Speaker 1: Now I want to get to the ongoing war words
Speaker 1: between JJ Reddick, head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: and of course mister Charles Barkley himself from TNT NBA
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer. By the way, let's not forget that
Speaker 1: it started in late December when a head coach for
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Lakers spoke about the media bashing the
Speaker 1: game instead of celebrating the game.
Speaker 2: Now, listen, before I even play you this.
Speaker 1: Sound, understand, there's a lot of people that's been saying
Speaker 1: stuff about the game of basketball. They've been talking about
Speaker 1: the NBA ratings have dipped even though they're doing quite well.
Speaker 1: They've been talking a lot about the product that they're
Speaker 1: watching on the court.
Speaker 2: And you've had people.
Speaker 1: In media thinking that the media has contributed to the
Speaker 1: demise of the game because the media is complaining about
Speaker 1: the game too much instead of celebrating the game.
Speaker 2: That prompted JJ Reddick to speak, which.
Speaker 1: Prompted Charles Barkley to come right back at him, which
Speaker 1: prompted JJ Reddick to say something else, and Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: to say something else.
Speaker 2: All of that is what I'm about to show you
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: Sit back for the next couple of minutes and take
Speaker 1: a listen and a look to this.
Speaker 3: If I'm a casual.
Speaker 4: Fan and you tell me every time I turn on
Speaker 4: the television that the product sucks, well I'm not going
Speaker 4: to watch the product. And that's really what has happened
Speaker 4: over the last ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 3: I don't know why. It's not funny to me. Nothing
Speaker 3: is entertaining to me. This game should be celebrated. A hey, JJ,
Speaker 3: Riddick says something about me, JJ, you better calm down.
Speaker 3: So when you come for the King, you've been not
Speaker 3: did he need you specifically or she's just talking about
Speaker 3: folks on TV. He said something about with the reason
Speaker 3: people are watching this praffic product we got yeah, like
Speaker 3: we know, jacking up one hundred threes. JJ, I don't
Speaker 3: know Jason Monroe. I don't know who that is. But JJ,
Speaker 3: you've come for the King. You've been not missed, and
Speaker 3: I can get you, brother, because I got Remember, I
Speaker 3: got your Lakers games. You can't hote them flalls they
Speaker 3: got if you just a dead man walking. They got
Speaker 3: rid of Frank Vogel, who did a good job. They
Speaker 3: got rid of Darburnham, who did a good job. If
Speaker 3: you came out there thinking you were gonna change things
Speaker 3: with that same ugly girl you want them to hate with.
Speaker 3: I'm jj Reddick. I can make this thing work. Please
Speaker 3: got being a professional. You come for me. You bet
Speaker 3: not missed. We're the reason ratings are down. We reason
Speaker 3: like we plan a hour listen shots exactly right. If
Speaker 3: men shot play, haven't, rating would be down. But in fairness,
Speaker 3: we'd be like the third or four best players on
Speaker 3: that Laker team right now. But it's Frank Vogel and
Speaker 3: Darburnham's fault. I don't follow nobody, but if you hit me,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hit you back.
Speaker 4: Make it always all the way through the clip. I
Speaker 4: gotta be honest with you. My arresting part grade is
Speaker 4: probably sixty four. I watched it. It was sixty four. Literally,
Speaker 4: don't care. I have other thoughts, but don't care.
Speaker 3: And the Lakers proved to what I keep saying, The
Speaker 3: Lakers think playing and simple. We have to talk about
Speaker 3: him because the media is infasciated with the Lakers. But
Speaker 3: the Lakers are not a good team. They got zero
Speaker 3: athletic ability. I mean when you watch him, Jason Kidd
Speaker 3: coach to masterpiece tonight, he like, we can go one
Speaker 3: on one and get any shot we want. They got
Speaker 3: a good shot every time. The Lakers could never keep
Speaker 3: him in front of him. This was a coaching masterpiece
Speaker 3: by Jason Kidd, because there's no way that team that
Speaker 3: the mass put out there, especially one winning by twenty.
