Speaker 1: Since I've spent so much of the last three years
Speaker 1: talking about the Brooklyn Nets, it only seems fitting that
Speaker 1: my new Year's resolution be about Ben Simmons and being
Speaker 1: nicer to him. Really, it's sort of simple. The things
Speaker 1: that Ben Simmons did that drove me insane are mostly
Speaker 1: in the past. He's a product of other people trying
Speaker 1: to fit a square peg into a round hole. And
Speaker 1: you know what, that's not what the Nets are doing
Speaker 1: right now. They're using Ben Simmons like the type of
Speaker 1: tool he is. Since he got back onto the court,
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons has been, let's be honest, like very good,
Speaker 1: very good, like great, kind of great. And he's a
Speaker 1: huge reason that the Nets are the hottest team in
Speaker 1: the NBA right now besides Jaques baughd. How good has
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons been of late. He has and the nets
Speaker 1: best net rating on the team plus twenty one point seven.
Speaker 1: He has the best defensive rating on the team one
Speaker 1: oh six point six. And get this, folks, Ben Simmons,
Speaker 1: Ben fucking Simmons, This is insane. I had to check
Speaker 1: and recheck. Has the highest offensive team, highest offensive rating
Speaker 1: of any starter on the Nets, one twenty seven point nine.
Speaker 1: Highest total rating, highest defensive rating, highest offensive rating. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that this team has Kyrie Irving and Kevin
Speaker 1: fucking Derant? The question is houseway? How lee it to
Speaker 1: Kyrie to explain it? He said, I think he could
Speaker 1: probably answer that better. But it's me as a teammate
Speaker 1: just seeing him smile, have fun, be competitive, that's him
Speaker 1: being himself. So anytime he could just be himself and
Speaker 1: trust that we have his back, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the best version of himself. And you know what think, Thanks,
Speaker 1: Thanks Ben, I'm going to make this resolution. I'm happy
Speaker 1: for you. I'm happy for Ben and when Ben is
Speaker 1: playing like this and more importantly, is healthy, because that's
Speaker 1: important as well. The next team could be very dangerous.
Speaker 1: They could be very very hard to be moving forward,
Speaker 1: and I've been okie doked by them before. But I
Speaker 1: think this is a real team. I think this is
Speaker 1: a team that could actually compete for a chip. I
Speaker 1: think everybody in the East is very vulnerable, even in
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics. We saw them lose the Orlando Magic twice.
Speaker 1: And you know what, my New Year's resolution, my biggest one,
Speaker 1: really is to be happy for Ben Simmons and to
Speaker 1: be nice to Ben Simmons and to find reasons to
Speaker 1: praise Ben Simmons, because why, this is a man who's
Speaker 1: broken and he needs every piece of help that he
Speaker 1: can get, and this is a version of Ben we
Speaker 1: can get behind. My final New Year's resolution is aimed
Speaker 1: at two players, Rudy Gobert and Grayson Allen too least
Speaker 1: like players in the NBA. Most likely my resolution, you're
Speaker 1: gonna say, Trista, are you gonna be nice to them?
Speaker 1: You're gonna be is your resolutions to just say nice
Speaker 1: things about them, find things that they do well, Fuck no,
Speaker 1: it's to point out every time these fuckers do something
Speaker 1: things stupid because I feel they get the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt way more than they do, even though no
Speaker 1: one likes them. This year, I resolved to absolutely positively
Speaker 1: not change my mind on Rudy Gobert. Everyone tries to
Speaker 1: tell me he's a defensive Player of the Year. Everyone
Speaker 1: tries to tell me he's actually a nice guy. He
Speaker 1: just made a mistake during COVID times. Everyone tries to
Speaker 1: tell me, you know what, he's just not being used well.
Speaker 1: Everyone tries to tell me that Donovan Mitchell is a problem,
Speaker 1: But you know what. No, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it is Rudy Gobert. Rudy Gobert fucking sucks. Everything about
Speaker 1: him sucks. His face sucks, his hair sucks, his body
Speaker 1: makeup sucks. His defensive although he plays okay perimeter defense,
Speaker 1: he's just not that guy. He is not worth the money,
Speaker 1: he is not worth the trade value. He is just
Speaker 1: not really worth the breath that's coming out of my
Speaker 1: lungs right now. But you know what, I'm doing it for, y'all.
Speaker 1: Fuck Rudy Gobert. Part of that is the reason that
Speaker 1: he tries to spend so much time trying to change
Speaker 1: our mind that he's not a jerk. He is. There's
Speaker 1: a full blown documentary about him not being a jerk.
