Pacers/Thunder Finals Set, WNBA Heat Check and Haliburton Hate with Robin Lundberg

Published Jun 3, 2025, 4:00 AM

The Finals are set! Trysta kicks off the episode recapping the Pacers’ series-clinching win over the Knicks and the road that led to an unlikely Pacers vs. Thunder showdown. She also get's into Danny Ainge hiring his son, the Bucks looking at lottery picks and the Raptors and Suns getting active. 

Then she’s joined by broadcaster Robin Lundberg for a wide-ranging convo on the Caitlin Clark/Angel Reese discourse, team outlooks across the WNBA (Wings, Sky, Lynx), and where the W goes next under its current CBA.

They also get into NBA storylines: Haliburton’s reputation among his peers, SGA’s foul-baiting debate, and how the East stacks up vs. the West. And to wrap things up: their top 3 greatest rappers, underrated hip-hop artists, and favorite concerts they’ve ever been to.

Follow Robin here. 

Subscribe to the Heat Check YouTube and follow Trysta here

Indiana, Oka see just what every pundit and Adam Silver and all the casual fans were hoping for right the top, like the bottom five markets in the United States, the fan bases that are passionate but small and rabid, but doesn't exactly draw the sexiness that say a New York Knicks and an l a Lakers per se would draw. But you know what, I don't give a fuck because I'm a basketball fan and I want to see the best basketball I can. I think we got it. A couple of stories from around the league, and we also have a special interview with Robin Lumberg from Sports Illustrated. A lot happening. Drop that motherfucking beat that should be Rihanna.

You're listening to the Hottest, the Hottest. It'd be a podcast out here. I said what I said, it's the check.

