kirby:
  “Don’t make us look dumb. But in a way it almost makes them look dumber, Silver and the league.” (08:31)
• J. Skeets:
  “Unless the draft is completely abolished, or there’s some drastic change, nothing will actually change. Just stop making us look bad, that’s the message.” (08:00)

Memorable Segment:

• The hosts poke fun at how the media and NBA fans are obsessed with “fixing tanking,” while none of the proposed solutions (wheels, abolishing the draft, flattening odds) seem to work.
  — “It happens almost every year...The most important thing is to get the best players. People are always going to try to get the best players.” (17:46)

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II. Recap & Reaction: NBA Games and Player Highlights

Key Highlights:

• LeBron James becomes oldest player with a triple-double:
  “41 years and 44 days old with the 28, 12 and 10. Any of those games you want to talk about?” (24:08)

  • Tas: “Unk still got it in LeBron. That’s extremely impressive. Guess this means he’s not retiring this season.” (24:28)
  • Skeets: “He says his body still got it, but it’ll all come down to whether his heart’s still in it.” (24:41)

• Thunder’s Nikola Topic makes debut, overcoming health setbacks (30:08)

  • Trey: “Coolest thing that happened last night was Nikola Topic making his NBA debut, drafted with a knee injury, sat out all last season, had a testicular cancer diagnosis in the preseason, underwent some treatment and got his game back...that was awesome.” (30:08)

• Milwaukee Bucks trending up:

  • Discussion of Bucks’ surprising play-in push; praise for AJ Green (“Dairy Bird”), Usman Jang, Kevin Porter Jr., Kuzma, and Cam Thomas.
    • “This team can easily make the play-in and subsequently the playoffs.” (29:36)

Other Notable Discussions:

• On Cooper Flag's injury and Dallas’ tanking situation: “They haven’t been tanking because Cooper’s been out there. But at some point, does he have to sit to give them the best opportunity to have a high draft pick?” (26:25)

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III. All-Star Weekend 2026: Predictions & Previews

1. Rising Stars Game

• Format: Three teams of rookies/sophomores + a G League team; round-robin.
• Predictions:
  • Tas: Team T-Mac, Khan Canipple as MVP.
    — “I think Khan Canipple can be the MVP of this game and then win the three point contest on Saturday.” (33:35)
  • Trey: Team Mellow, Reed Sheppard as MVP.
  • Skeets: Team Vince with VJ Edgecombe as MVP.
    — “I just like the makeup of their team here. Not the biggest team, but not a lot of defense gets played in these.” (35:00)
  • None of the hosts pick the G League team.

2. Three-Point Contest

• Field Highlights: Damian Lillard, Devin Booker, Tyrese Maxey, Donovan Mitchell, rookies like Khan Canipple, Bobby Portis Jr.
• Odds Favorite: Khan Canipple (+330)
  • Tas: Picking Canipple, referencing his excellent form and practice habits.
    — “We got a rookie as the favorite in a three-point contest. He knows that rack is going on the right side. He’s ready.” (36:47)
  • Trey: “This is Damian Lillard’s NBA Finals. What else has he been doing? Probably just shooting off a rack.” (38:53)
  • Skeets: Devin Booker, citing experience and prior success.

3. Shooting Stars Competition

• Teams:

  • Team Knicks: Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Allan Houston
  • Team Cameron: All Duke alumni (Knipple, McGetty, Jalen Johnson)
  • Team All-Stars: Scotty Barnes, Chet Holmgren, Rip Hamilton
  • Team Harper: Rookie Dylan Harper, Ron Harper Jr., Ron Harper Sr.

• Picks:

  • Trey: Team Knicks: “Allen Houston is the best veteran shooter of the group.” (41:32)
  • Tas: Also leans Knicks, but calls Team All-Stars (Rip Hamilton in 'great shape') the “under the radar” pick.
  • Skeets: Team All-Stars, backing Scotty Barnes, Chet Holmgren, Rip Hamilton.

4. Dunk Contest

• Field: Carter Bryant, Jackson Hayes, Keyshot Johnson, Jace Richardson (young, not widely known players)

• General low expectations: “This might be the weakest field we’ve ever seen. We have had some brutal ones, but this has to be it, right?” (50:08)

• Picks:

  • Tas: Carter Bryant
  • Trey: Keyshot Johnson (final vs. Carter Bryant)
  • Skeets: Keyshot Johnson, mostly gut feeling.

• On why Mac McClung isn’t in it:

  • League told him some guys wouldn’t enter if he did; speculation about why repeat winners scare off other participants.
    — “That guy’s gonna jump over a million things.” (52:27)

5. All-Star Game Format and MVP

• Three teams: USA Stars (young Americans), USA Stripes (veterans/“old heads”), World (internationals)

  • “USA Stripes team is sort of the older heads like your LeBron’s, your Kevin Durant, Kawhi…” (55:00)

• Predictions:

  • Tas: Team USA Stripes to win; MVP = Donovan Mitchell (then switches to Jalen Brown for fun)
    — “USA Stripes is gonna win this thing, get their stacked, and they've got guys who want to go out there and be the All Star mvp.” (55:10)
  • Trey: USA Stars, Tyrese Maxey as MVP.
  • Skeets: Team World, Victor Wembanyama as MVP.
    — “I won’t overthink this one. If they win, he’s gonna go, sorry.” (59:22)

• Talk on player motivation:

  • KD says the Europeans don’t take All-Star as seriously; hosts push back, citing Giannis genuinely wants to compete for Team World.
  • MVP mechanics: Format is short games, so MVP often goes to the guy with the hottest hand for 12 minutes.
  • Skeets: Strong skepticism this format will survive beyond Olympic year (63:04)

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IV. Worst of the Week & Classic No Dunks Rapid-Fire

Worst of the Week Nominees:

1. NBA App Voiceover Error: Voiceover says “First-time All-Star Jaylen Brown.” Fact-checking chaos.
   — “How does he not know that? He’s a four-time All-Star and Finals MVP!” (66:33)
2. Broken Laptop by T-Shirt Cannon: Journalist Tony Jones’ computer destroyed by arena merch cannon.
   — “It got smashed by this T-shirt…No story from me tonight.” (69:09)
3. Clippers Blooper: Chris Dunn and Jordan Miller’s botched inbound, causing pickup-style confusion.
   — “That’s a real pickup basketball move…just bring it up!” (72:43)

Rapid-Fire & Fun Segments (81:19+):

• App You Should Delete But Won’t:

  • Love/hate with Twitter/X, the now-defunct Playback app. JD roasts Facebook’s bizarre AI slop and viral reels.
  • Jamie: “If you linger on the wrong thing for a second... I got girls riding mechanical bulls for a week straight.” (85:00)

• Winter Olympics Favorite Moments:

  • Italian speed skater Francesca Lollobrigida's home gold medals (86:46)
  • Viral replays of ski crashes and Minion-themed skating routines (88:18)
  • JD, as a Canadian, confesses cruel satisfaction at American speed skater falling three times.

• Something You’ve Only Done Once:

  • Tas: Made his wife jealous of a “hot electrician,” who failed to fix anything (91:57)
  • Trey: Went curling once—lots of prep, little gameplay (94:01)
  • JD: Family camping trip—never again after one stressful, rainy ordeal (95:06)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Tanking fines/main debate: 03:00–19:11
• Current NBA games/LeBron & others: 23:41–32:14
• All-Star Rising Stars predictions: 33:07–35:39
• Three-point contest picks: 35:50–40:07
• Shooting Stars contest picks: 40:23–44:57
• Dunk Contest discussion: 49:12–53:14
• All-Star game predictions: 55:10–63:32
• Rapid Fire and Worst of the Week: 66:18–76:44
• Miscellaneous/Classic banter: 77:00–end

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Skeets on tanking: “I’m a little concerned that the league is going to go too extreme with trying to fix something that doesn’t actually need to be fixed. It’s a weird year, a lot of bad teams, loaded class—just a perfect storm.” (16:21)

• Trey on rooting for losses: “It sucks to root for your team to lose...That’s the biggest issue to me.” (19:20)

• Tas on All-Star MVP odds: “Donovan Mitchell...he can win it on Team International next year, since he’s gonna play for Team Panama eventually—as he said.” (60:01)

• JD on Facebook's algorithm: “I got girls riding mechanical bulls for like a week straight. I was like, what is this? Okay, all right, moved on. And then it was like nothing but girls and mechanical bulls...” (85:00)

• Classic No Dunks banter:

  • Debate over the hot electrician's real skills
  • Camping horror stories
  • Over/under on Trey’s All-Star Weekend excitement rating

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Summary: Should You Listen?

This episode is essential for NBA fans wanting sharp — and often hilarious — analysis of league controversies, especially the endless debate around tanking. The hosts’ All-Star event predictions are fun, with insider tidbits, jokes about red-hot rookies, and withering shade at this year’s uninspiring dunk contest lineup.

No Dunks’ personality shines in rapid-fire and off-topic segments that cover everything from Olympic moments to the weird side of Facebook algorithms. If you want to stay up to speed on NBA hot topics and get the No Dunks crew’s genuine, unfiltered takes, this is a classic listen.

Skip the ad reads, but don’t miss:

• The deep dive on tanking fines (03:00–19:11)
• LeBron's history-making triple-double (24:00–24:57)
• All-Star game and event predictions (33:07–63:32)
• Classic Worst of the Week and rapid-fire (66:18–76:44)

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TL;DR:
NBA’s tanking crackdown, LeBron milestones, All-Star preview with detailed, witty predictions, and classic No Dunks fun. Perfect if you want news, laughs, and a little chaos—just like a true All-Star Weekend.

Transcript

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[J. Skeets]

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[J. Skeets]

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[J. Skeets]

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[Tas Melas]

I don't think so, Jennifer.

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[Tas Melas]

Huh?

[J. Skeets]

Discover is accepted where I like to shop.

[Podcast Host 1]

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[J. Skeets]

Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants?

[Podcast Host 1]

These are making a comeback, I think.

[Jamie]

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[Trey Kirby]

That take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

[J. Skeets]

Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to the no Dunks podcast presented by FanDuel. It's Friday, February 13, 2026. This is the Drop. I'm J. Skeets here in the classic factory and alongside me, as always, Tas Melas.

[Tas Melas]

Podcast listeners, this is for you.

[J. Skeets]

Next to him, it's my top shot, hot boy Trey Kirby Ayo. Hey. Oh, and over yonder, making the magic happen, super producer Jamie.

[Tas Melas]

Hello.

[J. Skeets]

There he is. Here we are. Hello to everybody on YouTube. Hello podcast listeners. On today's Drop podcast, we're going to make all of our NBA All Star Weekend predictions. Yeah, we are. Yeah. No one has ever gone perfect on an All Star weekend. Will this be the year where one guy nails them all? We're going to find out. We're also going to share some worst of the week nominees.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Got another great batch and we got some rapid fire fun at the end. But first, the NBA on Thursday night find the Utah Jazz $500,000 and the Indiana Pacers $100,000. With the league saying both teams sat healthy players in recent games while noting that the moves compromise its integrity will not be tolerated. Silver coming down here with some fines as we get ready for All Star Weekend. For those that don't remember or don't know what I'm talking about, the Jazz fine came due to the team's actions in games against The Magic on February 7th. That one was a loss. And the Miami Heat on February 9th. That one was a win. During them Utah bench stars Lowry Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. For the fourth quarter even though these players were otherwise able to continue to play and the outcomes of the games were thereafter in doubt. That's what the league said. We can get to the Pacers part of it all. But the Jazz is what everyone is talking about because we had Jazz owner Ryan Smith with his backwards cap no doubt on responding on X last night with an eye roll emoji and the caption agree to disagree. Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined. That makes sense. Bruh.

[Tas Melas]

Bruh.

[J. Skeets]

I added the bruh. What do you think? What do you think here Tas of these fines again coming down right before All Star Weekend on the Jazz and on the Pacers.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Tough day for the Utah Jazz overall. Darren Jackson Jr. Has season ending surgery and now we're fighting you 500k. I think it happens because their head coach Will Hardy was very clear that they were sitting guys during games. Although I stand by the Jazz's owner, their governor saying we won games and you didn't mention the other game, the second game that they won, they literally won their last two games. Can Adam Silver basically say, hey, you guys need to play your guys in fourth quarters? That's the issue here. You're basically telling owners, you're telling coaches that guys need to play certain times of a game.

[J. Skeets]

How do you navigate that slippery slope? No doubt.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, I know. My man Ryan Smith is his name. Owner of Qualtrics. Maybe they can throw that in the stats, in the data, because that's all about data. Qualtrics, all about data.

[Trey Kirby]

I didn't know you guys were close.

[Tas Melas]

Me and Ryan, Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

You said my man.

[J. Skeets]

My man, Ryan, my man, and then checked his name.

[Tas Melas]

It's such a generic name. It is his first name. First name, Ryan, no doubt.

[J. Skeets]

Smith.

[Tas Melas]

I don't know. Either way, I find it odd that they're trying. I thought that that was circumventing the rules, basically sitting the guys in the fourth quarter and that was okay. And they won games because of that. That's the odd part. So I think it really comes down to their head coach, post game saying, yeah, we're sitting guys. We've got. We've got both great things working simultaneously. Our stars are playing. Their stars were playing. But then they sit in the fourth quarter inclusive, ideally. So yeah, to lose, but they just won their last two games.