Speaker 1: And you know what, when you do that, that shows
Speaker 1: you are said jerk. Recently, Donovan Mitchell, as we know,
Speaker 1: gave his views on Rudy and let's just say what
Speaker 1: this like, he's doing it than he can to keep
Speaker 1: the peace. But he doesn't like Rudy Gobert either. No
Speaker 1: one does. One of the reasons I like Donald Mitchell
Speaker 1: very very very very nice but very honest guy. And
Speaker 1: then of course after he said like yeah, it was
Speaker 1: all about COVID. That's when I really started to not
Speaker 1: like him. Gobart's PR team went into crisis mode again,
Speaker 1: got him a feature article on the New York Times.
Speaker 1: What got Did Donald Mitchell get a feature article in
Speaker 1: the New York Times? No caa Cia is Donovan Mitchell's agency.
Speaker 1: He couldn't get a feature article in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: even though he's having an MVP caliber year. But Rudy Gobert,
Speaker 1: toiling away in Minnesota with one of the worst trades
Speaker 1: in NBA history, just doing absolutely god nothing gets a
Speaker 1: feature article in the New York fucking Times. I digress.
Speaker 1: It was the fluffiest of fluff pieces. Here's what Rudy says.
Speaker 1: A lot of people celebrate my failures. A lot of
Speaker 1: people celebrate my failures. It's kind of a mark of
Speaker 1: repet for me, just to have people that wait until
Speaker 1: I do something wrong or until my teams start losing,
Speaker 1: then they become really, really loud, And when my teams
Speaker 1: do well, it's quiet again. Pause, hold up, stop the
Speaker 1: press right now. People shit on you all the time,
Speaker 1: even when you win, they're shitting on you. No one
Speaker 1: likes you when you're winning because you can't win when
Speaker 1: the lights are bright, Rudy, That's why we don't like you. Continue,
Speaker 1: he says. He embraces that because it's part of the
Speaker 1: external noise that comes with all the success that we've
Speaker 1: had in Utah over the last few years in his career.
Speaker 1: Once I start to have success, when I started winning
Speaker 1: Defensive Player of the Year All NBA, begin an All Star, brag,
Speaker 1: brag brag. When my team when we started winning like
Speaker 1: fifty games and stuff, the people on social media are
Speaker 1: always the loudest. Pause. Pause Again, You're saying all hate
Speaker 1: stems for your success and not because I don't know
Speaker 1: you shut the league down, your stance on COVID, the
Speaker 1: fact that you liked of Elon must tweet about your
Speaker 1: pronouns being prosecute fauci, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Back to the point,
Speaker 1: we finally get to the entire point of the fluff piece,
Speaker 1: which was to address how Donovan Mitchell told the truth
Speaker 1: about Rudy, and Rudy says this, I think it was
Speaker 1: a tough situation for me in Utah, just like it
Speaker 1: was a tough situation for him. Things happen, and sometimes
Speaker 1: people can do things to you that can hurt you,
Speaker 1: a lot of times, it's out of fear, you know,
Speaker 1: So you just have to grow through that and see
Speaker 1: past that. Rudy was then asked, yeah, you mentioned people
Speaker 1: do things that will hurt you. Do you mean Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell and he goes, I mean generally that's life, right, right,
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, just psychoanalyzing just the general society when
Speaker 1: we're talking about Donovan Mitchell shitting on you in the
Speaker 1: most classy way. Okay, victim, Rudy, Rudy's the victim. Everyone
Speaker 1: hates Rudy for no reason. We're just all being gas
Speaker 1: let that Rudy's just this awesome guy and that everyone
Speaker 1: doesn't like him for no fucking reason. Okay, Okay, So
Speaker 1: my's my resolution is to never take the boot off
Speaker 1: of his neck, because you know what, he's gonna do
Speaker 1: everything he can to weasel out of all the bad
Speaker 1: things that he does and try to spin it into
Speaker 1: something good for Rudy. Which brings me to Grayson Allen,
Speaker 1: maybe the other person in the league that I like
Speaker 1: less than Rudy Gobert. He's probably in the running for
Speaker 1: top two least like player in the NBA by fans,
Speaker 1: by players, all of it. So in a game this
Speaker 1: week against the Bulls, Grayson Allen did Grace and Allen
Speaker 1: things when he always does it against the Bulls. He's
Speaker 1: a fucking relentless menace against the Bulls because remember he
Speaker 1: almost hurt Alex Crusoe last year and Alex Cruso had
Speaker 1: to make a whole thing out of it, and then
Speaker 1: he didn't shake Alex Scruzoe's hand, and then he didn't apologize.
Speaker 1: You guys remember this, But he's doing something against and
Speaker 1: against the Bulls. So Grayson Allen did Grayson Allen things
Speaker 1: and cheap shot at the Mardro's and in they in
Speaker 1: the head. Are you shocked? I am just absolutely shocked.
Speaker 1: I am beside myself. You could just flip me over
Speaker 1: with a feather right now. This is what he said.