Check to the Knicks. They get Game five right, and they're rolling, they're high. Everybody's like, ooh, the Pacers. The Pacers are the ones with all the pressure on them now because if they lose at home to the Knicks and they have to go back to MSG, YadA YadA, YadA. And I even said it myself. Listen, you don't want to go back for a game seven. That's what happened to Reggie Miller in the nineties. He also didn't enjoy that. So they're like, Okay, what's this going to be? Like, the Knicks have swag, Karl Anthony Towns has unlocked something. The Knicks defensively have figured out. The Pacers they thought, or maybe just the Pacers rice cold hard to know unclear, right, So then the Pacers go ahead and do what they do best, slowly, methodically, before you really know it, like a frog slowly boiling in hot water. You're down six, and then all of a sudden it's impossible for you to win. You're down fifteen. You make a change in your rotation and they exploit it, and all of a sudden, this night night's sleep mask, no cracks, just great defense, timely shot making, and the team that was fifty to one to win it all now as a chance to make history as the longest shot in NBA history to win a championship, and they I think they believe they can win. I tell you what. I texted somebody from the Pacers organization in the front office and I said, Yo, I'm so happy for you. Congratulations, you get your flowers. Love you. This is amazing all this, You know, you'd think like, oh, trist thanks, appreciate you, blah blah blah. Yeah, this is incredible, incredible run right. No. All I got back in response was four more, four more. They think they can win this, they think they can get OKAC, and there are some reasons why they might not be wrong, and we'll get into those second. While a lot of people are up in arms about this matchup, I am stoked. I am over the moon. I think this could be one of the best basketball finals in a long time. We're gonna see a team that's never won a title win a title. That's pretty freaking cool. You have an OKC team that has been great for long stretches. They haven't been to a final since Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were there. They run twelve deep, they've got two bigs, they've got perimeter defense in spades. They've got timely shot making. But guess what, Indiana also plays great for long stretches. They also run very deep. They also can play physical, lockdown defense. They also have a guard who has the ability to change the dynamic and the game and put the historyonics on it, put the extras on it, like he did showing up for Game six in all black on black on black suit to say, listen, it's time for you to go to sleep. And that was actually quick side road hilarious because we had Ben Stiller getting on too social media and said he said, I'm glad he brought his Duffel bag so that he can come back to MSG something like that, travel back to MSG. This is I'm butchering this. And then Tyrese Halliburton responded after the game and he said, no, I brought a Duffel bag so I could pack your ass up. Oh, I could pack your ass up. Bars anyway. Pacers plus five hundred to win the series. Plus five hundred is crazy, very similar Oka see the last three OKC will be favorites for the fourth straight time. How do I think this series plays out? I just don't think Indiana's getting the respect that they deserve. I really don't. Nobody's been giving him a shot this entire road, this entire run. Even very smart basketball experts were like, I just don't think Indiana can get physical enough. I just don't think Indiana can beat this Cleveland Cavaliers team. The Cleveland Cavaliers series, I don't even remember. I was like fanost for the Cleveland Cavalier series. I forgot until the second recounting what was going on. I haven't even thought about the Cleveland series in weeks. It's it's just Milwaukee New York for me. That's how unbothered Indiana was with Cleveland. You've got Siakham, You've got Hallie, you've got Turner right, and you can sit those guys for long stretches of time and you're not gonna get blown out in the way that New York did when they sat out Brunson, when they sat when when Minnesota sits out Aunt Edwards. They are not reliant on their stars to score, to be even in the game, to be impactful, to be healthy in order for them to win game. By the way, what is Denver without jokis nothing? Because you got TJ McConnell doing his damn thing, you got Obi Toppin doing his damn thing. You got my man, Benedict Mathern. They've proven that they can handle big moments. Nothing is new to this team, and they're playing a team in the finals with even less experience. In the postseason than they have. Right, you might say, oh, okay see, okay see is like a juggernaut. Okay see has been proven, has has shown how gritty they were. I'm sorry last year when did okay see? Did they Did they go to the finals? No they did not. Did they go to the Western Conference Finals? No they did not. Did they take it to seven against the Dallas Mavericks, No they did not. They absolutely did not. And if you're an OKC fan, you gotta be happy with a few things. When the Denver Nuggets were up on Oka See multiple games down, they're down, their backs are against the wall. Baby, in the fourth quarter, the Thunder responded not once, but twice in two separate games, with barrages of threes from guys that you don't expect, like Jalen Williams, like lou Dort hitting three consecutive threes. If lou Dort doesn't hit those three consecutive threes when he was basically benched for a minute from Mark Dagnoll, no shade uh. Denver's in the finals, not okay see. So they have the ability to now pull themselves out of these holes, which I'm really happy to see because until you see it, you will not believe it. Right, coming off of a forty two point loss against Minnesota, they respond they are healthy. Pretty much, everyone is healthy. That's a good thing. If the thunder though, have an achilles heel, it's that they aren't that great. On the road against Memphis, they probably should have lost. Well, they definitely should have lost game three. They were down by a bajillion and they could have easily lost Game four if John Moran doesn't get hurt. Okay, so that's two of their road wins. They lost two of three games on the road to Denver, should have lost all three again LOUDRT madness. And we're one and one on the road against Minnesota. So although they're technically four and three, they could have easily lost all seven of those. That is something that Indiana is gonna keep in mind as they go to Okac for Game one and game two, because here's the thing, people, here's the thing. What they do against Cleveland boom boom bam. Right, things are scary already by the time you go to Indiana, Right, that's what it is. You're the fucking favorite, and you're like, yo, they just took two from us on the road. You serious, we gotta fight, in Claude, just get home court back. Yeah, get multiple games, just the home court. What is happening? Then they do it again against the Knicks. It is so difficult once you lose twice in a row your first games to be like, I don't know what we do now. I think Oklahoma City is more resilient than New York. I think they're more resilient than Cleveland. But don't fuck around and find out and go into an O two hole now when OKAC is rocking. Because Indiana is a very good road team, maybe a better road team than a home team. So that's something Indiana is going to be counting on. They are six and two also at home in these playoffs. OOI. And also let's give Kevin Pritchard, President of Basketball Operations, and Chad Buchanan GM and Herb Simon the owner because he's important. Just getting out of the way is all we want you to do, you know, create stability is all we want you to do. Your job as an owner is not hard. But somehow these owners stay fucking it up right, They just stay at getting in the way. They think they know more than the people who have just dedicated their entire lives to basketball. But hey, what do I know, I just talk on a microphone. So Chad Buchan and Kevin Pritchard deserve a lot of props for building this team and changing the culture pretty much overnight when they got Tyrese Haliburton. There's a long, fifteen thousand but jillion word article in the Player's Tribune that Miles Turner just put out that essentially states, as soon as Tyrese Haliburton got in the door, that franchise player lifted all ships. The rising tide that Tyrese Haliburton is instills confidence to everybody, extract the things that those players do well and exploits those is a great playmaker, has that tenacity and that verve and that fucking swagger, and the front office trusts him to be a partner in decisions for the roster. He's not just a stud that can get you a double double. He can get you when he assists, he can get you thirty points, zero turnovers. No, he's the kind of guy that says, yeah, I don't think we should re sign so and so I don't think that guy's worth it at all. We can spend that money on so and so and so and so. So they went out and got the quietest star in all of basketball, Pascal Siakam, when they told me, hey, we just need one more piece, and they did, just need one more piece. And they just keep adding to the coffers, little draft picks like Ben Shephard out of Belmont looking like the Ai Jordan Poole killing it, Ben Mathing out of Arizona, just making sure that they're a very deep team, which changes. Actually, these teams like okay See in Indiana have shown the new model. We've gone through these iterations. Right, it's the Big two, it's the Big three. It's like these studs that rise everybody. You need stars, but you also need a couple of role players. Now it's like you need stars, you need one guy I didn't get your buckets down the stretch, but you need like ten dudes that you can play heavy minutes because knowing that puts less pressure and less strain and less mileage on your stars, so they're fresh when they need to perform in these crucial moments in the fourth quarter. So the deepest teams, so deep they'll put your ass to sleep. Teams, they're the ones that are really thriving, and that even includes the New York next to a degree. They had like eight guys that Tom Thibodau didn't always want to use, but when he used them, then jel Alright did his thing. Landry Shammitt did his thing. Winner of the Eastern Conference Larry Bird Trophy Award for MVP's passouse Yakam. By the way, he had thirty, thirty one and thirty nine in the Eastern Conference Files. Three of the six games he put up thirty or more. It's fucking credible. I also love that Tyrese Haliburton thought that his little choke moment was good enough for him to get the Eastern Conference File Eastern Conference Finals MVP, No, sirs, just sit your ass back there and give it to Pascal. They said, it's my it's my ship now, or what is this like, I'm the captain now? They did all those memes. Just an awesome matchup for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that they are two small markets that have never won a title. And for me, as a basketball fan, that's just really cool. We are headed towards our seventh champion in seven years. And Adam Silver's parody and that new CBA is here to stay, all right. Moving on a couple of notes from around the league. So, the Utah Jazz just made a higher their new president of operations. Who could it be? Trista Who did they go out and hand select the brain trust over there in Utah? Who is just the shining star of the NBA that they felt compelled they needed to bring in to set the tone in the culture operations Stan, It's it's who It's excuse me, Austin Ahe Austin Inge, the son of Danny Ainge, the former GM of the Boston Celtics, current CEO of the Utah Jazz. That Austin age that Danny's oh icy got it okay, and no shade right Austin's apparently because I don't know Austin. I know nothing really about Austin except for people say he's good at his job. Not here at a dispute or to correct or to even validate that, because I don't know. What I am here to say is that when news dropped from regular newsbreakers in the league, none of them reported that, Hey, Danny Ainge just hired his son. None of them even like mentioned that it was like, congratulations to Austin Ange, new president of basketball operations for the Utah Jazz. It's like people think Danny Ange is still in Boston. I think it's a pretty big story. Hey, dad hire son again again. Austin has been working for himself for the Celtics since twenty eleven, and he sees the riding on the wrow wall. Baby, got Tatum down with the torn Achilles, You got moves being made, new ownership group. Things are a changing, okay, And Austin said, I need to go where it is calm, stable, rebuilding waters right. And so I went back and forth on threads with another media person who thinks when I threaded this, I was clickbaiting when I said, oh, he works for his dad again, like classic American white boy dream, right, you get you just you fail or things don't look great, just fly back to the cool baby. And somebody was like, oh, well, he's responsible for X and Y and Z, and he's great at his job, you know what. You know what, I don't care about that. I don't care because the question is, is Austin Ange the head of basketball operations If he's not Danny Ainge's son, probably not, Probably not. He will rise and fall on his merits, and then if he falls, he will rise again on the nepotism. That's how that goes. Then this lady said, you know, he didn't always work for his dad, right, He worked from twenty one to twenty five for the Celtics after his dad left. Okay, so let's do the math here. Danny Ainge worked as an executive for the Celtics from two thousand and four to twenty twenty one. He hired his son in Boston in twenty and eleven, promoted him multiple times, including to the head coach and later GM of the main Red Clauser G League team, and now he has hired him in Utah for the top job next to his We're really talking about whether Austin Ange is good at jobs or his job or whatever. Many children of Importland, people in any field, become good at their jobs when they're hired by their parents. But let's not sweep it under the rug. Okay, let's not pretend that's not happening here and just be like, oh, so and so age Austin Age. It's not really telling the whole truth, is it it's not really saying, hey, like kid gets hired by his dad again. And I know these newsbreakers are terrified of saying anything untour because they're probably getting the news from Danny Aingel himself, and Danny Ange would be fucking pissed if he points out any nepotism. But a I have to because I don't know Danny Ainge. It's ludicrous to me that this is not part of the narrative. I'm sure Austin is smart. I'm sure he's worked his ass off. I'm sure he put in lots of bleary eyed one hundred hour weeks. I'm sure he did all the unglamorous stuff that you need to do. But I tell you what, it's a lot easier to know what the road is to greatness when you can just ring ring ring and call up the top guy whenever you want and have turkey with them on Thanksgiving and then see if there's coal in your stocking on Christmas and pick his brain about how to rise to the top. And no middle manager or executive is going to give a guy with the last name age hell at all. It just will not happen. You fuck up. It's like, hey, you don't. Maybe you should talk to your dad about this. So, yeah, nepotism played a role. He may even be a Hall of Fame or someday, I don't know. A lot of sons of NBA players and execs are really good. Also, by the way, Michael Malone, son of a coach, Eric uh Eric Adelman, David Adelman, Eric Adelman's son, also son of a coach, both former head coaches and a current coach of the Den Ruggets. And you can be very successful, but we still see the name and we know, hey, that's what happened. You just can't pretend like someone started didn't start on third base. We have to just like at least put it into the footnotes. Anyway, moving forward, a couple of small morsels of news before we get into our Robin Lundberg interview. Robin Lundberg, we have confirmation that the Milwaukee Bucks are kicking the tires on their lottery picks on lottery picks, which I think is pretty interesting considering that this team doesn't have a pick until the middle of the second round. The father of a probable top ten pick said that the Bucks called him and wanted to set up a meeting, which is really interesting because if you look at their roster, there's only one player who could command a top ten pick, and that is yannessh It's not Portland because we have the eleventh pick. So we know that. And today the rumors were flying that Toronto is open to going after Yannis Wo and Masai Yugieri. The GM of the Raptors is committed to going all out the season and BI was just the beginning, he said, BI was b I was just the beginning. Okay, b I insert that on James Ooh be it anyway, The Toronto Star reports that the interest is mutual, is it? Joannis wants to go to Toronto to that team that's drafting night. He wants to go there with b I okay, the other guy that loves to have the ball in his hand at all times. Okay, And Scotty Barnes, the other guy that loves to have the ball in his hands.