[Trey Kirby]

Same with the Pacers. They got. Both got fined after winning back to back games. And I mean, I know Pacers fans are saying, we're nine and nine in our last 18. We're winning games right now. I think it's understandable if Jazz fans feel some type of way about this. They're basically playing their entire roster. So they're developing, but they're also playing the guy they traded for in Jaren Jackson Jr. There are just like so many what abouts. Like the Kings are doing the exact same thing here, but it basically comes down to the Super Bowl. And ended the NFL season all eyes on basketball. And the biggest story was tanking. So Silver had to do something because that's what the conduct detrimental to the league says to me. Don't make us look like idiots. And kind of the Jazz were flaunting rules.

[J. Skeets]

I'll go one step further. The league announced these fines when they did for Utah and Indiana, so Silver can get up there at the All Star weekend podium in the coming days and use them as sort of like quote unquote wins during his press conference, saying, yeah, we don't like these headlines. The integrity of the game, this and that, and that's why we came down hard on them. This is what it is. And then we have every single podcast and every writer saying, how do we fix tanking? And we've heard a million ways to fix tanking at this point. I don't think a lot of them work, if I'm being honest. But that is all the news right now. Not that the Pistons are the best team in the league. Not whatever. Even MVP race. That's not even a thing anymore. Not teams getting into the playoffs or the play in. Like, the Hornets is a hot story. It's just tanking, tanking, tanking, tanking. And it's so weird because it's not new. This isn't new. The Raptors did it last year at times, other teams have done it with guys that could have played, and they sat them down. I think what's different this year is just, like, maybe it's starting earlier. There's that, like, really leaning into it because of this loaded draft, and. And again, another part of his, like, there's the league needs something to talk about, or people want something to talk about, and they've, like, really latched onto this for whatever reason, more than other things like MVP races or really great teams or something like that. I don't know why that part is, but the league's like, okay, stop it. We gotta penalize you now. Please don't do it anymore. It's not gonna change anything, obviously. Unless, like, the draft is completely abolished or there is some drastic change. They're just like, stop doing it now.

[Trey Kirby]

Don't make us look dumb.

[J. Skeets]

Don't make us look dumb. But I don't know, in a way, it almost makes them look dumber. Silver in the league. Cause I'm with you guys. This, the coaching part of it all is like, what are you talking about? You can't tell us when we can or can't play, guys. Like, I get the player participation part. That was always a big part of, like, nationally televised games. And this is a league that we completely sell on stars. So then it looks bad when we turn around and the stars aren't playing in nationally televised games. I get that. I get that. But, like, within the game itself, you're going too far, in my opinion.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, it's not only sold on stars, but it's based on stars to win basketball games. And so it's understandable that the Utah Jazz would like to make their odds as good as possible, even though it hasn't worked out for them the past several years. And as we noted, even though you have the worst record in the NBA. That team has not been able to get the number one pick recently for the last several years. And the Jazz have dropped down in the order. And you know, their draft picks, also questionable, as we saw yesterday. They didn't play Larry Markin. They didn't play Yusuf Nurkic, and their draft pick, Kyle Filipowski, got burned many times.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Does anyone feel bad for Yusuf Nurkic? Isn't he in the same boat of these other guys, Larry Markin and Jaren Jackson Jr. He was playing in those games, and.

[Tas Melas]

He'S playing for a contract in the fourth because he's a free agent.

[J. Skeets]

This press release says nothing about him. Don't worry about him.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only things that mentioned him, only times he was mentioned in national media, was usually when he went on X after that loss and he put up a photo of Larry Markkanen doing a shrug, which is like, hey, I do want to play in the fourth quarter. He was declaring what should be happening. Yeah, you guys are right in that this is just a show for Adam Silver to be able to document something. Although the Indiana Pacers, I don't get it, and I don't like that $100,000 fine.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, okay. They violated the player participation policy against the Jazz on February 3rd. That's what the NBA said. A league investigation found that Pascal Siak and two other Pacer starters who sat out the game could have played under the medical standard in the policy. That was the $100,000 fine. Reasoning for there, that was similar to. Correct me if I'm wrong, the Jazz did get sort of slapped on the wrist last season. That 100k guys could have been playing. They were cleared to play, whatever. And other teams have had this, too.

[Trey Kirby]

Yep. $600,000 in fines so far for sitting Lowry, Markkanen for a fourth quarter and then last year as well. Gotta be the most tank finds in history. Part of me thinks, like, if you're a Jazz fan, you show up, you want to see Jaren Jackson Jr. And Lowry Market and go as long as they can and play an entire game. But also Jazz are like top 10 in attendance and their arena is going crazy seeing Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier have good fourth quarters. Right. So they don't actually seem to mind seeing all these young guys play because these young guys have been playing for him for three years at this point. So I don't know. I just think Silver should find everybody who's doing it. Like, every team is tanking right now. It feels like especially these Games when there are tanking team versus tanking team, it's like, who can sit the most players? Like, how have the Kings dodged any of this so far?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. And again, nothing new.

[Trey Kirby]

That they just saying they just suck.

[Tas Melas]

They do.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

And also.

[Trey Kirby]

But I mean, they're sitting DeRozan in fourth quarters. They're pulling him for the stretch runs when he's clearly their best player and their best clutch player.

[Tas Melas]

Right, but that's not making headlines. No.

[Trey Kirby]

Because they're losing anyways.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, no doubt.

[Trey Kirby]

Probably.

[J. Skeets]

And again, this is nothing new. It's. I. I guess the new part is that it's before the All Star break. That's it. This happens all the time in March and April with not as many tears, maybe, and not that early. Yeah, that's the big difference. And a part of that is, I think a lot of these pick protections comes into play here. And if they're going to change one thing, they maybe get rid of them. Because the two teams we're talking about have pick protections where, shit, if we're not bad enough, we're losing it to okc. We're seeing a lot of reports that the reason this is really made headlines is maybe OKC is going to the league and to writers. Hey, what the hell are the Utah Jazz doing?

[Trey Kirby]

We want that pick.

[J. Skeets]

They. We need them. We want them to win. So we get that pick. Cause it falls out of the top eight. And then the Pacers, same thing. They got the new one now because of the Zoobots deal. And it's like the whole 5 to.

[Tas Melas]

9 window, but the Jazz won multiple times.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

[Tas Melas]

You're right. They won their last two games before the Fine.

[Trey Kirby]

Pacers too.

[Tas Melas]

Pacers too.

[J. Skeets]

Right. And you think that's a huge part of it, or should be. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Put it in the. The database. Put it in the database. Ryan Smith. Put it in Qualtrics and let's figure it all out. Because I called him my best bud, Ryan Smith. I think I also have other guys who wear backward hats in my algorithm. Mark Rober as well. He's an engineer making videos for kids out there. Mark Robber. Yeah. Wearing backwards hats.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay.

[J. Skeets]

You wearing backwards hats. Hats. Three days in a row, maybe.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

That was a subtle message to your buddy, Ryan Smith. Hey, I got you, man.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Ryan Smith and I both have dirty hair.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, that's why the hat was on.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, unfortunately. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[J. Skeets]

Is that what Kelly Olenek's doing, too?

[Tas Melas]

Good question.

[Trey Kirby]

His hair doesn't look the cleanest.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, he's got a lot of it.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, right. Wow. What a pivot from tanking to backwards.

[Tas Melas]

Well, I'm done talking about tanking because you're right, it is. It does happen every single year. That has happened a little bit earlier this season, and that's based on where we're going here All Star Weekend coming up. Adam's got to do something right, and.

[J. Skeets]

He can't change that. He can't change the draft rules this season. So the only thing he really can do is try and, like, scare the. These owners, these coaches, these teams into like, hey, stop doing it so blatantly. I think that's a big part of it, too. That's this, like.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

When. When Hardy was asked about it in the post game press conference, that one game of like, hey, did you ever think about putting Larry Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. Back in? Is like, no. He basically like. Like, not even pretending. Like, ah, we thought about it, but we liked what the young guys were doing. You know, like, just even pretending to make up a reason why we wanted to keep the young guys playing. No, no. But maybe the Jazz are gonna, like, I don't know, fight back here or like, challenge this. Fine. Because Hardy has said too, like, my team is saying market's on a minutes restriction and that. So I don't know if they have some merit there that they could play that card. They probably won't.

[Tas Melas]

No. They did just sit Larry Markin for a game after the. After the fight.

[Trey Kirby]

He sat for a full game, hair slicked back.

[J. Skeets]

That's true. This is true. This is true. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a question for you before we move on. Maybe people are doing it with our podcast because I know when I see tanking in any of these other, like, NBA podcasts, I'm basically an immediate skip. Do not give a shit. Don't care about your wheel. Don't care about abolishing the draft start. Don't care about even I don't care. I just. I just don't. So I just like, all right, I'm not going to listen to that part. Start the next chapter.

[Tas Melas]

That's right.

[J. Skeets]

Are you ever going to talk about the game?

[Tas Melas]

Just click to the next chapter.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. But maybe people are doing that right now.

[Tas Melas]

Well, we have received a lot of emails from fans talking about how they can fix tanking.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, yeah. People love talking about this.

[Tas Melas]

Yes, they do love talking about it. Do they love hearing about it? I'm not sure. Because you're right. It's a skip for me, too. I don't want to hear about it.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. I mean, it's the biggest story in the league, so, yeah, you're going to hear about it, but the solutions to it are infuriating to me.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I'm like, okay, just make a decision. Or Adam Silver, come on, say, yeah, tanking's fine. Would you care if you just knew 10 teams weren't gonna play? Would you care at all or would you just skip? Would you just skip?

[J. Skeets]

Well, this is the funny part. Who we're watching these games to begin with is my favorite part of everybody. Up in Roar.

[Tas Melas]

Yep.

[J. Skeets]

Up in Roar.

[Trey Kirby]

In an uproar.

[J. Skeets]

In an uproar.

[Tas Melas]

Up in arms.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, that was a skeetism for sure. I'm telling you, it's basically zero percent. We're watching those games, but they want to write about it, try and fix things. I guess what I'm getting at is like the All Star weekend. I'm a little concerned that the league is going to go too extreme with trying to fix something that I actually don't think needs to be fixed. I think it's a perfect storm. I think it's a weird year. I think there are a lot of bad teams right now, and it's a loaded class and it's going to be sort of like more to this season. It's not good. I'm not saying it's great that these teams are like sitting a bunch of guys maybe trying to throw games, but I don't think it's something that's actually going to continue year after year after year. And nor has it, really, outside of the odds.

[Trey Kirby]

It happens almost every year.

[J. Skeets]

Not 10 teams, not till March.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, sure, you're right.

[J. Skeets]

But we don't care then. We never care.

[Trey Kirby]

No, people care. I mean, the Zach Low wheel proposal was 12 years ago.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[Trey Kirby]

People care.

[J. Skeets]

So why wouldn't the league have implemented it then or thought about it?

[Trey Kirby]

They tried. They tried flattening the ladder, the lottery odds, and it didn't fix anything.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[Trey Kirby]

I think if the prospects are good enough, it's going to happen and it'll just continue to happen. It just. We don't know when the prospects are good enough. Always. It happened for Wemby. It happened for Derek Lively. It happened for Patrick Ewing. Like, it's happened for a long time, and it'll keep happening because getting a great player is the most important thing in basketball. If you get a top five pick, you've got a chance to have a Good franchise going forward.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah. There are only three ways to improve your team. The draft, a trade, free agency.

[Trey Kirby]

Free agency is dead.

[J. Skeets]

Exactly. There's one. Take one off the board.

[Trey Kirby]

The most important thing.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

So people are going to try and get the best players.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Specifically in this year. For sure. Sometimes it doesn't happen in bad years.

[Trey Kirby]

We can't just say this year, this year, this year because it doesn't happen. There is always a guy coming. They're just always going, it's not dead.

[Tas Melas]

No, I'm not saying it's dead.

[Trey Kirby]

I mean it won't be as big of a deal next year. It wasn't as big of a deal in the rise of Shay year. It was a big deal in the WIMBY year.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If there's guys, if letters. Yeah. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. Reducing the schedule would help as well. I think that's a big part of it. If there were 60 games, there would be like reduce it by 25% which is something that the league would never do. Just because of money flying from. For each and every TV deal. That would change things. That would help the integrity of each and every game. Simple as that.

[J. Skeets]

But they're not cutting the league.

[Tas Melas]

It's. It's unlikely. It's very unlikely. Yeah, but you never know. They just signed an 11 year TV deal. Maybe this is the time the money is flowing in. Let's give it a try.

[J. Skeets]

For five years they just paid billions and billions of dollars for large inventory of games and such. And then now we're going to cut it. Probably not.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, but still, the people are still watching. And even though you said who's watching, for example, Utah Portland. Yeah. Maybe the generic fan isn't, but the Utah Jazz fans are. The Portland Trailblazers. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Utah Jazz fans are generally the ones not complaining about this. From what I've seen. It's everybody else not watching the actual.