Speaker 2: Couple of things.
Speaker 1: Number one to address JJ Reddick the person. JJ Reddick
Speaker 1: doesn't suffer fools, and he's a brilliant, brilliant basketball mind,
Speaker 1: very smart, very intellectual. Prides himself on being an intellectual.
Speaker 1: And so when JJ Reddick essentially an and that second
Speaker 1: sound of him saying, I have my thoughts, but I'll
Speaker 1: keep it to myself when he was talking about his
Speaker 1: art rate hadn't changed, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I can tell you what JJ Reddi's thinking about.
Speaker 1: He's thinking about film, he's thinking about analytics that he
Speaker 1: reads up on. He's thinking about the nuances of the
Speaker 1: game of basketball that ultimately made him a head coach.
Speaker 1: And he's saying he knows that it's something that Charles
Speaker 1: Barkley doesn't necessarily do. So he doesn't know more than
Speaker 1: I know. Please, that's how he's thinking about it. Charles
Speaker 1: Barkley is a bottom line kind of individual. He's a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer, he's one of the greatest players to
Speaker 1: have ever played, seventy fifth Anniversary Team, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: Olympic gold medalists, a member of the Original Dream Team,
Speaker 1: one of the great great forwards in the history of basketball,
Speaker 1: whose credential speak for itself even though he's devoid of
Speaker 1: a championship.
Speaker 2: And Charles Barkley is a results.
Speaker 1: Oriented dude that's looking at the Los Angeles Lakers team
Speaker 1: that ain't going no damn place, one that bounced out
Speaker 1: in five games in the first round last year against Denver.
Speaker 1: He's looking at those kind of things and he's saying,
Speaker 1: don't come to me with all of this technical, analytical
Speaker 1: stuff and all of that.
Speaker 2: You guys suck. Period.
Speaker 1: That's how Charles Barkley is thinking. Now, let me into
Speaker 1: the fray. First, on the complimentary part, I don't think
Speaker 1: JJ Reddick is doing a bad job. They're twenty and sixteen,
Speaker 1: their top six seed in the Western Conference, Okay, And
Speaker 1: I think that the things that are happening with the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Lakers are not of his doing.
Speaker 2: I think if he had better talent, he'd do better.
Speaker 1: The issue with that is one could say the same
Speaker 1: thing about Frank Vogel. One could say the same thing
Speaker 1: certainly about Darvin Ham. Darvin Ham, as he articulated just
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, came near his first year.
Speaker 1: He got him to the Western Conference Finals. After that,
Speaker 1: despite a bevy of injuries and other issues, they won
Speaker 1: the nd season tournament. They got the play in, went
Speaker 1: through the play in, got to the playoffs, and the
Speaker 1: only reason they got bounced out in five games and
Speaker 1: went home was because they were playing against the reigning
Speaker 1: NBA champions at the time, the Denver Nuggets, who had
Speaker 1: swept them in the Western Conference Finals the year before
Speaker 1: and took them out in five this go round. So
Speaker 1: when you're looking at Darvin Ham in the job that
Speaker 1: he did, you could easily ask why is.
Speaker 2: He gone now?
Speaker 1: JJ reddick what he has to own up to? And
Speaker 1: I don't fault him at for this at all. This
Speaker 1: is all on Lebron James. This part that I'm about
Speaker 1: to mention is all on Lebron James. How the hell
Speaker 1: you gonna have a podcast about basketball and the nuances
Speaker 1: and the expertise and the intricacies of basketball with JJ Reddick,
Speaker 1: who you knew was aspiring to be a head coach,
Speaker 1: and you knew you wanted your coach darphin ham out.
Speaker 1: How you gonna do that and think that ain't gonna
Speaker 1: look cool? Yeah, come on now, I mean Lebron James.