And RJ.

Barrett, the guy that loves to have the ball in his hands. Oh, I don't believe that for a second. Also, finally, the Phoenix Suns have narrowed their head coaching search down to one team and two coaches. Cleveland Cavaliers Zachlow said. The funniest thing, by the way, he said, the Sun search has basically been narrowing the list of candidates day by day with a tweet. The Sons are looking at eleven candidates. The Sons have reduced are listed to nine candidates. There are five men in the running for the Sun's job. Now there's two, and we finally know their names. Guess what that is? All I wanted from the Sacramento Kings. This is Zick. I know that the Sons are gonna fuck about, but at least I'm a part of the narrowing. You know. It's not like, oh, the Sons have hired so and so. It's like we've got eleven. We've now done the survivor thing. It's your time on the island has now come to a close. Like what's put your torch down? Unlike your torch, you know, damn it, whatever it is. Whatever, you know what I'm saying, dem your torch, he said, The tribe has spoken it's time for you to go. That's less exciting than I thought it was. I thought it was something about snuffing out your torch. Anyway, we're a part of it, Okay, And now I know it's started at eleven. There were eleven dudes, and now there's two and those two are Johnny Bryant and Jordan Ought. Do I know anything about them? No? Do I know they were a part of a team that just won sixty plus games? Yes? Do I know? They're also part of the team that just lost in the second round to the Indiana Pacers. Also, yes, they've already interviewed with Matt Ishpia, so I'm sure that'll go great. After the break, let's get nore in you with Robin Lundberg. It's a great one. Welcome to the show. We got Robin Lundberg. Man, it's been a minute. Robin. If you don't know him, what are you doing really with your life? He runs Robin Lundberg Media. He covers the NBA, covers the WNBA, doing the Lord's work for SI. He's on Serious XM, has his own podcast, and he is here to break down some of this NBA playoff madness. But also I want to get his thoughts on the WNBA season so far as well. And if you're listening or watching on video, Robin's got a brand new stash situation going on. I'm calling it the multiverse of madness looking like Benedett Cumberbatch, doctor Strange.