[Tas Melas]

Well, they won games. They also won. That's the weird thing.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

It sucks. The root for your team to lose.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I mean that's a huge. That's the biggest issue to me is like the Bulls finally decided to trade all of their veterans and I'm. I'm not interested in watching my favorite team right now because I don't care to see Anthony Simons running around that with Patrick Williams. I know they're trying to lose.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

And like every day I'm like, nice.

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[Trey Kirby]

That's great news for the Bulls. They lost six in a row. I'M loving it.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. That's stupid.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

It's a stupid way to watch basketball.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Especially with kids who really, they still live on the idea that winning in sports is everything. It is.

[Trey Kirby]

It is the most important thing.

[Tas Melas]

It's the most important thing. Yeah. Yeah. But then you could literally say, but you're incentivized. I don't, I don't want to watch this game. Well, I don't care. Why? Well, because we are trying to lose.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. Were you guys watching the Raptors down the stretch last year when they were sitting down?

[Tas Melas]

No.

[Trey Kirby]

That's stupid. That's dumb.

[J. Skeets]

I mean, we're. Yeah. And I don't know, we're like not the normal people here because we do this for a living and we're commenting on all the other teams. But you're right, there are people, most people are like, this is my team and this is the only team I want to watch. But most fans are wise enough to know, yeah, we can only improve, really, in the draft lottery in a lot of cases, in a lot of these small market teams. So because the way it's set up, we're just incentivized to maybe lose some of these games have a better chance, especially when pick protections come into play. For sure, for sure. Whether you're going to lose the pick.

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[J. Skeets]

All right, well, let's move to some of last night's games. I'll just chuck them all at you here. We'll throw them on the board. We had Uzman Jang powering the Bucks pass. OkC. Big win for Milwaukee. Especially if you're a Bulls fan.

[Trey Kirby]

That was huge. Yeah, I'm loving this.

[Tas Melas]

Bucks win.

[Trey Kirby]

Blazers win. Great night for the Bulls.

[J. Skeets]

Holiday and clinging got the Blazers past the jazz. And LeBron James became the oldest player in NBA history with a triple double. See you later, Carl.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, it's crazy. To me, I would have. I would have guessed that LeBron was the oldest Guy to have a triple double. I think everybody would have. And then I would have never in a million years. Guess Carl Malone. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

40 years, 127 days. Karl Malone was. But LeBron got him beat now. 41 years and 44 days old. 44 days old with the 28, 12 and 10. Any of those games you want to talk about?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Well, first you got to say, unk. Still got it in LeBron. That's extremely impressive. Simple as that. I guess this means he's not retiring this season.

[J. Skeets]

Why?

[Tas Melas]

Well, he's still got it. Why retire?

[J. Skeets]

He says his body still got it, but it'll all come down to whether his heart's still in it. All those hours taking care of the bod.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[J. Skeets]

Pushing through. He basically said, it's not a physical thing. I'm okay.

[Trey Kirby]

My game will never fall off.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Yeah. It's just like whether I want to do it and love it and enjoy it.

[Trey Kirby]

So it's the best of both worlds for LeBron. He's getting two retirement tours. He's getting this one where people are like, is he gonna leave? And then he's gonna get the one where he finally decides to leave.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And remarkably, that is a great business for everyone where LeBron comes and plays in your arena, too, because you can sell those tickets twice. That's right.

[Trey Kirby]

That's right.

[J. Skeets]

This might be the final game he plays here. And then next year will most likely be the final game he plays here.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. And they're playing against a team who didn't start. Cooper Flag didn't play. Cooper Flag. He's got a mid foot sprain.

[Trey Kirby]

No.

[J. Skeets]

Don't believe it.

[Tas Melas]

Don't believe it.

[J. Skeets]

Nope. They're tanking. We literally could just do it with every guy.

[Trey Kirby]

Another team that's incentivized to lose.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, right. I'm kidding. But, yeah, that's why it can get dangerous or silly really quickly. But he didn't play. And they lost nine straight.

[Tas Melas]

Now they have lost nine straight. That's the first time they've lost nine straight since the year 1998 when Michael Finley was playing for them instead of grabbing a beer from Luka Doncic his hand before the NBA Finals. As a member of the front office, it's a long time, but they had guys leave this game. It's bad. Najee Marshall left this game. Daniel Gafford left this game. Kyrie Irving is sitting there on the sideline with the ball in his hands. It looks like he wants to go out there and play, but he's also Injured. So yeah, this might be the, the point, the tipping point for this team because they haven't been tanking because Cooper's been out there. But at some point does he have to sit to to give them the best option or the best opportunity to have a high traffic? Feels like it.

[Trey Kirby]

I don't know. I mean they lost eight straight before this one.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Their season was over when Anthony Davis got hurt and then they traded him away for, you know, some guys who at least can play. Chris Middleton. Weird to see him coming off the bench Mar Marvin Bagley, but not guys that are going to win. It always made sense for the Maver their pick this year and try to make it as good as possible. So I like Cooper will play in the last third of the season for sure.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, they are a little like, you know, the Sacramento Kings who just keep losing no matter what. But again, lots of their guys are, are hurt. But if you want Cooper to get out there for the last 25 games or so here they're 19 and 35, so 28. Get them out there. But if you want to bet on Con Canyipple for rookie of the year, I think it's a good time.

[J. Skeets]

Well, okay, I was going to get to that. Yeah, I mean if Cooper wants of the year, he's going to play. He's not playing in the Rising Stars game, so he's going to be missing All Star weekend here. But yeah, another loss and LeBron makes history. Anything else on those other games?

[Tas Melas]

Well, jump over to Milwaukee because this is a team that is not tanking and people were questioning, well, maybe they're going to tank. They've won five of six games. It's funny watching this team with Kevin Porter Jr. As their starting guard. Now Cam Thomas playing for a contract, coming off the bench and executing. I mean, they outplayed OKC. Obviously OKC has a lot of injuries. I think OKC's got something to worry about here with Jalen Williams now with a hamstring injury, hasn't been able to stay right this entire season. I know it's still a couple months away and he can still get back and get right and Shea will be there, but I think that is a legitimate worry.

[J. Skeets]

You don't think. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you don't think the Oklahoma City Thunder can win another championship without a healthy Jalen Williams?

[Tas Melas]

I think, I think that's fair. Yeah. He's their second best ball handler and.

[J. Skeets]

So he needs a big storyline in the second half of the season.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

How he comes back, when he comes back and how he looks. I agree with that.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, I think there was, there's always other teams you could say in the Western Conference they can do it at least. I was, you know, I was, I was big on Denver, who's had a ton of ton of injuries before, all these injuries for okc. But I think it is a worry either way. Milwaukee ain't tanking. Five, six wins. Are they going to make the playoffs? Top six specifically? No. But can they make the plan? Oh, absolutely. Watching A.J. green out there, Dairy Bird, he's a catch and shoot type of guy, but he was 5 of 11 from 3 yesterday and he had to create a little bit. Just, just one dribble into that high. Release was going down for him 43% on seven threes per game this season. This is a career year for him. I say him, I mentioned him because him alongside Yannis De Kubo when he comes back and Miles Turner to go along with Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr. Who's only played about half the games for them. You start to look at this team and say, hey, do we want to play this team in a playoff series? When they've got Usman Jang coming off the bench, Ballin in his old arena with Kuzma and Portis and Cam Thomas playing for his NBA career out there. Which is, you know, scary at times for the Milwaukee Bucks. But it's tough teams, especially with their schedule. They've got 17 home games left, only 12 road games. This team can easily make the play in and subsequently the playoffs.

[Trey Kirby]

Who do you think they're catching? Hawks. Yeah, I mean, hawks are in 10th. It's a game and a half behind.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, they can catch the hog, the Hawks. I think we all said, oh, they're trading Trey Young and this team was good before that, but they've never been good for a full season without, with or without Trey Young. And so that's very different for them. Plus, you know, the whole Jonathan Kaminga thing, I think there's lots of questions with that team. And yeah, it's the Hawks and we'll see if the Hornets can keep it up in nine because I don't think that's a lock lock, but obviously they're playing extremely well.

[Trey Kirby]

Coolest thing that happened last night was Nikola Topic making his NBA debut. Drafted with a knee injury, sat out all last season, had a testicular cancer diagnosis in the preseason, underwent some treatment and got his game back playing down in the G League for the blue, I suppose, finally checked in, got an assist right away on a pretty slick pass. Hit a jumper, standing ovation. That was awesome.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, that was cool.

[Trey Kirby]

Very cool.

[J. Skeets]

Very cool moment.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. And OKC is awesome. And it was good to see Usman Jango back there. That was his team where he played. I guess he's good with the sight lines. The guy was balling out there. What's his line? His line? 19 points, 11 boards, six assists, four blocks back, three on his own.

[J. Skeets]

He was in the running for a while, but he didn't get there. One of those Blazers is going to get it. I'll tease that as they got the.

[Tas Melas]

Big win and we did the mock draft for our expansion teams a couple days ago because Seattle and Vegas are coming now. I projected maybe too early that I thought maybe in 27, 28 they'd come back. Shams came out and said, no, no, no, that's not happening for years. I believe Shams in that. It's not coming for years. But my big point was Usman Jang was unprotected. Are you kidding me? Over Andre Jackson Jr. Kidding me. Keith Smith, come on, get Ryan Smith on there. He would make a smart move and say, Jackson, see Jericho Simcia. But Usman Jang, I mean, he looks like. He looks like a modern player if he gets a miss.

[J. Skeets]

But it was a great pick in your expansion. Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Okay. Nikola topic, obviously the story there, and it was pretty cool.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Thunder started 24. 1 and they're going into the All Star break with the second best record.

[J. Skeets]

I know.

[Trey Kirby]

Kind of unbelievable.

[J. Skeets]

Actually have a better winning percentage. That's right.

[Tas Melas]

Yes. We are talking 70 wins. 74 wins. Nope.

[J. Skeets]

What was the over under? I keep coming back to it. It was.

[Trey Kirby]

It was like 60 and a half maybe.

[J. Skeets]

No, I thought it was a little higher. Let me see.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, at the beginning.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. 62 and a half. And I took the under.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And of course, they start 24 and 1. I'm like, oh, I'm a stupid idiot. You know, it's not. They're probably going to still get there.

[Trey Kirby]

Need 20 wins, 21 wins to hit the over.

[J. Skeets]

But it's not a lock now like it was there after 25 games. So we'll see. All right, let's get to the real meat of today's drop podcast. All Star weekend predictions. We'll make our way through these. We'll show you the OD from our good friends at FanDuel and, you know, we'll make some predictions who's going to win this stuff. So let's start with the Rising Stars game tourney, whatever the hell it is that goes down tonight, 9pm Eastern. So this one they keep sort of late. We got three teams of rookies and sophomores. And then a G League team lost a couple guys. I know Team Mellow lost Cooper Flag due to injury and team TMac lost two guys in AJ Mitchell and Alex Saar. So a couple other guys have been slotted in. Again, this is a game one at 9 o', clock, then a game two at like close to 10, and then a Rising Stars championship game between the winners of those two teams at 10:30. So I just wanted to show you the. The odds for the winning team.

[Trey Kirby]

Please do.

[J. Skeets]

I'm not showing you the rosters because there's been just too much turnover. But Team Mellow is the favorite, or they were when I checked this last night, at +155. And then you got Team T Mac +170, Team Vince +260, Team Austin and the G League team. Not great odds to win this thing at 850. Who do you got? And I want to know who do you have as your MVP of the Rising Stars game? You got to start it here, Tas.

[Tas Melas]

I'm taking Team T Mac.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Tas Melas]

And I think Khan canipple can be the MVP of this game and then win the three point contest on Saturday. We'll get to that. But it's kind of like I made the same prediction essentially for Stefan Castle last year. He did it on Friday night. Saturday night he was second to the great Mac McClung in the dunk contest. So I like, I like them. Especially with Cooper being out.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Tas Melas]

For Mr. Mellow.

[J. Skeets]

So team T, Mac and con caniple as your MVP of the rising Stars. Where are you going, Trey?

[Trey Kirby]

I'm kind of surprised that Team Mellow has remained the favorite even with Cooper going down. You would assume that I guess Khan, he's Team T Mac.

[Tas Melas]

He is the team team.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Mellow's got the guy. It's got some guys.

[Trey Kirby]

Exactly. I'm still going to pick. I think they got a lot of ball handlers. Shepherd, Castle, Harper Fierce, Reed Shepherd, MVP of the Rising Stars.

[J. Skeets]

Team Mellow is a good pick because, I mean, they sort of get like an easier pathway. Nothing's given here. But they do play Team Austin in the first game. Okay, so they play the G League team. I mean, Mellow beats them.

[Trey Kirby]

Wow. Harper versus Ron Harper.

[J. Skeets]

Is he in the G League game?

[Tas Melas]

Oh, yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, good. And then they're working together on tomorrow. Wow.

[Tas Melas]

Wow.

[J. Skeets]

Shooting Stars.

[Tas Melas]

Well, you know the schedule. Do you know the schedule of each game? So who plays the first game?