Speaker 1: Here's what DeRozan said. I felt a hit. I felt
Speaker 1: like it went across the middle. I felt like I
Speaker 1: went across the middle in a football game and tried
Speaker 1: to catch a slot route. So he cheap shots him
Speaker 1: in the back of the head, straight from Grayson's playbook,
Speaker 1: and DeRozan, of course, he was pissed, so after the
Speaker 1: game he said, yeah, it's his track record. If it
Speaker 1: was Boban, I probably wouldn't have done nothing. Can't tell
Speaker 1: you how much I love tomar Derozen simultaneously just slamming
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen and praising Boban. I love Bobon we all do.
Speaker 1: He's just like an absolute treasure. Zach Levine. By the way,
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon is now attaching to a possible Mavericks trade,
Speaker 1: So you file that away in your tickler file. Well,
Speaker 1: Zach attacked the entire He watched the entire charade. He
Speaker 1: said this, Ah, yeah, we know Grayson Allen's track record.
Speaker 1: Pat got the foul, but Tamar got elbowed in the
Speaker 1: back of a head. Damar responded the right way. The
Speaker 1: next twenty minutes, you saw what happened. Yep, Bulls came back.
Speaker 1: They won the game in part because they were pissed
Speaker 1: about Grayson Allen. Grayson out there cost in bucks wins
Speaker 1: they very much need right now because the bucks don't
Speaker 1: look very good right. What did Grayson have to say?
Speaker 1: Probably nothing if you included the if your answer included
Speaker 1: the word bullshit, yeah, just not taking any accountability, because
Speaker 1: that's Grace and Allen Yep, here it is. You go, Grayson,
Speaker 1: tell us what you said. It was exactly what the
Speaker 1: video showed. I went to set a screen, got bumped
Speaker 1: into Jamarro, and when you get bumped into somebody, you
Speaker 1: put your arm out to stop yourself. I didn't try
Speaker 1: to run him over. I mean he was upset he
Speaker 1: got blindsided by a screen. Dude, you're using the word
Speaker 1: blindside to describe a basketball play. You are at fault
Speaker 1: when you get when you hit someone in their blind spot,
Speaker 1: that is a one percent cheap shot by you. And
Speaker 1: then he says this. They asked him, hey, did you
Speaker 1: apologize tomorrow, like like you were supposed to do Alex
Speaker 1: Crusell last year, and he was like, well, I was
Speaker 1: trying to He's talking to somebody else at the time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I just never spoke of him.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what happened. It has never spoken them
Speaker 1: out to play. So the answer is no, No, you
Speaker 1: did not speak to him. There's another Grayson Allen making
Speaker 1: an excuse about why you didn't take accountability, Why I
Speaker 1: didn't apologize, Why isn't his fault? It's just are they not?
Speaker 1: Is Rudy Gobert and Grace and Allen just not the
Speaker 1: same person. They are the worst, They are the worst.
Speaker 1: What's that song like, this is why you suck? This
Speaker 1: is why you suck? Like this is one of those
Speaker 1: situations where Grace and Allen just needs to go trade him.
Speaker 1: Even the Bulls Collar commentary was like, Yeah, nobody deserves
Speaker 1: a one to two punch more than Grayson Allen. Just
Speaker 1: give him a two piece chicken nugget meal and get
Speaker 1: this chink thing out over with. And that's my final
Speaker 1: resolution for this New Year's edition of He Checked. My
Speaker 1: final resolution is to always cover these random kind of
Speaker 1: stories because I think this is what the NBA needs.
Speaker 1: I think this is what makes the NBA so fun,
Speaker 1: so interesting to follow. There's always great play, of course,
Speaker 1: there's always Lucas sixty. There's always drama like Travis Slank
Speaker 1: getting deep six by the Atlanta Hawks, And there's always
Speaker 1: gonna be guys we all hate. We want to find
Speaker 1: ways to just affirm our amount that we hate them,
Speaker 1: so love and love and happiness and hate kind of
Speaker 1: New Year's resolution episode. And there's always gonna be cheap
Speaker 1: shot artists like Grayson Allen and when they do Grayce
Speaker 1: and Allen things. I'll be here to call them out.
Speaker 1: That is all the time that we have for the
Speaker 1: heat Check. We will be back Monday. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we're gonna be back Monday, maybe Tuesday for an
Speaker 1: all new episode. Check out the feed for past episodes
Speaker 1: and many episodes which drop almost every single day. Do
Speaker 1: not forget to follow us in twenty twenty three. Trade
Speaker 1: deadline is just around the corner, folks, and the All
Speaker 1: Star Game, which I need to get my credentials for.
Speaker 1: Do not forget to download subscribe. Please tell your friends
Speaker 1: and follow us on social at this heat check and
Speaker 1: atest to crick on TikTok. Thank you guys, and I
Speaker 1: will see you back in studio next Monday