Yeah, I mean you mentioned the WNBA. Every time I open Twitter or x and start seeing stuff about the WNBA, sometimes I feel like I've entered the multiverse madness as well.

You know what, That's a great point, and we'll get to that, because I'm starting to feel like there are certain topics I just can't talk about it on social media anymore at all.

Well it's wild because for some of them, there's no reason for that to be the case, right, Like it's just like it's having I've been doing this a long time. You mentioned, you know, I got a little gray in the beard now right, I'm Around the Horn just went off the air, Trista. That's where I got my start. Like really, wow, I was an intern on Around the Horn. I went and got Tony Reality's suit the first day he went on TV because Max Kellerman couldn't make it. I think it was a dental emergency that day. So like that was my foray into sports media. But I've never covered a.

Top Where did you get the suit from his apartment in DC? You had to go from New York?

No, No, this was all I was at University of Maryland and around the Horn and PTI were in adjoining offices in DC. I mean, in fact, I remember when I started, there was a competing intern who, I all is my competition at the time, who always wore a Champ Bailey Jersey. We called him Champ, and you know, I was sizing them up for a few days until one day I saw him go into the PTI office and interrupt their production meeting.

To ask, oh, it's a rat for him.

Yeah, he asked Tony Kornheizer how to use the copy machine in the middle of the production meeting. So I was like, I'm in good shape here.

What are the dues and don'ts of interning at ESPN?

Well, the dues back then, I don't know, like I paid my dues right, I don't know if it's acceptable anymore, because I would say, like I would actually recommend doing what I did. I ingratiated myself because I got the Chipotle orders right, Like every day I would go get lunch. And this was when Chipotle was like new and not a big chain, and it got to the point where I realized what everybody wanted before they ordered it. So I would just go and get it and bring it back, and that, would you know, helped make me into you know, a good space. I mean even even when I started ESPN Radio. I remember the first day I got Stephen A. Smith's hot dog souer kraut, no ketchup, no mustard, you know, like getting the hot dog order right was the appropriate thing at that at the time. So, I mean, I think that the dues are show that you're willing to pay your dues, show that you're willing to be a go getter, and then generally the responsibility gets handed to you. And I'll always credit around the Horn for you know, it's kind of obnoxious because I'm sure you've seen it throughout your career, but when you're referred to as talent like you, I want to write it on my occupation at the doctor's note sometimes talent or I used to but you know, as a joke because I was also a producer. But I credit around the Horn for the producer mind that I've used throughout the rest of my career because I started working on slugging the rundown and picking the topics every day, and that helped me realize, Okay, here's what's what's cooking, here's what's interesting. And and I think at this point even you know, I would put my stinks in that regard up against anybody.

Man Stephen A. Smith with the hot dog order. You know, he's not eating those hot dogs anymore. He slimmed way down. He's like got a trainer, he's doing MMA fighting him and Mark Zuckerberg, I think, or like trying to get slimmed down. Just a kind of an interesting juxtaposition thinking about Steven A. Smith. What was he like back then?

Oh, Stephen was always cool, you know he was, but he was like, you know, one of those like cool as a cucumber, kind of like too cool for school sometimes. Always was cool to me. So don't don't get it to it. I mean I did lose a job because of him. Oh not not directly. It wasn't his fault. But you know, Ryan Ruco and I were doing the mid days on ESPN Radio and Steven A had left, if you recall to go I forg He did his own show somewhere and then he came back and they put him on at at nights and I remember, you know, we were in Indianapolis actually for the Super Bowl, and one of the execs came up to it and was like, hey, what do you guys think about doing nights? And we were like, wait, wait a second. What We just got moved to the Vin Dayes and you know, we had the least leverage and whatnot. So got blown out of that show. But Stephen was always cool to me. In fact, he complimented me for a monologue I did about the the Riley Cooper situation if you remember when, oh yeah, when that went down. So he was always cool. But that was an interesting dynamic because during those days the space was occupied by ABC Radio, which very conservative talk radio, and ESPN Radio. So on any given day, it was like Keith Oberman, Sean Hannity, don Imus Warnerwolf, Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman, Michael Kah, Michelle Beadle, so on and so forth, all in the same the same roof, under the same roof.

Oh, you guys were all under the same in the same area.

The same studio.

Radio. You guys would be using the same like this this room that I'm in now, it would be don Imus would come in and then you would come in.

There were a joining studios. There were like three or four separate studios. Because there was also a time where I was out of a job, but I was I was still working there, but I didn't have a job because I kept getting kicked off the air when I was doing Maxim Show as a like punishment. I was the one who got punished for some reason, like he never got called to the principal's office. I did. So there was a point in time where I was then assigned to like help Warner Wolf out, but Warner got in trouble for so something happened with Warner where he wasn't there. So then I just didn't even have anything to do. So I would go back into the back studio and record my own stuff. But yeah, all of it was you know, there was a studio here, studio there, studio there, but it was all the same floor. And you know, I would, you know, be sitting there eating lunch and Rush Limbaugh, you know, is booming through the speakers while I while I'm chowing down on I don't think I had a hot dog. But whatever it was underneath Madison Square Garden at the time, you know that was the right above Penn Station.