[J. Skeets]

Team Austin versus Team Mellow. Then Team Vince versus Team Team. Gotta have the Cousins going. And then the Rising Stars championship game.

[Tas Melas]

I always like the team that doesn't have to sit from the first game to the championship game.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, interesting. That's why I like Team Vince. I'm going Team Vince to win this thing.

[Tas Melas]

Great.

[J. Skeets]

All right. They got Vijay Edgecombe, Derek Queen, Keshawn, George Boozelis, Cedric Coward. I. I just like the makeup of their team here. Not the biggest team in the world, I'll admit, but it's also one of these games where not a lot of defense is being played. So I'll go Vijay Edgecomb as my MVP pick. It's a solid team backing Team Vince.

[Tas Melas]

No one's taking the G League team.

[J. Skeets]

No, no, sorry.

[Trey Kirby]

Young Hansen will be playing, right?

[Tas Melas]

Elijah Martin.

[J. Skeets]

I think Yannick is in there too.

[Trey Kirby]

Oh, really?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, there's a couple playing a ton. Yeah, there's a couple funny ones.

[Trey Kirby]

Good way to squeeze them. Okay, let's podcasters though. That's exciting, man. Four podcasters captaining those teams.

[J. Skeets]

They should be podcasting while they're doing.

[Trey Kirby]

They should live stream.

[J. Skeets]

It'd be great. Three point contests, stacked field for this. This is going to be the first event on Saturday night. That's fun. They're going to like kick off the Saturday night festivities with this one. We got a future hall of famer and Damian Lillard making a surprise return here, guys and played all season and he is is going to bomb away in the three point contest. Got five current all stars. Booker, Maxi Mitchell, Murray, Norman Powell, rookie of the year favorite in Concanipple and Bobby Portis Jr. Who is shooting a really good percentage this year.

[Trey Kirby]

Bobby.

[J. Skeets]

I think it could have gone to another guy or two, but Bobby's in here. Maybe he'll surprise all of us. Let's show you the odds because Con canipple Tass is the favorite. You already tipped your hand here. So he's plus three, 330. Then Lillard plus 410. Booker plus 550. And then Murray and Maxi plus 600. I just cut it off there after five guys. So you can take the long shots if you want. We know task is going knipple. You like the rook here.

[Tas Melas]

We got a rookie as the favorite in a three point contest.

[J. Skeets]

Guy can shoot the rock.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, absolutely. But to give a rookie.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, you're right. You're Right.

[Tas Melas]

As the favorite. Trying to think back.

[J. Skeets]

I'd like to go back.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

I don't know how many times a guy in his first three point contest wins it.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[J. Skeets]

I know it's happened, but I wonder how many times because it does feel that there's guys that have come back or you get a little more familiarity with the racks and stuff like that.

[Tas Melas]

Right. But this guy has been practicing. I've seen the tape.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, I haven't seen that yet.

[Tas Melas]

With. I'm not sure when it's from. It could be older, but I, I don't think it really matters.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Because he knows that that rack is going on the right side of him and he's ready, he's practiced, he knows. We heard Dell Curry, who's broadcaster for the Charlotte Hornets, he was asked, what tips would you give to conquer nipple. He said, make sure you know what side of you the rack is going to go. He knows, man, that's big. This is not to worry. Also, he said, you don't got to warm up too much because you got to get a lot of shots.

[Trey Kirby]

Don't waste your makes.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. And listen, Khan knows how to take care of his bod. I just think the way, the way that he's come in, he just, he's obviously a very assertive guy. The way he, he plays basketball, the way he gets after it. I watched him in summer league and I wondered, okay, is this going to translate? Is he going to play this hard in the league? He does, but I think he knows it did. And I think he knows how to take care of the bod. So all good. And make some money for your family. Who can bet on you at +330. Now, that is not inside information. You're just betting on a winner. It sure feels like that guy can win.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, you got con. You're a con head this weekend for sure.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you need a reason to get behind a player, it's easy that way. Rising stars. And then on Saturday, good rhythm. Done and done.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, it's great, man.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, it's great.

[Trey Kirby]

He's got a perfect release too. Like, very tight. Reminds me of Eric Gordon when he won. It's like very compact, very replicable. Good chance of winning. But this is Damian Lillard's NBA Finals.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, here we go.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, you're back in him. This is his one game this year. I'm going to pick Damian Lillard. What else has he been doing? Probably just shooting off a rack.

[Tas Melas]

Good point.

[J. Skeets]

It's a really good point. Has he Shot too much and he's trying to make history. I said this the other day. If Lillard goes on to win this, it'd be his third three point contest crown and that would tie him with Larry Bird and Craig Hodges for the most all time. Wow. Would still have a chance to even beat that I hypothetically. So okay, you're going Dame.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yep.

[Tas Melas]

Good one.

[J. Skeets]

Can tackle it like. Yeah, this is his season right here. Just to be different. I do like the other three guys on the board, I have to admit. I guess they're all Kentucky guards, aren't they? Yeah. Give me Devin Booker because he's won it before. He think he's made a final in another one before and he like is the worst shooter this season of the entire field.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

And a lot of people have pointed that out, us included. It's like oh my God, there's like eight guys on the Suns that shoot better from three. It does not matter. Guy can still shoot.

[Trey Kirby]

These will be the easiest looks he gets all year.

[J. Skeets]

That's right. That's right. No double teams on these ones. So I'll take Booker at 550. Get some can make some more money off of him maybe.

[Trey Kirby]

I don't think this is a bet that's available but if it was, I would pick Donovan Mitchell to have the highest score from any record.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, okay. Okay. I like that. Like a first round or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which happens a lot too. We see someone put up a monster first round and then they like don't put up a great final round.

[Tas Melas]

This is eight shooters somewhere.

[J. Skeets]

Eight shooters, top three advanced to the final and sometimes we have tiebreakers so that could come into play. All right. Shooting Stars. That's right. The NBA Shooting Stars competition is back in our life. Where are you? Chris Bosch? Where are you?

[Trey Kirby]

Where are you?

[J. Skeets]

Spurs rookie Dylan Harper and his brother Ron Harper Jr. And their father, five time NBA champ Ron Harper. Marquee family team. Is that safe to say the Harpers?

[Trey Kirby]

The Harpers, yeah, I guess. Ron Harper won a championship in la. Not for the Clippers, but for the Lakers. And he was a Clipper.

[J. Skeets]

If I'm not definitely a Clipper. Team All Star headlined by Scotty Barnes, Chet Holmgren, Rip Hamilton. Team Knicks, Jalen Brunson, Carl Anthony, Towns, Allen, Houston and team Cameron, which is all dookies. Jalen Johnson, Knipple again TAS. Are you going to be backing them for a third time? And Corey McGetty. Teams are given 70 seconds to score points by hitting shots at seven locations on the Floor each team member shooting in a set order at each spot. So, you know, look, it's a. It's a shooting comp, right? Moving around the floor, different spots. Got to knock them down. The odds they're out there. That's right. Team Nicks were the favorite when I checked last night, plus 190. Then the. The Duke team of team Cameron plus 240. Team all stars, plus 290. And then team Harper coming in at plus 330 for the two bros and dad there. Trey, I'll start with you on this one. Shooting Stars winner. Which team are you backing?

[Trey Kirby]

Well, I'll first start by saying that Team Cameron is pretty funny to put these Duke guys together, all of whom played one season at Duke. It was like a huge deal. When Corey Magetty, he was like maybe the first guy to leave after one season playing at Duke. I came off the bench.

[J. Skeets]

Am I crazy?

[Trey Kirby]

Johnson played 13 games.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. I thought Jalen Johnson and Duke didn't have the greatest relationship.

[Trey Kirby]

Maybe that's why it's Team Cameron. Yeah, Cameron indoor. Bob, go with the Knicks. Because I think Ron or I think Alan Houston is the best veteran shooter of the four guys who are here.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, okay.

[Trey Kirby]

I guess he looks great. I mean, I think Rip Hamilton is still in shape as well.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, he is. I think so too.

[Trey Kirby]

I am looking forward to seeing Ron Harper Sr. Out there, though he's not around that much. No, not nearly as much as some of these other guys. Like you see Alan Houston at Knicks games pretty regularly, I think. But not Ron Harper Sr.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, you're taking.

[Trey Kirby]

I don't remember him as much of a shooter back in the day either.

[J. Skeets]

That's a good pick. I mean, Carl Anthony Towns is an elite big man. Shooter for sure. Brunson's Brunson and then, yeah, Allen Houston, in theory, should be the best old guy. The old legend of the group. So it's a good pick. Are you going team Knicks or.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, it's hard not to take the Knicks just because of the shooters. Because Alan Houston, we know that guy can shoot. Although the under the radar team is, I think, Scotty Barnes, Rip Hamilton and Chet Holmgren. I know Rip Hamilton's in shape. Seen him multiple times. Shook his hand. That hand, that handshake. Seems like it's in extremely good shape.

[Trey Kirby]

Strong grip.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. And we also lit a fire at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant when I was in London with him in the year 2018. He's ready to shoot, man. But it's difficult to take Team Cameron and Corey Mcgetty as you said about Ron Harper. Both. Both those guys. Ron Harper Sr. And Corey McGetty. Not shooters.

[J. Skeets]

No, not really.

[Trey Kirby]

Cory will get to the free throw line.

[Tas Melas]

He's a free throw line man.

[Trey Kirby]

Who's gonna set screens for r. Worry about.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, and he's a three. He wasn't really a three point shooter, but whatever.

[Trey Kirby]

Who's got the half court bomb?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, he's got the bomb.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, the Cat Houston Brunson combo. It's hard to bet against best three.

[J. Skeets]

Point or half court shooter of the entire bunch. That's a. It's like very tough question to answer.

[Trey Kirby]

Getty's jacked, so he's got the distance, no problem.

[J. Skeets]

You can easily get it there.

[Tas Melas]

But you look at.

[J. Skeets]

Scotty's strong as hell. He's very strong. I could see Scotty hitting a half court.

[Tas Melas]

You know what? I wouldn't be surprised to see Jalen Brunson do it. He either. Yeah, I mean he's Jalen Bratson.

[J. Skeets]

They are professional. They can do it. I mean if we can hit an FCOURT shot. Not on camera, but we can. The cameras are off.

[Trey Kirby]

Wow, this is. This is interesting. Towns has never made a half court shot in his NBA career yet. Okay, 0 for 7. Scared to take them.

[J. Skeets]

People say, wow, I am going. You got.

[Tas Melas]

So what are you going team next?

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, I'm going to switch it up. I'm going team All Stars. I'm going to back our guy Scotty Barnes and Chad Holmgren and Rip Hamilton. I believe in Rip Hamilton. We're gonna find out if Rip Hamilton is a better shooter than Alan Houston right now.

[Trey Kirby]

All right, I'm hesitating here, man. Jalen Brunson never hit a half court shot in his NBA career either.

[J. Skeets]

Damn.

[Trey Kirby]

One zero for one.

[Tas Melas]

That's surprising.

[Trey Kirby]

Just one scared to take him.

[J. Skeets]

What about Scotty Burns?

[Trey Kirby]

Let me check, let me check. I'm literally just looking at the basketball reference like a half court.

[J. Skeets]

It used to be called heaves, but.

[Trey Kirby]

Now they updated it to half court. Oh, Scotty's knockdown. One for 14.

[J. Skeets]

Hell yeah. Oh, he lets it rip.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, he'll shoot it. Yeah, no problem.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Podcast Host 1]

You've never been one to settle, stand down or stand still. You're a lifelong learner, energized by excellence. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. You've got competition to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to meet. Stop now. Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always had the drive. Now go earn the degree. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella Edu to learn more.

[Tas Melas]

This is Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman.

[J. Skeets]

From Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. Here's your reminder to stay hydrated today. Honestly, I needed that reminder.

[Tas Melas]

I'm feeling a little foggy.

[J. Skeets]

That might be your body telling you it's time to rehydrate.

[Tas Melas]

Wow.

[J. Skeets]

Subtle brain fog is one potential sign of mild dehydration. Surely you didn't forget Already?

[Trey Kirby]

Okay, maybe for a second.

[J. Skeets]

But I know the other potential signs are thirst, nausea, fatigue, headaches, irritability, and.

[Trey Kirby]

Of course, dark pee.

[J. Skeets]

There you go. And Liquid iv, sugar free is clinically.

[Trey Kirby]

Demonstrated to hydrate faster than water alone.

[J. Skeets]

And is an excellent source of five.

[Trey Kirby]

Essential vitamins like B3, B5, B6, B12, and vitamin C. That's a lot of clinical talk.

[J. Skeets]

Because science Liquid IV is backed by scientific advisory board, real experts. Are you saying we're not real experts? I'm saying you're an expert at picking the best flavors. Sugar free strawberry watermelon or white peach.

[Tas Melas]

Wrong.

[Trey Kirby]

Sugar free mango pineapple is clearly superior.

[J. Skeets]

No matter what. The flavored Liquid IV is here to help you with everyday extraordinary hydration. Stay hydrated and stock up on Liquid IV at liquid-iv.com use the code NUTHOUSE for 20 off your first purchase. Dunk contest. This is our final event on Saturday night. Gotta throw night in quotations. These guys are gonna be dunking at like 4 o'clock in the afternoon local time.