Speaker 1: That's the classic case of spitting somebody's face and saying
Speaker 1: it's raining. It's the classic case of somebody passing gas
Speaker 1: religiously fartening your damn face and calling it perfume. That's
Speaker 1: what Lebron James did. Let's stop that. But that's not
Speaker 1: JJ Reddick's fault. JJ Reddick was an aspiring coach. Only
Speaker 1: experience he had was coaching his son and you know,
Speaker 1: little league basketball, and he became the head coach of
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles. Like, let me stay for the record,
Speaker 1: not to throw any shade on anybody. I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you my personal belief, no inside information or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But if something walks like a duck and quacks like
Speaker 1: a duck, I'm not gonna call.
Speaker 2: It a mongols.
Speaker 1: When you offered Danny Hurley, I thought you wanted Danny
Speaker 1: Hurley as an organization until you offered him eleven million
Speaker 1: a year. He was a two time national champion, considered
Speaker 1: universally is arguably the greatest coach in college basketball at
Speaker 1: this particular moment of time since Mike Ryzewsky has stepped
Speaker 1: away from the game. Danny Hurley is that dude that
Speaker 1: you can and after all that success, you offer him
Speaker 1: eleven million when Eric Sposter, Greg Popovich, Steve Kerr, now
Speaker 1: tyd lou and others were all getting paid over fourteen
Speaker 1: to fifteen.
Speaker 2: Million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Come on, now, you wanted Danny Hurley that badly, you
Speaker 1: come up with more money than.
Speaker 2: Eleven But they didn't do that.
Speaker 1: And so because they didn't do that, the belief was
Speaker 1: you really didn't want them.
Speaker 2: You just used them.
Speaker 1: As cover to get the guy who you really wanted,
Speaker 1: which was JJ Reddick. But you wanted to gloss over
Speaker 1: that because you didn't want Lebron James and the Lakers organization.
Speaker 1: Look what so bad for wanting JJ Reddick all along?
Speaker 1: After Lebron James had made it so obvious that he
Speaker 1: was looking for a new coach other than Darvin Ham.
Speaker 2: That is the belief period. There's nowhere around that.
Speaker 1: Having said that, back to JJ Reddick in Charles Barkley
Speaker 1: in terms of what JJ Reddick said about the media,
Speaker 1: And I was watching Colin Cowhert because I happened to
Speaker 1: respect the hell out of Colin Cowherd at Fox Sports.
Speaker 1: He's my former colleague, he's my colleague, my contemporary, my
Speaker 1: former colleague at ESPN, and he did an outstanding job
Speaker 1: as a radio for years for ESPN Radio. I've always
Speaker 1: considered us at ESPN suffering a loss by losing Colin Cowherd.
Speaker 1: And I forgot the name of the guy that's with him.
Speaker 1: Jason's something I remember correctly. And he was talking about
Speaker 1: how tnt you know they messed up the game of
Speaker 1: basketball because they're so ultra critical. I call BS on that.
Speaker 1: When guys deserve to be celebrated, they celebrate you. When
Speaker 1: guys deserve to be criticized, they criticize you. Charles Barkley,
Speaker 1: Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neill are exceptional. The Emmy
Speaker 1: Award winners, they're the A listers, They're class beside the five.
Speaker 2: They don't get personal.
Speaker 1: They're just talking about your game and what you put
Speaker 1: on display, and if that's what you put on display
Speaker 1: as a product.
Speaker 2: They didn't blame the league.
Speaker 1: I'd say you could blame the league because of the
Speaker 1: rule changes that were incorporated and the fact that you
Speaker 1: took defense. You compromised defense to a strong degree by
Speaker 1: the way you compromise the posing defenses because you wanted
Speaker 1: to be more viewer friendly, you wanted more offense. You
Speaker 1: wanted to, you know, basically bring more Europeans into the game,
Speaker 1: and by doing so, you also incorporated more three point shooting.
Speaker 1: And when people are doing all of that and you
Speaker 1: see post trokes jacking up thirty forty three's a game
Speaker 1: that's not the most attractive thing to see period.
Speaker 2: It's not a crime to point that out.