Well you remember then when don Imus got into trouble with his commentary about women's hoops and that that pretty much ended his career if I remember, right, Is that is that as close as you've seen in your career as like the tension that we're seeing now or is it totally different?

You know, it's funny because, like you know, Barack Obama used to be a controversy when he wore a tan suit, right, like that was the stuff they were railing about. You know what I mean? I guess it would you would say it would be close if what we're seeing now wasn't so crazy, Like don Imus, you can say whatever you want about what he said and have the reaction to what he said. But he said the thing, yeah, like he said I think it was about Vivian Stringer and Rutgerty.

Yes it was yeah at.

The time, and those words came out of his mouth so like, and they were words.

That and all the reactions that came from those words were appropriate given that those words were being said.

Yes exactly, versus nowadays you might say, hey, that was a good three point shot, or your field goal percentage you can stand to be better. It's like, what.

That is what kind of feels crazy? Right? Now in the w is is that they've turned someone's turned. I don't think it's a systemic thing. I don't think that there's like a like a body, like somebody like some sort of Marvel evil villain turning Angel Reese into like the Green Goblin and larking to like captain America. But that's kind of where we're at, where there's like they're now symbols for things. They're almost symbols for, like just where you fall in race relations in America, even if you don't, you are opting out I trist To Creek, you Robin Lumberg, I'm opting out of that. I'm only speaking about them on the basketball floor. But it's like whatever words you choose are interpreted under that lens.

Yeah, it's also imaginary though too, Like so you know it's imaginary because if you go to a game, you don't hear that, right, Like the people who are filling out the arena and buying all the tickets are not people participating in that discourse. Same goes for the record setting ratings and all that, and the people who are hype watching the games. I think what really happened was that social media is its own thing, and you have to learn that. You know, Twitter is not real life, which I've learned over the years, But a lot of media outlets take things that are said on social media and then boost them as if they are the popular opinion, and then others who realize that they can take advantage of it for engagement wind up boosting it. People that have never seen Caitlin Clark play or have never seen Angel Rey's place. You get like these two different dynamics where on one side, you're like, you only like her because she's white, and that's her popularity, and you're crapping on the you know, the rest of the league, but you need to before you watch a game, tell me the roster of the Comets from nineteen ninety seven. Versus the other side is like, they hate her because she's straight and white and the lesbians and like and you just blah blah blah blah. And people because they see it so much and they hear it so much, they think that's indicative of the reality where I talk to a lot of fans and engage with a lot of fans every single day. I was just in Indianapolis back to back weekends, and that's not what it's like when you're covering the game, watching the game, actually vibing with the game, or what actually led to any of this popularity stuff, Because if you watch Caitlin Clark play basketball, she's unbelievably good at basketball. Like and you know, I was the lebron James Stan you know, in the the the way that uh, the you know, Twitter verse would describe you for the longest time. But it you know, it wasn't because of anything but that I was like, Oh, this guy's really good at basketball, and I know I'm getting to follow his entire career.

Yeah, and when you were in Indye, how many fans that were fans of the Fever are only fans of Caitlin? Do you think? Because I went to a bar, a sports bar called the sports Bra in Portland and all women's sports bar, and I sat next to a woman who literally the entire her entire premise of watching the WNBA is Caitlin. She knows nothing other than players that are around Caitlin rivals, teammates, and that's it. And I'm curious how often you think that translates into the arena.

Uh you know, well, I think it's a yeah, I mean, I think it's a significant portion. But then they've become fans of the Fever and become fans of the WNBA. In fact, I would say, like the Caitlin Clark, then Fever fans are now fans at large, oftentimes of the rest of the league because they they you know, they watched the first game, and Dja Carryington Zen are up there like who's this, you know, and then the Angel Rees obviously has their connection. But then Asia Wilson's the m v P and the Feast of Collier is doing what she's doing with the Lynx and so on and so forth. So yes, I think unlike I've never seen one player draw as much attention to a league or sport. Maybe the best comparison people use is Tiger Woods, right where a lot of people came into golf because of Tiger Woods. So I don't really see it as a bad thing. I mean that happens in sports all the time. You have stan culture around various players and whatever. It's only a bad thing when when the discourse is hijacked or when people do it in a way that's that's disrespectful or whatnot. But I think there, I mean, you wouldn't be able to necessarily tell the difference because they're cheering on the whole team. I mean, they're they're cheering when a Leah Boston is brought into the starting lineup, and Kelsey Mitchell and the Lexi hul and so on and so forth. But I've seen it over the past, you know, year or so where yeah, a lot of people came in and they were just Caitlin Clark fans or Iowa fans, and then they became Indiana Fever fans, and then they became whether you want to call them fans or not, but certainly viewers, spectators, observers, consumers of the WNBA at large. It's kind of the rising tide lifts all boats thing. And you know, you look at the finals last year, right, you know, finals were up higher. People always act like it's with Clark or without Clark, rather than in conjunction with Clark. To me, I would say it's in conjunction with Clark, where yes, the Clark and Fever games are going to do better than other games, but the other games are doing better than they used to too, And you cannot tell me those two things are not related. And it might even go onto the women's side on NCAA as well, which where you keep seeing this trend. The trend is anything involving Clark is higher than anything else. Anything not involving Clark is much lower than anything involving Clark, but anything not involving Clark is much higher than it was before Clark showed up on the scene.