[Trey Kirby]

You're saying that too early to dunk?

[J. Skeets]

It's too early to call it night. Yeah, it might be too early to dunk. I'm a little gun. Yeah. Um, but we got four new participants, and I hope you're sitting down for these names. We got Carter, Bryant, Jackson Hayes, Keyshot Johnson, and Jace Richardson. If you just say the last names, you might get excited. You're like, oh, I mean, rest in peace to the late great Kobe. But you're like, oh, Brian Hayes. Oh, Elvin Hayes. He's done. He brought him back. Johnson. I mean, that could be Jaylin Johnson, for crying out loud. And obviously Richardson could be his dad, Jason. But no, we got some newbies here. As always, respect to these guys for going in it, trying to put on a show. We'll see. Expectations could not possibly be lower for this. This might be. It might be the weakest field we've ever seen and we have had some brutal ones. But this has got to be there, right?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, this was. This is a really tough. Because at least with like, okay, Jaime Hawkes was in a dunk contest.

[J. Skeets]

Like, what?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, you can go back and you can find Jaime Hawke's high school dunk contest footage. And he can fly like he's doing cool moves back in high school. So I tried to replicate that with all these guys, and I don't even think they were in dunk contests in high school.

[Jamie]

Really?

[J. Skeets]

Keyshot Johnson is not in a dunk contest.

[Trey Kirby]

I mean, at least not videotaped. It was tough. It was tough to find.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

But a lot of. A lot of nice two handers from all these guys.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I mean, Jackson Hayes probably has, like, the best. Best tape of dunks.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

He does them in East Bay.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. In game. Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. You brought up a good. A good point about the photo we've got of Jace Richardson. He ain't even dunking.

[J. Skeets]

No, it looks like he's rebounding.

[Tas Melas]

He's doing a rebound, but he hasn't had the. The.

[J. Skeets]

Had a handful.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, he hasn't had him.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, yeah. It's like the. The fast break variety, obviously, and they were barely dunks. They looked like Kyrie Irving dunking to me. I'm sorry. I. I have very low expectations for Chase Richardson. I hope I'm wrong, man. Jace, shut me up, but. Who you taking? Who are you taking?

[Tas Melas]

I think it's Carter Bryant.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Tas Melas]

Feels like the most athletic guy coming into this season, so I think he can carry it into a dunk contest.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Tas Melas]

He's my guy.

[Podcast Host 1]

Carter Bryant.

[J. Skeets]

Fair enough.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. I like keyshot Johnson and Carter Bryant in the finals.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Those are my picks. I'll go keyshot.

[Tas Melas]

Okay.

[J. Skeets]

I'm with TK on this one. I'm going keyshot for no real reason.

[Trey Kirby]

He had a nice reverse this year.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, good.

[Trey Kirby]

They did, like, a best dunks. Keyshot Johnson's best dunks from the first half of this season. I'm guessing they put all of them in. Yeah, but one was nice.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

He's got a windmill on a fast break. That was okay. And he had, like, a. Like I said, a reverse that was, like, maybe on a tip dunk, so it looked pretty sweet.

[J. Skeets]

What did you guys make of reports that Mack McClung was saying. The league was saying, like, a lot of guys didn't want to go in the dunk contest if they knew you were going back in it. He was recently talking about this like, he was getting. It almost sounded like they kept, like, calling him back. They're like, all right, man. We sort of want you in it, but maybe this player won't go in if you're in. Oh, okay. Okay. Like, I don't know. That's what he said. I believe him, too.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, I believe because, like, I don't.

[J. Skeets]

Want to go in. That guy's gonna jump over a million things.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

What's gonna jump over now?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, it seemed that way when he was asked about it a few weeks ago. Why he wasn't going in? Because he said that he's got four great Dunks prepared and that he was gonna release video of it it after the dunk contest. So he's going to show us that he could have won it.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Let's see what you got, man. Like, I know he would never do this. He seems like too nice a guy. Probably is appreciative of the NBA in the league, but, like, he could have like a simulcast, like, or a simultaneous dunk contest going on during this. Like, you would get millions of views.

[Tas Melas]

Yep. Wow. Like the super bowl halftime show.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, basically he could do that, but not nearly as shitty as that one. The. The other one, not the real one. Yeah, yeah. Just saying he won't do it, but I guess he'll just drop him right after the contest.

[Tas Melas]

If he did it at the same time, he couldn't do that. So disrespectful to the league where he's.

[J. Skeets]

Played millions of it.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

The Turning Point USA Dunk contest starring Mac. I don't think he.

[J. Skeets]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Trey Kirby]

Unfortunately, he's the perfect guy for that.

[J. Skeets]

Sunday's All Star game. We go to the granddaddy of the ball, this one. We got some news with this one. Yesterday, spurs guard de' Aaron Fox was selected to the All Star game as an injury replacement for Giannis. Fox will play for the USA Stripes team. Miami's Norman Powell, who has ties to Jamaica, his father, I believe, born in Jamaica, will move over from the USA Stripes team to fill the open spot on the team world roster. I'm sorry, I can't even say this with a straight face. I know all of this sort of stupid. I can't believe how the USA Stripes. But Kat and Norm, they both found their way to the world team in the end. We were wondering for months how they were going to handle that, and they got there in the end. So the USA Stars team is basically the younger American stars. USA Stripes team is sort of the older heads like your LeBron's and your Kevin Durant. I guess those are Kawhi. I guess those are the main old guys of the bunch. And then World team, obviously the international guys. There's the odds TAS USA stripes the favorites to win this thing. Plus 155 on FanDuel World plus 160 USA stars plus 200. Where are you going? And let's hear. Well, I can just show you. Let's show you the MVP odds as well, because here are your favorites right now. You've got wembanyama, the favorite, plus 410. And then it's a big fall off. Jalen Brown plus 900. Tyrese Maxey plus 1000. Booker Brunson. Jamal Murray plus 1100. So I want the winner and an MVP from you, sir.

[Tas Melas]

Well, the USA Stripes is going to win this thing, get their stacked, and they've got guys who want to go out there and be the All Star mvp, like Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brown. There's a Jalen Brunson out there. There's Kawhi Leonard. He's won it before, playing in his home arena. He gets to sleep in his own bed and get out there and play. I'm taking team Stripes. I think that's okay. Wow.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, that's. And that goes with your thinking of, like, playing later. You've brought that up. You don't like the first game. That's world versus USA Stars. Winning team takes on the Stripes. Losing team then takes on the Stripes in the third game. And then we get to the final.

[Tas Melas]

Definitely worried about guys playing a game and then having to sit there and rest because it happened last year. It's easy to forget what that All Star game was because it was very much a concert in between. There's so many things happened in between the games. We were lied to. I shouldn't say lied to, because Joe Dumars of the front office, NBA. NBA head office came in on our show. Not came in, zoomed and told us that they've got it taken care of. There's not going to be these big gaps. He didn't really know. He just said, they'll take care of it. And we saw Mr. Beast. We saw TNT. It was way too long. So I do like the fact that.

[J. Skeets]

You think they're going to get quicker this year.

[Tas Melas]

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because this year, unlike last year, when they could just go long with the TV broadcast, there's Olympics to show up.

[J. Skeets]

That's right, my man. That's right. Heart out. It's a great point. They need to stick to the schedule a little better. So hopefully that means less time between breaks. Okay, so you have the USA stripes. The OGs, let's call them. And you had your MVP.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. I'll go, Donna.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. Donovan Mitchell.

[Trey Kirby]

Come on, man.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, I was scooped out. I was gonna pick the Stripes and.

[Trey Kirby]

I was gonna pick Donovan Mitchell.

[J. Skeets]

You can still do it.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, but it's not as fun.

[Tas Melas]

I'll take Jalen Brown. I'll take Jalen Brown. I don't have him. Okay. I mean, Mitchell wasn't even on the board for odds.

[J. Skeets]

No, I know.

[Trey Kirby]

He's plus 14. Hundred.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Least he.

[J. Skeets]

A little shocking. Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Okay, so you are taking the stripes and Donovan Mitchell.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, Trey. Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

First thing I'll say is I did really like Kevin Durant calling out Nicola Jokic and Luka Doncic. He's like, you don't think us old guys are gonna play? Ask the Europeans why they don't take it seriously. Nobody ever brings them up.

[Tas Melas]

We do.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, we do.

[J. Skeets]

Kevin Durant.

[Trey Kirby]

We bring it up every single time. I also wonder, is Luca even playing? He hasn't played, what, the last five games?

[J. Skeets]

My gut says.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. So another name down for the the World team. I do like that Victor Wembanyama came out and said, I'm gonna play hard. So they're like, well, he's the favorite for mvp.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

He actually cares.

[J. Skeets]

He did play hard last year.

[Trey Kirby]

He did play hard last year.

[J. Skeets]

Than most.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Tyrese Maxey's on the stars.

[J. Skeets]

He is.

[Trey Kirby]

All right, I'll pick the stars and Maxi.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Going with the little speedy guard. Hit a bunch of threes. Yeah, we can.

[Tas Melas]

We can edit that part out. And you can do it first, and I can do it.

[Trey Kirby]

It's all good. It's nice to have some variety.

[Tas Melas]

I will. I will say this about Durant's comments about Team International. Yanis De Campo wanted USA versus the World. He was super pumped to play it. He tweeted about it.

[J. Skeets]

Let's do this.

[Tas Melas]

Like last year.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

There wasn't a. An image that someone created of Luca and Jokic and all that. And then he was asked about it at a press conference. He said, oh, yeah, I would love Luca, Nicola, Jokic, and Shay and me on the same team. And no disrespect to other guys, I can't think of off the top of my head who's being very, very, very respectful to everybody on the team in rc. But he wanted to play. And watching these guys play in person, There was one guy who does get down and ready to play defense in these games, and it's Giannis. So he can't play, unfortunately.

[Trey Kirby]

But that's the disappointing part.

[J. Skeets]

Three guys if Luka doesn't play that they're now missing. SGA is not playing in this game. He actually sort of takes this thing a little bit more serious. Or it did last year. You brought up Giannis. That's a good point. And then maybe Luka, now, he doesn't take this serious at all. So that's probably. That's a positive. Positive for Team World. That's who I'm taking, baby. I'll take the World Team in the end and I'll take Victor Womenyama. I won't overthink this one. If. If they win, he's gonna go, sorry.

[Tas Melas]

Why is that a reason to take teamwork?

[J. Skeets]

Because Luca sucks in these and doesn't give a huh. So he's probably not gonna play.

[Tas Melas]

Okay, so that's good. So the rest of them are good.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Because that means more minutes for Jamal Murray, Denny, Avdia, whatever. Just like trying harder.

[Tas Melas]

Okay.

[J. Skeets]

It's really gonna come down to what does Jokic do?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, that's the problem.

[J. Skeets]

Is Yogic gonna lollygag his way through this?

[Jamie]

This.

[J. Skeets]

The funniest outcome would be to me. Carl Anthony Towns or Norman Powell winning mvp.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

For Team World. Because then people will be like, what the hell, man? You're sort of American, are you not? Are you. Are you okay? Whatever. Cat could. I could see. I could squint and see Cat putting up a ton of points. Hit a bunch of threes, bunch of easy buckets around the room.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, yeah, Janice did mention Cat on playing on Team World because I guess Janice just knows everybody who plays for their. Their country. And yeah, Cat always plays for Dominican Republic. Norman Powell is playing for Jamaica next year. I looked it up in the World cup qualifiers. Great. So that's cool with everybody. I. Well, Donovan Mitchell I think is going to win MVP this year because he can win it on Team International next year because he's going to play for Team Panama eventually, as he said. So yeah, that's. That's another reason. But I don't like the. The stars just because they got Anthony Edwards. When you're mentioning the guys that don't.

[Trey Kirby]

Play, he is third from last for winning. Oh, wait. No, he's not. These are not sorted.

[J. Skeets]

What is by odds.

[Trey Kirby]

He's plus 2000. So yeah. That's sort of pretty low though. Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

In a game like this.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

And like, Maxi would have to be awesome.

[J. Skeets]

We gotta remind people, like, this is not east versus west. 48 minutes here. Like, these are like quick 12 minute games. Quick twelvers. Like, and I hate this. It bugs me to no end. Like Curry was the MVP of last year's All Star Game. He scored 12 points. He's got 12 points in the final game because it was like to 41 or whatever the hell it was. He hit like four, four threes and that was enough. Had a couple steals. You know, it's like I. I just can't stand that. It just like ruins it for some reason, for me, I don't know.

[Tas Melas]

Is it better for you that they're playing 12 minutes this year as opposed to a number playing to a number.

[J. Skeets]

Number. Maybe it's gonna be still. How many points is the. The MVP gonna put up in the final game?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, that's nothing to do with me.

[J. Skeets]

Maybe 20, right? Maybe. That's a lot.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

So, Wemby, good luck to you, sir.

[Trey Kirby]

Do you think they'll follow Feeba rules where if you play for one All Star nationality, you can't ever switch teams? He'll be stuck as a USA player forever.