Speaker 1: Maybe they go a bit obsessive with it because they're
Speaker 1: having a good time and they're having fun. But the reality,
Speaker 1: JJ is that sometimes I'm not talking about the Lakers,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about overall. Sometimes we watch the game and
Speaker 1: it sucks. And here's where JJ hurts himself. JJ knows
Speaker 1: that's true. JJ can bring up the modern day game
Speaker 1: compared to old school, and I get all of that.
Speaker 1: It was far more physical in the eighties and the nineties.
Speaker 1: The athletes weren't as great as they are today. They
Speaker 1: didn't run like Zell's the way they didn't do today.
Speaker 1: They didn't do a lot of things. I get all
Speaker 1: of that, but it doesn't take away from the fact
Speaker 1: that the game at times is less attractive than it
Speaker 1: once was. And it certainly doesn't take away from the
Speaker 1: fact that sometimes you look at dudes and you are
Speaker 1: questioning their effort, whereas before you didn't, and because you
Speaker 1: couldn't because players would have to go out there and
Speaker 1: earn their money, because the rules in terms of you
Speaker 1: getting your money didn't work in their favor. If they
Speaker 1: didn't put in that work, you certainly didn't get the
Speaker 1: endorsement dollars and the endorsement deals that you ultimately are
Speaker 1: able to get now if you didn't have success attached
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: So people like JJ.
Speaker 1: Who's been around long enough to see it, and along
Speaker 1: with the Cat, the crew at TNT, they.
Speaker 2: All know it.
Speaker 1: It's not that they're right every time, but their points
Speaker 1: are not to be summarily dismissed.
Speaker 2: And so to blame the media. And this is another
Speaker 2: thing too.
Speaker 1: And this has nothing to do with JJ Reddick and
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with T ANDT. This is about
Speaker 1: these these these idiots social media. Everybody's a hater. You
Speaker 1: think we fools. You're just doing that because you're creating clickbait.
Speaker 2: Oh he's a hater. Somebody disagreed it. Y'all had a discussion,
Speaker 2: and it's the word destroyed this person, destroyed this person
Speaker 2: when all you're doing is to create a headline and
Speaker 2: drawer clicks.
Speaker 1: But then it goes a step further because you got
Speaker 1: former players that come out and they go like, yo,
Speaker 1: you know what, always hating on the brothers. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're playing against a brother and I'm pointing out a
Speaker 1: brother bust your ass? How the hell am I sitting
Speaker 1: up there hating on the brother? How am I not
Speaker 1: supporting the brother that whipped your ass?
Speaker 2: It don't make sense.
Speaker 1: But this is what people do, and so we have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to that and see that for what
Speaker 1: it is. That's the reality of the situation. We've had
Speaker 1: a height level of sensitivity. People come up with all
Speaker 1: of this kind of shit to put to bitch and
Speaker 1: moan and complain about instead of dealing with the real issue.
Speaker 1: Are players playing as hard? Are they as committed? Do
Speaker 1: they take care of their bodies and their conditioning?
Speaker 2: In the off season. Do you earn your money? Are
Speaker 2: you committed to earning your money?
Speaker 1: Do you come back with the next season with the
Speaker 1: same game you had last season, the same level of
Speaker 1: conditioning you had last season, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Do you do anything to improve. That's why we should
Speaker 2: marvel at Lebron James. It's not because of his dunksist
Speaker 2: game whatever. It's because of age forty.
Speaker 1: Still from age seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty all the way
Speaker 1: to forty, Lebron James always is ready conditioning wise. He
Speaker 1: doesn't cheat the game, but JJ.
Speaker 2: There's quite a few people who do.
Speaker 1: So JJ's not totally wrong because we should heighten our
Speaker 1: level of sensitivity in terms of excoriating the game. That
Speaker 1: don't mean we got to put blinders on and ignore
Speaker 1: what the hell is seeing.
Speaker 2: And I think that's important to say.
Speaker 4: Hmm.