Yeah, it's like a like I say, it's like before Jesus, you know, like the like the the before Christ after death is That's what That's what I see online. I do think what's really interesting as I was talking to a former WNBA player the other day and I called Caitlin Clark the Golden Goose and and they said there can be multiple golden Gooses. And I thought that was really interesting because it shows that there's almost like a I won't call it a willful ignorance, but I will call it a resistance even within players to give her the Tiger Woods treatment. I don't remember because I was too young. I think we're around the same age. How much Phil Mickelson and the rest of the golfers were like, no, Tiger Woods is not golf. The PGA Tour is bigger than Tiger Woods in one player. But it feels like there is a very strong resistance aggressive even to say, no, there's there's a lot of factors that are influencing the rise of the WNBA, and that may be true, but maybe ninety five percent of that is Kaitlin Clark or or whatever.

No, that's definitely accurate. I've even been asked to not ask questions about Kitlin Clark or bring Kitlin Clark up in certain interviews or topic matter, which I wouldn't do if it wasn't germane to the conversation, like, I'm not just gonna be like, hey, what do you think about Kaitlin Clark when it has nothing to do with anything, but it was. It's relevant in a lot of conversations, and that, to me is a symptom of what you were just describing. And I've definitely seen it. It's interesting, you know. I think part of it was there was a little resentment. There's a little resentment around her popularity, but also a little resentment where because at the time there was a lot of noise of everybody only cares about the league because of Caitlin Clark, and it was trashed before that, and no one wants to hear that. And the players were excellent before that, they're excellent now and maybe because of this event, there can be multiple Golden Gooses where Page Beckers is popular and Juju Watkins is popular when she comes in and so on and so forth. Where you know, that was the Nexus event, the Supernova event, the you know, what does a jay Z say on the blueprint? A Michael, Magic and Bird all rolled in one, you know, And that's kind of what Caitlyn Clark was, right, Michael, Magic and Bird all rolled in one where Magic and Bird walked or ran so Michael Jordan could fly and it was all be like Mike commercials at that time, like I remember it as a little kid and space jam and everything else, which is probably the closest thing. We've also seen the Tiger Woods, which exploded the NBA's popularity, because before that it was on tape delay before Magic and Bird. So yeah, there is some sort of resistance. I don't know what it is exactly, but I to me, it always comes back to her. You know, people make it about race or sexuality. I think it's really about popularity, and I think that is why you get some of that. But I hope that it eases over time. And I do think because of that, you see more like let's just take Asia Wilson for example. It's not as if Asia Wilson became a better basketball player. You know, well, she did work on her game, you know, prove like everybody else. But it's not like she became a wildly better basketball player from two years ago to last year. But so many more people know and are aware of who Asia Wilson is or one of Kitlin Clark's teammates. A lot of people like to say, like, you know, she gets all the credit. How much more of a household name or at least a well known name is Kelsey Mitchell than she was prior to Caitlin Clark. And those are some of the things that you get that are the positives of that ripple effect. And yeah, you don't want your league to be dependent on one player for the rest of eternity. I mean, of course not, but I do think you know, she You're not wrong. There's no statistical backing or factual backing that makes your golden goose label wrong. And because of that golden goose, maybe golden geese can can be hacked.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really that's a really interesting point. Did you speaking of Asia Wilson And I wasn't thinking about bringing this up until you just mentioned her Caitlin Clark shoe contract came up, we found out she was gonna have a Nike signature shoe, and then Asia Wilson tweeted about something her not having a shoe even though she was in the midst of releasing one. And now we've had like five shoe releases from Asia Wilson in the month of May. We've had Malie Obama direct her shoe commercial and we haven't heard not one, not one whisper about what's going on with the Caitlin Clark's shoe or even support of Caitlyn Clark from Nike. Kind of weird.

Yeah, it is a little weird. It's definitely been brought up. You know, you would hope like if there was an issue like she would raise it, her people would raise it. I don't know how long it takes from inception to production, you know, to retail for a signature shoe, but it does make you go hmm, right, especially when you talk about she's coming, you know, well, the plus side for them is and this is the real thing is all you gotta do is drop a link. It doesn't need any promotion or anything. As soon as it happened, that's that's the testament to what she's built and who she is and maybe why they got a bargain. But it does feel odd, especially in light of the whole Asia Wilson thing when when the Clark Nike deal was announced, because I don't think that helped the entire discourse that we're talking about now, especially given that her shoe was already in the works. And by the way, congratulations that her shoe. I want everybody like as many shoes as I want, as many scholars shoes, many sign draft, as many people to get paid as possible. Like, It's not like everybody in the NBA doesn't have a shoe. And it's also not like, you know, certain players aren't more popular for very they you know, are the jokices selling like the Anthony Edwards? No, but who's a better player? Does yok even have a shoe? I don't know. Did Tim Duncan have a shoe? I guess he did, but it wasn't moving like AI's joints, and Tim Duncan was a better player than Ai.

Facts facts, Who you high on in this w NBA season, Because for me, the team that stuck out in terms of expectations versus what we've actually seen. There's a few of them. Obviously, the Mercury are quite good compared to what we thought maybe, but the Washington Mystics are fun as fuck, Like, they're very fast, they have this running gun offense. Sonya Sittron and Kiki Eriafin both look like they could be Rookie of the Year candidates. Who for you is like, wow, that this is a lot better team than I expected.

Well, I think you named one of them, and if Georgia Amore was healthy, that'd be even different. But both the Citron and Erie Eurie Fend in particular have been better than I thought at the pro level than what I had seen in college. I'd say Atlanta. You know, I was a little skeptical on Jones and Griner working together from a spacing, but man, that's a lot of size in the front court that other teams can't deal with. And when you add in Gray and Howard and Pow Pow and a lot of the talent that they have there, I think Atlanta is going to be in the mix. And I wouldn't have necessarily said that in the preseason because if I'm sizing up the contenders, obviously a lot of it hinges on Clark's health, but clearly New York, Minnesota, Indiana if Clark is healthy, and then Atlanta has been the next most impressive team. I think that that's who I had slug into the top four.