[J. Skeets]

Here's the real question. Will we have this exact same format next year in Phoenix? Will we have USA Stars and Stripes in world?

[Trey Kirby]

Exactamundo.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Exact d Mundo.

[Trey Kirby]

I don't think so.

[J. Skeets]

I don't either.

[Trey Kirby]

But we haven't had James Jones campaigning telling us it's going to be good. They would roll Joe Dumars out there every year.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Have Joe go out and tell them to play hard.

[Tas Melas]

They're gonna play hard. And then they don't play hard. Oh, God.

[Trey Kirby]

James Jones is like, I ain't doing that.

[J. Skeets]

The back to basketball. Indianapolis here. We'll never, never be topped. We're going back to hardcore competitive basketball. East versus west. And it was the worst All Star game we had ever had. It was like 211 to 94, whatever the hell it was.

[Tas Melas]

I think they find a way to get multiple countries involved somehow. It's kind of difficult to do, but you can get Canada, Canada, us, Australia, a bunch of the. Serbia, like a five on five kind of.

[J. Skeets]

I don't know. My gun says this is just, just for the Olympic year here. That we're buying the international flavor.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Maybe we go back to something else.

[Tas Melas]

But they're copying the Hockey4Nation tournament from last year, which worked awesome with a Finland. You know, they. I think we can find a way. I don't think we can find a finished team for NBA.

[J. Skeets]

No.

[Trey Kirby]

Mika. Mika Muran and.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, get Mika Mirin and. Yeah, play him.

[Trey Kirby]

We want to see him. We want to see him playing. Let him in the dunk contest. Why not that the new Remus Kurtinitis. Check our shorts.

[J. Skeets]

Nice. Good poll. Lithuanian legend. Apparently he played in the nbl. I saw people tweeting at us.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, maybe he's the coach of. He's the coach of Lithuania's national team.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I think he shaved his mustache though, unfortunately.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, terrible.

[Trey Kirby]

It's the 80s.

[J. Skeets]

So here's what we're going to be doing this weekend, guys. We're going to be watching all this stuff live. So we are going to be having some fun hanging out here in the classic factory. Hopefully we'll be your second screen as you have it on your own screen or your own television at home and you got us on the laptop or whatever. 5pm Eastern All Star Saturday watch party plan is we'll watch it all together and then turn around and do a quick podcast after to recap it for all you podcast listeners. And then we'll do the same thing on Sunday with the actual All Star game that also starts at 5pm Eastern. And we'll do that. We'll watch it live together and then we'll flip that into a podcast after because then we have a few days off next week because there's no games on. So a little bit of a break for no dunk. So join us on the weekend or obviously make sure you subscribed wherever you download and listen to our podcast. So you know when you when those drop on the weekend, you think we're.

[Trey Kirby]

Going foraging again this weekend for some mellow mushrooms.

[J. Skeets]

I've been thinking about that mellow mushroom pizza since we had it. It was good at the trade deadline.

[Trey Kirby]

That was pretty tasty.

[J. Skeets]

Look, I'm down.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, I'm down at least one of the days.

[J. Skeets]

We gotta get it.

[Tas Melas]

I'm done. I actually had. That was the first time I've had it since coming to Atlanta. And then I had it a second time on the weekend.

[J. Skeets]

You already had it a second time.

[Tas Melas]

Wow.

[Trey Kirby]

You gotta taste this pizza.

[Tas Melas]

Was that somebody's house? Who? That's their staple.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Tas Melas]

So nice. It's so good to share a photo. I took a photo of it. Those pepperonis were curly.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, very nice. Okay, we gotta take a break. Holy crap. We're running long. But when we come back, we've got worst of the week nominees Rapid Fire. All that fun Friday night. I'm thinking that we just might try FanDuel's NBA Happy Hour. Now I'm riding shotgun in your car and we're hoping to make it to the promised land between 6 and 7:30pm Eastern because that's when FanDuel is dropping limited time specials to get you in the zone. It's not exactly in my Q zone, is it? It's totally in your Q zone, Ron. We just need a couple more dollars to get this thing really popping off. FanDuel boosts, bonuses and surprises, all designed to bring that Friday energy. Just like I'm bringing in this ad read. It's fast, it's fun and it's here for one reason. To kickstart your weekend before the first tip. So don't just, just scroll, check the app, grab the week's special and make your move before the shot clock runs out at 7:30. This ain't just another promo. It's your weekly pregame NBA Happy Hour every Friday, 6 to 7:30 Eastern, only on FanDuel, the official sportsbook partner of the NBA. It's time for worst of the week. Ladies and gentlemen, the worst of the week.

[Tas Melas]

The first nominee of three worst of the week nominees is the guy doing NBA game voiceovers on the NBA app because he knew nothing about Jaylen Brown. This is how he set up the Bulls Celtics game.

[J. Skeets]

First time all star Jaylen Brown and the C's.

[Tas Melas]

What is that? He's the finals mvp. He is the four time all star.

[J. Skeets]

First time all star.

[Tas Melas]

How does he not know that? How does he not know that?

[J. Skeets]

It's late at night, man. Voiceover works. He sounded tired.

[Tas Melas]

What are you talking about? He said that guy sounded older. Yeah, he kind of sounds like our old friend who came into the NBA TV studios.

[Trey Kirby]

Van or right?

[Tas Melas]

Van o'. Right. It does a little bit, but that's not him.

[Trey Kirby]

Gravelly.

[Tas Melas]

Anyways, he doesn't write that himself. Somebody writes it for him.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, true.

[Tas Melas]

Either way you should know that's his fourth time. He's. He's being this guy's finals mvp. Might be going to Turkey to fix his hair. That's what you should be saying about this guy. Just weird. Just. That's the NBA app. That's the most respected app for this game. You want integrity. You say that this guy's a four time all star.

[J. Skeets]

So you want Silver to find this guy $100,000. That's what you're saying?

[Tas Melas]

I'm saying it should be done.

[J. Skeets]

There'll be hilarious. Hilarious. Send Tas to all star weekend to the Silver press conference. Yeah. Adam, first question, first question. Everybody think it's going to be about tanking or what else? Anything else. And tassels, like what are you going to do about that guy that said Jalen Brown was a one time all star.

[Tas Melas]

You want premier exposures, Adam, you want everybody to do things properly on the NBA app? Yeah, that's a great question. Anyways, I think that is written for him probably, you know, just like at every TV station, sports TV station or. I don't think he writes it himself but if he did, that's even worse. You just go to his. To the Jalen Brown on basketball reference.

[J. Skeets]

Some intern wrote probably one time All Star.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, well, he says first time All Star.

[Tas Melas]

Exactly.

[J. Skeets]

First time All Star is.

[Trey Kirby]

This is Jalen Brown's first time as a starter, right?

[Tas Melas]

Ooh, maybe it's first time All Star.

[Trey Kirby]

You got to read the full copy.

[J. Skeets]

That's probably what it is.

[Tas Melas]

He missed the word starter. Okay, good point. Very good point.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

And this will be. This will be Jalen Brown's fifth time as an all. An All Star. So, yeah, there's no excuse that it was fourth and that it sounded like first. Anyway, you're right.

[Trey Kirby]

There could be a little bit more quality control going into these recaps.

[J. Skeets]

I'll say.

[Trey Kirby]

I saw. I saw a game a couple of weeks ago between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Sacramento Grizzlies.

[J. Skeets]

Hey, let me guess who won big.

[Trey Kirby]

Grizzlies win Memphis, of course.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Sacramento hasn't won in a month, so you're right.

[Tas Melas]

Second worst of the week nominee. This NBA writer had his laptop broken by a flying T shirt in an arena. A T shirt cannon in Phoenix broke our man Tony Jones, our former colleague at the Athletic, because it took out his laptop. This is Tony Jones tweet. He said, this T shirt shot in the canon toss in the fourth quarter killed my laptop. It hit the computer and then the computer hit me in the face. It scratched my beloved laptop clear across the screen. No story from me tonight. It can't do the story. And then a second photo, which is part of a tweet from Tony Jones showing his broken laptop. It got smashed by this T shirt.

[J. Skeets]

How the hell did this happen?

[Tas Melas]

How the hell did the laptop hit his face?

[J. Skeets]

That's a great question. What was he like? Was he like. It's like looking at his game story like this.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. Join us on YouTube.

[J. Skeets]

And then bang. T shirt K5. Like, that's the only way that could happen.

[Tas Melas]

That's weird. Yeah. If you want to see the broken laptop and SK's holding a laptop to his face, make sure you check out YouTube.

[J. Skeets]

I think it happened.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, but you're also sitting probably. Well, I don't know if he's in the second bowl in Phoenix, but it looked like he wasn't close to the court.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, I think he was probably in the. So first ring there.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, but that's a. It's a bomb of a T shirt.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah. I mean, those cannons are propulsive.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. They're getting stronger and stronger things. They're going to the upper bowl These days they are. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

So Tony Jones computer got broken. Damn. We broke it. We broke Tony Jones ankles once, you know.

[Tas Melas]

Damn.

[J. Skeets]

I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Tony. But we did beat you, didn't we? We sure did. That was Vegas. Was that Vegas? That was Vegas. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was a great game. That's probably the best game we ever played collectively.

[Trey Kirby]

That was a fun time.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, we. Great. We were.

[Trey Kirby]

Open that laptop to the face. So you think it broke his screen? Cause of the face? Oh, I mean, I'm thinking now if your laptop goes and then impact here into face.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Tony broke his own laptop.

[J. Skeets]

I don't know. I. I think if. If a T shirt fired out of a canon, obviously at pretty high speeds, just hit the back of your laptop up in the right spot. Obviously. I think it would do that. I think it would glitch out yourself if I punched one of your laptops right now. Like, let me hold up your laptop. No, thanks. Yeah. Even though it's weird coming from the other side, so. But the face part is strange.

[Tas Melas]

It is strange.

[J. Skeets]

Maybe. Maybe he means it. Well, no, I was gonna say, like, hit his laptop and then the teacher.

[Tas Melas]

Hit him in the face, but yeah, he said it.

[J. Skeets]

Let's get Tony on. Do good 30 minutes on this. Yeah, we got a lot of questions.

[Tas Melas]

Third worst of the week nominee, probably the blooper of the season from the Los Angeles Clippers because our guy Jordan Miller is inbounding the ball. And then you can see that Chris Dunn is just letting it roll. Cause there's 14 seconds left on the clock. You know, I mentioned time because he's trying to save time. So the clock doesn't start until he picks it up. But then he says, hey, Jordan Miller, you go pick it up. But he just inbounded Chris Dunn. You can't do that.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. Who do you blame there?

[Tas Melas]

Because, like, you.

[J. Skeets]

You want to blame the guy Jordan Miller, because he did the infraction. But it's sort of Chris Dunn, is it not?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Like he did inbound it to you, and then you just left it.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[J. Skeets]

Like you're already gone. So he just touched it and picked it up.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah. And then he had a brain fart. I. He must have had a brain fart. Not picking it up and deciding. You run the play. Jordan Miller. Or maybe not. Maybe just points at him. Grab that.

[J. Skeets]

Look at. Is that Chen good in the back pointing. You can't do that.

[Tas Melas]

That.

[J. Skeets]

You gotta do that. That's a real pickup basketball move right there to bring it back to pick up hoops. How many times have people done that? Yeah, nobody cares.

[Trey Kirby]

I just bring it up.

[J. Skeets]

Just bring it up. Exactly, exactly. Good nominees.

[Trey Kirby]

Really good.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Where would you go if you had to vote versus the week? You really didn't like this voiceover guy?

[Tas Melas]

I'll tell you, it's disrespectful. I think. I think the NBA as a whole, they're trying to improve. They're trying to. And they're trying to battle Instagram because this is a highlight league as. Absolutely. They're trying to battle because they voice. They use the voice of the broadcasters more. You know, they. They do that, which is nice. So I guess the funniest one is the last one.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Great.

[Trey Kirby]

Blooper.

[Tas Melas]

It's a bloop. That would have been a weekend whoopsie or whatever.

[J. Skeets]

Do you mind if I give a best of the week shout out?

[Tas Melas]

Oh, of course.

[J. Skeets]

Well, I think you'll like this one. I want to give a best of the week shout out to the good folks over at Blazer's Edge, the long running Portland Trailblazers blog. It's been around forever. Dave and his team over there are once again running Blazers Edge Night, which is their annual charity event where they help send thousands of local kids from the Portland area to see the Blazers play in person at the Moda Center. I love this. And they wrote yesterday though that the deadline for ticket donations, it's coming up next week and there's a lot of tickets that remain undonated. So I think this would be really cool if you have the means and you want to help out. Some kids see their first basketball game ever at times, maybe the only basketball game they'll ever go to. And you can actually just buy the tickets and they send a bunch of kids to this game. So they need. They got like a bit of a gap here to make up here in the final week. The link is in the show notes. Again, if you have the means, you can donate a ticket to help send a kid to the first NBA game. Turn a kid into an NBA basketball fan. That's pretty cool to me. So again, link in the show notes. They're like $13 up to like $24. You know, these are not expensive seats. So. Yeah, I just love how they always do this. Yeah. And they've sent a lot of kids to their first ever basketball game. That's cool.