And in the disappointing space, you didn't mention the Las Vegas Aces, who I think are fourth or tied for second, but fourth in the odds in terms of winning title. I also am down on them. Sounds like you are as well, what do you what are you seeing? That makes you? Meh?

Twofold one. They lost a lot of their depth, right, so they're they're really front loaded. And secondly, Kelsey Plum's a heck of a player. You know, she's better than Juel Lloyd is and so that was a one to one swap in a sense, and they got the worst end of that swap, I believe, and maybe Kelsey Plum didn't get quite enough credit for what she actually did for the team. You know, a really really good shot creator and score and then you know there's a little bit of attrition that comes. You see that with every team that's gone back to back or made extended runs. And you know, I just saw Jackie Young talking about how her knee was hurting her last year after the Olympics and everything, and I'm a big fan of Jackie Young's game. And then on top of that, Chelsea Gray, you know, and exactly a spring chicken either, Like, so, you know, you go through a lot of that. A tris so you lose bench, you go through attrition, and you lose you know, one of your best players.

If not Father Time starts to hit.

Yeah, so I think it's a combination of those things.

How bad is Dallas going to be? Because I think last year, right around this time, we were like, wow, the fever are disgusting, Like this team is awful. None of Caitlyn's teammates can catch any of her passes. You know, we need to get rid of this coach, which ended up happening obviously now Stephanie White's the head coach. But then they sort of found their rhythm. The players Kelsey, Mitchell and and Caitlin and Aaliyah all started to gel. Lexi Hull found her way and I don't. I don't know if I feel the same way about Dallas. I would hope that Erique and Page can figure out a way to make it work. What are you seeing from them?

Yeah, well, first of all, I don't know if you know, but right before we started recording, Paigebackers went into concussion protocol.

Oh wow, No, I didn't see that.

Yeah, so she's going to be out at least two games. Page. You know, also like she's not getting to the rimiton, she's not shooting a lot of threes. She's you know, generally, and I like Paige, don't get me wrong, but when when the keyword everybody always used, I've never heard a great player described.

As a efficient I knew you were going to say, like, you know, never heard that for like a truly great, all time great player.

And then they've got some players who I just you know, have tunnel vision. DJA is trying to do too much on offense. Melissa Smith was a liability for the Fever last year, and and she's in their starting lineup. And then the jury's out on the coach. You know, I just keep picturing him like unrolling and eating granola.

Yeah he's Yeah, he's he does look a little Darbnham esque. Not not a lot of not a lot of changes and like adjustments. And I think the thing that fans are upset about is he's like, oh, it's a you know, everybody has equal leadership. We need everyone to fill in and everybody's our number one player. And it's like no, bro, no, like that's not the case. We need you to settle up this hierarchy. Arique is a bona fide star and a dog not efficient. Nobody has ever claimed that she's efficient. And then you got a Page who's waiting in the wings, and all she needs is to know, hey, we need you to take over these games. Don't defer to Erique. And he's just like, oh, well they'll sort it out.

Yeah. Well, I mean, has there ever been a bigger change from Gino Wriema to that? Right? Like God, right, Gino would throw Page under the bus right after the game, like yeah, she wasn't aggressive enough. You know, I considered, you know, he never hesitated to do that versus now, Like I think the exact quote from last night was they were vibing. That's what he said. The guards were vibing out there.

Yeah, like all the way to an l vibing to in l the Sky finally get a win. They are off to a very slow start. I am very excited to see Camilla Cardoso get more touches. She could be pretty dominant. When you watch the Sky, what are you seeing? And it already kind of feels like they're setting up to try to get Olivia Miles in the draft next year.

Well, yeah, they could really use perimeter playmaking and shock creation and all that. I mean, Courtney Vanderslute one of the all time great players, but obviously a little long in the tooth there. They made the trade, and some of those trades are gonna look questionable because of the future draft capital they surrendered. I mean, the Lynks have the Sky's pick in the next upcoming draft, and they gave up a swap in twenty twenty seven, so they don't really have direct control over their pick in twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven, so they're gonna need a lot from Ariel Atkins. And they lost obviously Kennedy Carter and Marina Maybray is an underrated loss, I mean, in that trade that happened in mid season. But I think the biggest dilemma for them is the fit between Cardoso and Reese. Reese is a better passer than she. She gets credit for a pretty hig Q high IQ player out there. But I mean she's shooting I'm gonna say, thirty three percent from the floor on the season, thirty one percent somewhere in the thirty one thirty two.

And she's not spacing the floor.

Robin, Yes, no, she's not spacing the floor, and neither is Camilla, right like, so that to me, I just don't know exactly. I mean, you can make it work here and there, like Reese dumps it into her or you know, gets a rebound and dishes it off to her. But just on a possession by possession basis, are you getting enough spacing and enough room to operate when one of your players you're wanting to feed and the other player or neither of them are a threat from the outside and the other player is not, you know, it's shooting thirty percent from within five feet.

What do you think about these links? You think they have enough to beat the fever. I thought, I mean, not the fever, to beat the liberty. Excuse me, because I thought that they probably should have won game five. Anyway, I felt like the refs were calling some Shenanigans. Didn't look like Stewie got fouled and it looked like she traveled. I was in the building for that one. But boyle boy, Natasha Cloud looks like a real upgrade over Salute, like a really really big upgrade.