[Tas Melas]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

Check that out if you can.

[Tas Melas]

Listen, I know we do worse of the week, but yeah, the best of the week are always better stories. And there's always. They're always lurking. Like, Tom Haberstrough broke down Tamani Kamara because he's the Blazers guy. Sideline reporter, whatever you call Tom or Tom Haberstroke. But he broke down tomorrow to money Kamara's stats with headband. Without headband.

[J. Skeets]

I saw that.

[Tas Melas]

That's, that's, that's best of the week analytics. That guy can score with a headband. Oh, yeah, that's what I told us. I believe him. Yeah, he's really good. The numbers are so different. Headband analytics is a thing.

[J. Skeets]

Of the night. Sponsored by oddsy0dd, Zed Y or Zy. Oddsy, let's call them. Thank you, Oddsy for sponsoring Whoa, boy. Tip of the cap to Drew Holliday and LeBron James. Two old guys putting up monster lines last night. But I'm giving it to Donovan Clingan. 23 points. Grabbed a game high 18 rebounds in the Blazers win. Shot 812 from the field, 7 of 9 at the free throw line. Dished out A career high 7 assists. Blocked 3 shots. Did it all in 31 minutes. Didn't have have a turnover to his name. Kling Kong.

[Trey Kirby]

Good game, Cling Kong. I'm a sucker for these videos where the social people from whichever team ask every player the same thing as they come in. And I saw one this week from the Blazers that was like, what do you know more about than anybody on the team? And Donovan Clingan said fishing and chipotle. And I was like, I love this guy so much. Now he's speaking to me.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, you already liked his game. Now he's truly near big boy grilling.

[Trey Kirby]

On the roof, blocking shots, dishing. And then he goes home and tries to catch a bass and eat a giant burrito. Great stuff.

[Tas Melas]

That was funny because he said fishing and then somebody else came into the shot and he said, what do you think I said for this? And the guy said, fishing goes. Yeah, that's right. High five. You know me.

[Trey Kirby]

He's just always talking about fish non stop.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yep.

[J. Skeets]

Donovan Clingan gets wo boy pick him. Standings. No game to pick from tonight. We are not picking the rising stars game because he sort of can because there's too many teams. What would we do? I guess we could have picked the celebrity game. Yeah, I don't know. Is there not. Is there a line on that? I'm not sure.

[Sponsor Voice]

I don't know.

[Trey Kirby]

I saw my first Sham's clip though. He was playing defense against somebody.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, I didn't see that one.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, I did.

[J. Skeets]

I saw one where he's hitting a bunch of shots. Okay. He's got a decent looking release.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Shoots. Okay.

[Tas Melas]

I saw the, the commercial bit for one where he's doing the thing on the phone. Puts the phone literally on the basketball floor, gets a ball and shoots.

[Trey Kirby]

Nice.

[Tas Melas]

He can do it all.

[J. Skeets]

So no game. And we'll take a little pause here when it comes to picking games for about a week or so because we don't get back to real basketball until next Thursday night. But here's the standings in February. I picked up a loss last night. I went with the Jazz. Yeah, there was for a good chunk of it. I thought they were going to cover and got a little out of hand at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm 4 and 5. So is Trey and Tas in the lead at 6 and 3. So yeah, nice battle here. It's still, we'll still have a decent amount of time once we get back. We'll have like a week.

[Tas Melas]

Seven nights.

[J. Skeets]

Okay, seven nights. There you go. There you go. So those are the standings in our pickup.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Trey Kirby]

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[J. Skeets]

It's the drop. Which means we always do rapid fire. I got the questions this week. These guys and JD have the answers. Let's get into it. First one. White Chocolate himself, Jason Williams, says Jared McCain needs to get his together and delete his TikTok now that he's on the Oklahoma City of Thunder. Okay, easy, easy, White Chocolate. But I want to know what's an app or service you probably should delete, but you won't.

[Tas Melas]

I won't delete the playback app, which is how we used to watch games together with fans. Two reasons, you know, I'm a little sentimental. And the second reason is it's gonna come back one day. I'd be in a different. A different form. Might have to Delete that one and download something else. But it'll be back. It'll be back. And it's just a good idea. It's. It's been an idea forever for people to watch games together, so it makes sense. And it was a good app. And I see it, and I see I don't need it. But you're staying on there.

[J. Skeets]

Keep it.

[Tas Melas]

And my bookmark is still there for playback on my. My computer. Still keeping it there. You know, it's on the little. Little bar. The bar bookmark thing. App. Think. No, no.

[J. Skeets]

It's unfortunate that it closed down for sure.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

What about you, TK?

[Trey Kirby]

I wrote down playback as well. I actually opened the app yesterday and all it does is just open and stay at a plain screen with our little swirly guy on it.

[J. Skeets]

Looks beautiful. It's a nice logo. It's a nice logo.

[Trey Kirby]

Nice looking app.

[J. Skeets]

You guys are really in sync here today.

[Trey Kirby]

Doesn't do anything. It doesn't do anything at all. But also, I guess Twitter, sure. That's just a time suck, but I'm going down with the ship. I'll never. There's no better way to get NBA news. No better way to say see random highlights, unfortunately. So yeah, man, I'm stupidly locked into this dumb app for the rest of my life.

[J. Skeets]

I just saw you recently started following account. I just did too. I think it's fairly new. NBA replays.

[Trey Kirby]

Yes.

[J. Skeets]

Underscore, I think at the end. Basically just leaning into like old cool clips from iconic games or big moments. Yeah. That's all it is.

[Trey Kirby]

That's it.

[J. Skeets]

And it's feels like a good follow if you're still on that app. Yeah. JD what's an app or service that you should delete but you won't?

[Jamie]

Yeah, I mean, I've basic. I've deleted playback. Sorry, guys. Sorry.

[J. Skeets]

That's all right.

[Jamie]

It was done. I thought it was done.

[J. Skeets]

It's done. You're right.

[Tas Melas]

I opened it again just to see it. It says for me, thank you for the great times.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, nice.

[Tas Melas]

Then it says, well, some other.

[J. Skeets]

Something unpredictable. But in the end. That's right.

[Tas Melas]

That.

[J. Skeets]

Be amazing. Play that.

[Jamie]

But my answer is probably Facebook. I mean, I'd never go on it, but it's like, how am I going to keep in touch with Bill from the starters? You know what I mean?

[Trey Kirby]

Sure.

[Jamie]

That's it. Like, that's my only real connection.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, we, we. We post all our stuff to our no Dunks Facebook page though.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

You know, it's not the biggest community over there. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jamie]

And you know, but I got family on there who I never see. So I don't know.

[J. Skeets]

I. I mean, I'm on Facebook probably more than any of us with maybe the posting to, to our page or just. I'm just on it more. You think X is bad or crazy? You think some of these other ones.

[Jamie]

Oh my God, it's so.

[J. Skeets]

There is the weirdest going on on Facebook. Like AI Slop and like obviously fake news. And like it's a minefield. Oh yeah, it's unbelievable. It makes X look normal. I'm telling you. It's like. And that's crazy. That's half all bots and all. Like it's, it's weird in Facebook. But then it's like, oh yeah, there's my, my friend's mom taking a photo of her plate of food.

[Jamie]

Right?

[J. Skeets]

Thumbs up to that. Yeah. Nice looking plate, Francis.

[Jamie]

Yeah, exactly.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

But if you linger on the wrong thing and you only have to like linger on it for a second or.

[J. Skeets]

More, and then it's like, here you go. You want more of that? Yeah.

[Jamie]

I got like girls riding mechanical bulls for like a week straight. Why am I stopped? I was like, what is this? Okay, all right, moved on. And then it was like nothing but just girls and mechanical bulls. And then I was like, okay, it's kind of cool, I guess.

[J. Skeets]

And then I'll tell you one, they got me on AI crap AI slop on Facebook though. Like those reels or whatever. It was like, it's in an NBA arena. It's obviously a fairly attractive looking woman and she's barefoot, standing, like, it looks like a reporter, like standing in the aisle. But it's like very, like, it's making it very clear. She's barefoot, right? And you're like, you stop. You're like, what the hell is this?

[Sponsor Voice]

Oh my God.

[Jamie]

And then like, oh, Bigfoot guy over here.

[J. Skeets]

Well, exactly, exactly. Now I watched it for 10 seconds because I was like, what the hell is this? And it's just AI slopping that's always trying to get me to watch.

[Trey Kirby]

Check these feet out.

[J. Skeets]

All these fake, you know, women with their feet out. Like, what the hell? I don't want this.

[Trey Kirby]

Fake women with their fake feet.

[J. Skeets]

It's so weird, man.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, Meta's. Meta's algorithm is too fast.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Cuz I, I've been trying to spend a lot more time on Instagram lately. Just a, just a goal of mine to be on Instagram more.

[Tas Melas]

But like, if you want, if you.

[Trey Kirby]

Watch two videos of Book recommendations. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. You're getting a thousand book recommendations from here on.

[J. Skeets]

And then it almost ruins it. You're like, I don't want this. Not to that extent.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I only wanted to learn how to draw a cloud for five minutes.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Trey Kirby]

For the rest of my life.

[J. Skeets]

Right. All right, Great answers. All right, next one here. I know I'm partially to blame for this, but we haven't talked enough about the Olympics, I think, on this podcast.

[Trey Kirby]

Right.

[J. Skeets]

We started talking about it that Monday morning show. We talked about the opening ceremonies and a few events, but we're one week in now. I just want to know what's been your favorite moment or story from The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

[Tas Melas]

Well, there was a moment of proud patriotism is. And it got me right at the beginning. An Italian speed skater was lacing up her skates. The arena was singing behind her. I don't know what they were singing, but she knew the words. She was singing along. It's her home arena, so it felt good. Then she got on the ice. Her name is Francesca Lolo Brigida. And she got the Olympic record, 3000 meter speed skating.

[J. Skeets]

She just won another gold.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, another one.

[J. Skeets]

She won a second home ice.

[Tas Melas]

Home ice.

[J. Skeets]

Her and her family. Big news because she got the little kid. Yeah, like a little toddler. Yeah, he seems like a crazy kid. He's a wild child, this kid. But yeah, she's a big deal. That's a good one.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, she was great. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

What do you got, T.K.

[Trey Kirby]

What happened yesterday? Well, in the snowboard half pipe, the South Korean, no border gown Choi took like a nasty fall and then went on to upset Chloe Kim. That was pretty cool. I also like the reemergence on my favorite app, Twitter, of the guy smacking his nuts into the game, these games. But I do like seeing it and listening to it. Now, that one's one that the algorithm can feed me as many times as possible cuz I'll always click in. But ultimately for me, Minions guy. Oh. Thomas Lawrence Guarino Sabate of Spain went through a lot of issues to be able to ice skate to a Minion song while dressed as a minion.

[J. Skeets]

But he did it.

[Trey Kirby]

They said he couldn't do it, but he did it. He got the copyright clearance and it was crazy. It's like just Minions singing a song, not like a Minions theme song. Literally Minion vocals pumping through the crowd while this grown man is dressed as a minion.

[J. Skeets]

Very funny to go back to your audience. Awesome guy. Crashing his nuts into the gate. Downhill ski clip. What is the Mount Rushmore of Olympic clips that every four years come around and you're happy about that? One is one. I'll tell you the other one. Sid Sixo getting upset about the ice dancing. Judges from way back in the day just watched it. Still a banger. It's still amazing. And then I'm sure we got find some other ones that we could add to that list, but. Yeah, you don't need to wait every four years for these is what we're saying. Sure, sprinkle these in every four months for all we care. What about you, JD Favorite moment or story from the Winter Olympic Games?

[Jamie]

Yeah. I'm not proud of this one. And this is a peek into my soul. It's along the same lines as the guy hitting his nuts on the. The barrier there. But I had a rough week. And I'm also. I'm gonna clear my throat a little. I had a rough week also. I love this country, but I'm Canadian. I root against the U.S. you know, and it's been a rough week. And I just watched our girls go down five nothing to the U.S. then I. U.S. hockey. Yeah, U.S. u.S. Hockey. All right. U.S. beat us. And then I needed a win, guys. And I was watching speed skating, and then Corinne's daughter walked into my life and crashed three times. And it was. I took such pleasure in that. I'm not proud of this.

[Tas Melas]

I'm not proud.

[Jamie]

I'm not proud. But I felt bad immediately after. But God damn, it was. It was very sweet to watch. Three times this girl fell. I love people falling down, too.

[J. Skeets]

You do? You do. You are on, right?

[Jamie]

My algorithm is full of that as well. Nobody got hurt, but, you know, this poor girl.

[Tas Melas]

So. She's American.

[Jamie]

She's American. And she felt three times, like in the relay and in her own race. Every race that I saw her in, within an hour, she crashed. And it was just brutal to watch. But I took such pleasure in it. And I'm a bad person. I am a bad person.

[Tas Melas]

But it didn't lead to a Canadian winning.

[Jamie]

I don't even know. I didn't even watch the end of the speed skating. I was like, okay, that's a win. Turn off the tv.

[J. Skeets]

Go to bed.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

I gotta say, it has been the greatest Winter Olympics for our Canadian team.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Do we even have a gold yet? I don't think so.

[Jamie]

I don't think so.

[J. Skeets]

Got a couple silvers and bronzes, but not the greatest one. Italy's got the Host country bump right now, man, they're at the top. Top of the standings in total medals. I know Norway has more gold, but.

[Tas Melas]

I thought Norway was up there. And my daughter kept telling me, no, it's Italy, it's Italy. I said, no, no, let's chill. Let's. Let's check the standings.

[J. Skeets]

Well, it all depends. You think? Yeah. You think the leader should be with gold at the top or total medals? Yeah, there always comes down to that. Final one here. Fun article from the Athletic this week that highlights how Michael Thompson, father of one of the greatest three point shooters ever in clay, is one of a handful of players to have made just 13 in their entire career despite playing at least one full season. This was a fun article. It's a pretty impressive list. I mean, you got Kareem Abdul Jabbar on the list. Shaq is on the list. Artist Gilmore, Dave Cowan's like, there's a lot of hall of Famers, a bunch of other guys too. But I want to know, what's something in life you've only done once?

[Tas Melas]

Well, I've only made my wife jealous of my electrician once because I said after my electrician came in, did his job, he laughed, left. I said to my wife, our electrician's a very good looking guy. She said, whoa, excuse me, I'm a little jealous. She got a little envious of her electrician. Little spark. Yeah, he was very good. Very good. Yeah, he's just, he seemed very. His look was very outdoorsy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not the clavicular guy, but, you know, he's.

[Trey Kirby]

I got a lot of, Got a lot of clavicular in my algorithm right now. Looks maxing.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

But boots, beard, long hair, Ankin fix a radiator.

[Jamie]

That's the most attractive quality, let's be honest.

[Trey Kirby]

Handy.

[J. Skeets]

What did he fix?

[Tas Melas]

Actually, he was unable to fix it, but because he just doesn't fix. We have, we have a unit just.

[J. Skeets]

Like we have actually just looks on his.

[Tas Melas]

No, it's difficult to do. No, it's not his fault. I'm looking at the unit here in the garage. We also have one of those.

[Jamie]

Air conditioner.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those in our garage. Yeah. He's not an H Vac guy.

[J. Skeets]

Okay.

[Tas Melas]

So it's not his forte. But I just want to see if there's an electrical problem. I, I tried to do it myself, but I just want to see maybe, maybe there's a way out, but there wasn't. It.

[J. Skeets]

So is it just.

[Tas Melas]

It might just be broken yeah, the.

[J. Skeets]

The.

[Tas Melas]

The electrical system on it. Like the motherboard thingy. Yeah. It could be fried.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. All right.

[Sponsor Voice]

Anyways, cool story, bro.

[J. Skeets]

Very cool story. I'd love to see a photo of this guy.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, let's see.

[J. Skeets]

How good. Did you sneak a quick pick? Keep it for later, you know.

[Tas Melas]

No, no pick. Yeah. Didn't ask him for one. Yeah. Come back for more.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. He's breaking things in his house, cutting corn. Oh, this lamp doesn't work. Suddenly, gotta call the guy back. You just plug it in? No, I don't think so. I tried. It wouldn't work. What about utk? What's something you've only done once in your life?

[Trey Kirby]

Winter Olympics tie in curling. Oh, Went to curling one time.

[Tas Melas]

Oh, yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Too much training. Too much training. Before they let you touch the rocks, I had to learn how to slide before I touch the rocks. I would love to go to a pickup curling. I'm sure those happen.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Where you're just. Just, you know, just throwing stones left and right. I felt like we barely got to play a game.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

And it was tough.

[J. Skeets]

It's so difficult. It looks easy, I think, you know, if you have any sort of hand eye coordination, you're like, oh, this will be easy. It is not.

[Trey Kirby]

No.

[J. Skeets]

To get that weight right, to get.

[Trey Kirby]

The weight right, to get the curves. And then even simple things like when you're watching curling, these curlers are just gliding on the ice, one foot only, slipping on their pads. Long push offs.

[J. Skeets]

Did you fall?

[Trey Kirby]

I don't remember.

[J. Skeets]

Take a little tumble?

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, I wasn't moving quick enough to be falling, probably, but I would like to go back.

[Tas Melas]

Super fun.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

Can't believe they have them here in Atlanta.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, it was. It was here. It wasn't in Toronto.

[J. Skeets]

It was here. Wow.

[Trey Kirby]

J.D.

[J. Skeets]

What'S something you've only done once?

[Jamie]

Camping with my family. Oh, I've been camping, you know, growing up and stuff.

[Tas Melas]

Stuff.

[Jamie]

But the four of us, we've just been camping once.

[J. Skeets]

Never again.

[Sponsor Voice]

Never again.

[J. Skeets]

How old are the kids?

[Jamie]

Too young. Probably two.

[Tas Melas]

Young.

[Jamie]

Pushed it.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

It was so much work.

[J. Skeets]

Right, right.

[Jamie]

You know, and it pissed down rain. And then after that, like, people are like, I don't want to go. I'm like, I'm totally fine with just.

[J. Skeets]

A bad first experience.

[Jamie]

It was a. Yeah. I mean, it was fine, but it's just like.

[J. Skeets]

Nah, see? Like a chore.

[Tas Melas]

Chore.

[Jamie]

This is so much just a chore.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah. But now you're like, you could have gone later in life. Yeah. Boys Are older. They could just do most.

[Jamie]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tas Melas]

Right.

[Jamie]

So. I don't know.

[J. Skeets]

You can invite Tass's electrician. You can help with the fire.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie]

Well, he doesn't. He sounds incompetent.

[Trey Kirby]

How dare you.

[Jamie]

Oh, he's all looks.

[Trey Kirby]

Listen, I'll sizzle. No steak.

[Jamie]

That's right. That's right.

[Tas Melas]

It's not an H. I didn't call the H Vac guy.

[J. Skeets]

Why didn't you call the H Vac guy? I guess it's a fair question. He would have fixed it, no problem. But I didn't want that guy in my garage.

[Tas Melas]

Guess how much an H Vac guy would charge versus hot electrician guy for just for his time?

[J. Skeets]

I mean, I guess it's twice as much. Maybe. I don't know.

[Tas Melas]

I don't know. Probably three times as much. It's way more.

[Jamie]

Yeah, but.

[Tas Melas]

But he would have fixed the problem.

[J. Skeets]

But at least I gave 150 to a hot guy.

[Jamie]

Exactly.

[Tas Melas]

It was a Honda.

[Jamie]

Just a Honda.

[J. Skeets]

Well, I guess he just shook it.

[Tas Melas]

I said, I'll give you a massage for the other 50.

[J. Skeets]

All right. What a story. That's rapid fire. Not so rapid, but hopefully it was a classic. Or helped make a classic at least. Before we go, we have one founding member to shout out a late addition to the team. We found him, but he's on the squad nonetheless. Let's give it up for Jason B. Hey, thank you, Jason B. Substack founding member. Never too late to become one. Guys, link in the show notes to either be a founding member or to just be a paid subscriber. Or just a few free subscriber if you want as well. But paid subscribers get ad free episodes of this very show. Email to them every day. So that's a big perk right there for $5 a month, in my opinion.

[Trey Kirby]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's a great percent.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty good deal. I mean, would you rather give a hundred dollars to a hot electrician that can't fix anything or. $50.

[Tas Melas]

Got a defendant for some reason.

[Trey Kirby]

We got to get in here to find fix something. Just like have the cameras running.

[J. Skeets]

The lights flickered yesterday during a show at some point. I don't know if anybody noticed.

[Tas Melas]

I just hit up our guy. He'll be back.

[Sponsor Voice]

He'll be here.

[J. Skeets]

Just keep the cameras rolling, J.D. whatever you do. All right, thank you, Jason B. And thanks to everybody that is already a paid subscriber to our Substack page. We really appreciate that. Coming later today are links and Recommendations that we try and drop every week. So that'll be hitting your email inbox later today. So keep your eye out for that, okay? If you are a Traders fan, we got a new no Buffs episode coming up at 1pm Eastern today. Had a new trader in the mix. We're gonna break that down with Nora here in the classic factory in the classic castle, as we call it, for no Bus. So join us at 1. No bus has his own podcast feed and its own YouTube feed. Go check that out. And then, like I said already, we'll see you guys again here on the weekend. No, no, no, not that. All Star Saturday night watch party at 5pm Eastern, taking in all the events here as your second screen experience. Come watch us eat mellow mushroom pizza.

[Trey Kirby]

Scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you for All Star Weekend?

[J. Skeets]

I am maybe as low as I've ever been.

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Which is crazy. You know, I love All Star Weekend and I still do, and I hope it shocks us, I guess is the best way to put it. But I am long, low, low expectations. I. I've said before. They. They got me last year. They did. They really got me.

[Trey Kirby]

It happens.

[J. Skeets]

They grinded me down and finally got to me. So I'm. I don't know. I maybe put me at a three.

[Trey Kirby]

Oh.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, okay. You're even lower.

[Trey Kirby]

No.

[J. Skeets]

Oh. Oh.

[Trey Kirby]

I was gonna say seven.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, I think I'm not, but you're. You're. You're making a good guess. You're making a good guess.

[Trey Kirby]

I'm judging it like an NBA dunk contest where the lowest you can go with six.

[J. Skeets]

Yeah, that's smart. Hey, you know what's fun? Our guy Bones, Brent Barry is going to be a judge in the dunk contest. And we had that scoop. Do you hear me, Shams? We had that. We sat on that because we respected our guy Bones and said, don't tell anyone this. We said, we got you, Bones. And see, now he can. He can trust us with more information moving forward.

[Tas Melas]

So.

[J. Skeets]

We should have tweeted it. Why didn't we tweet it? He wouldn't have cared.

[Tas Melas]

Who are the judges other than Brent?

[J. Skeets]

Dominique Wilkins, Brent Berry. I'm drawing a blank on the other ones. They're pretty good names. I think they're like Legends of the. Maybe.

[Trey Kirby]

Dwight Howard, Nate Robinson.

[J. Skeets]

There you go. There you go. Those are the four.

[Trey Kirby]

And then.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, and then we have a fifth that you could actually vote on. I saw either Drew, Ski Jesser, and. Sorry, one other lethal shooter.

[Trey Kirby]

And you could pick Tyler Tony. Dude, perfect.

[J. Skeets]

Oh, dude, perfect. The greatest athlete in the world. You could pick which one of those guys would be the member. Like the NBA member Id fifth judge. Remember we did that last year? They had a guy that's like a representative of the fan vote, I think. I think that's all they do. I don't think they actually vote. They're just there as a representative for us on our apps. Yeah. Okay.

[Tas Melas]

All right.

[J. Skeets]

I don't know who won the vote, but I'm saying you could literally vote on which of those.

[Trey Kirby]

Right. Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

I don't.

[Trey Kirby]

It's impossible to tell who won at this point. Stay tuned, man.

[J. Skeets]

Fanduel Odds on who won the vote to be the NBA member ID dunk contest judge. I'm gonna say, dude, perfect for no reason. Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

Okay. I'll take Drewski.

[J. Skeets]

Okay. Okay.

[Tas Melas]

I think that's the right pick.

[J. Skeets]

You think Drew Ski?

[Tas Melas]

Yeah.

[J. Skeets]

Depends how much they really got out there and tried to whip up the votes. Like, did the dude perfect community come together for Tyler? What? Tyler, Are we talking about did they or not? We don't know. My level of interest just went from a three to a four to find out on Saturday night. Who's sitting in that chair? Drew Skier Tyler. Hope to see you guys on the weekend and again, 5pm eastern there when we'll be going live. Till then, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up.

[Trey Kirby]

Love you guys. Awesome.

[Tas Melas]

Thanks for joining us. And remember, the content creators are at allstar Weekend because they surely burn an image into your brain. I voted for Drew Ski to be as one of the judges because he's. He's just. In my head, he's left a vestige. I've seen him so much. Right.

[Trey Kirby]

He's left a vestige.

[Tas Melas]

He has.

[J. Skeets]

Can't deny it. Yeah.

[Tas Melas]

You did it.

[J. Skeets]

Definitely. Tristan Jass hit a crazy court from the Concorde. A crazy shot from the concourse.

[Trey Kirby]

That's a far throw.

[J. Skeets]

It was a very far throw.

[Tas Melas]

Does it every year.

[J. Skeets]

And I go, he does it every year. He does it in every venue. And every time I watch it, and I go, I don't believe it.

[Trey Kirby]

You don't think that's not a one take wonder?

[J. Skeets]

Well, he's definitely not a one take Wonder, guys. No, no. I don't even know if it's real anymore. I can't trust anything.

[Trey Kirby]

That's a great point.

[J. Skeets]

Of course they could make that look real. It's a hell of a shot.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Trey Kirby]

I trust them. And I think lethal shooter never misses a jumper. I think that's all real.

[J. Skeets]

I I believe that one more for some reason. What a long drop. Podcast we'll see you guys for no buffs or we'll see you tomorrow for our watch party. Brace the day people.

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