Oh for sure. And you know, like that Liberty have some you know, I think Leoni Phoebitch was a slept on thing last year. And still John Culte Jones might not get enough credit. You know, you're telling me who's the best player on the Liberty. I'd actually probably say John qult Jones is the best player on the Liberty. But yeah, that that that game five, I was there too, and I remember like I raced to the postgame press conference to get a seat for Cheryl Reef because I knew something was coming. And then she said they stole that shit from us. It was like, oh, that was even better than I thought. But yeah, the links are Look, they're writ in that mix. They can shoot, they're unselfish. McBride just got back. Collier is clearly with Clark going down, I think clearly the MVP favor now, So I would put them right in that mix, you know, a coin flip kind of deal.

All right, So last question on the W, what do you think happens with this collective bargaining agreement? Because I spoke with David Berry, who's an economist covers a lot of women's sports from that realm. He seems to think that the W couldn't survive a lockout. But it feels like a lot of W players are threatening one. They've let everyone know that they're prepared to sit out, especially now with unrivaled in the top players being able to make a lot of money there. What do you think happens there?

Well, you would hope. Look, they definitely should be getting more money. I mean, there's just a much bigger media rights deal that came in, right, So just on the surface of that, they should be getting more money. You don't want them to get a little too big for the britches either, though, you know, and this goes back to what we talked about at the beginning, because all of this, let's not get it twisted, right, Like, none of this would even be in the zeitgeist if it wasn't for Caitlin Clark arriving on the scene, and that the bargaining power and the leverage that that brings off of the last year, but before that, the NBA subsidized and still subsidizes the WNBA, so you also have to have realistic expectations. So I just would think, Yeah, you want to negotiate, bargain as hard as you can, get as much as you can, and I hope they get a lot more. I mean that the salaries are not high and the league is going higher, so they definitely deserve a lot more. But at the same time, don't be delusional about it, don't you know, don't get off over your skis, because you've got to realize that the time to strike is now, and if you halt that right now, you might not ever get the momentum back.

Yeah, let's move over to the NBA. We don't know as of this recording what's going to happen in Game six between the Knicks and the Pacers, so we'll just keep the actual prediction element out of it. But what I think is fascinating is Tyree's Halliburton as just a guy as a player, how much GMS and coaches love him and how much his peers absolutely can't stand him. He voted most overrated by his peers and yet clearly showing that he's one of them once. Why do you think Tyree Halliburton is so hated by his peers when I feel like fans, even just general casual fans also love him.

Well, you know, he doesn't do any of that stuff that that generally like wows you to the point where like, you know, when you're like, you go, what's Tyrese Haliburton's bag, You're not sitting there like it's the one legged fade away or it's you know, a dream shake, or it's even you know, anything specific. He's not posterizing people, so he doesn't have and and players sometimes I think lean toward like Carmelo Anthony, I feel like was always rated more highly by his peers than he was by the media and the maybe the you know, the truth is always somewhere in the middle a little bit. So I think it's a little bit of a lack of that obviously, you know, they just kind of arrived on the scene for the first time in the national realm where they're getting that much attention. But yeah, otherwise I'm not really sure what it would be as far as you know, he's an unselfish player, clearly and clearly, you know, the Pacers have exceeded what anybody thought they were gonna be. But they were almost a commentary on where the league is now because we're it's it's two sides of the same coin, right, because the NBA is we're always hearing like who's the next face of the NBA and searching for the next face because there hasn't been the natural heir to the lebron James Steph Curry era and there's people like Edwards, is it this, so and so, is it sgah, who could it be? But at the same time, we're also in an era where I think the top of your roster is less important than the bottom of the roster.

Now.

You know, it used to be like you could say, oh, we're gonna get a big three and then we're gonna go cook. Now every team that gets a big three goes nose dive straight into the you know, the play in or something like that, because you need the Nie Smith's of the world and all those guys to come through. So I feel like Halliburton is sort of symbolic of that because he's the only guy on that you kind of view a way on the pace, maybe Seakham to a degree, but then it's the rest of the team and he plays that way too. So he just doesn't fit some of those prototypical you know, superstar star of the team, face of the franchise kind of old because he's he's playing it the way that you win it.

And he talks hell of shit he does.

Yeah, not too. I mean he did a choke him all right, Like people aren't gonna like that when you do it, you know, if we're seeing him do that for all of us to see what's he doing on the court, you know Pops Pop's thing, you know, like gotta be some of it rubbed off on Tyrenes.

He did the like three thing that that Jalen Brunson does, and I don't you know, over his face he did the Dame time, he did the bye bye to Milwaukee. His dad gotten into Jannie's face, which I don't know what John Halliburton was thinking, because jannest is just not one of those ones you want to mess around with. Maybe it's just that, maybe it's just his his stealing of iconic athlete moments at the time where it puts salt in the wounds. I love Tyrese Halbert, I love Jalen Brunson as well. Probably my favorite player though Robin for the last or one of them. The last four years has been the ascension of Shay and I felt like he could be an MVP long before anyone was wanting to give him that level of respect. Do you think he's the kind of player that wins multiple MVPs or is this it for him?

I mean, look, there is a real thing as voter fatigue where we've seen that come into play, so I think he would have to just go bananas to win one again in the short term, but he's certainly capable of it. But he's also got this like free throw stigma following him a little bit, which eventually I mean when Doris Burke on the broadcast is saying, that's why they call him the free throw merchant, you know, it's like gotten into the general conversation a little bit, which then gets into influencing voters and influencing out there.

It is it mbidi free thom merchants. Okay, so Embiid won an MVP. He's a free throw merchant, but no one really called him that no one called Dame that he didn't win an MVP. Of course, Harden is the one that we use, but it's said in this disparaging way. I am curious whether those on the air are using what they see on the internet and and like that's becoming a part of their commentary because it's almost like, well, every great score technically has been a free throw merchant, Kobe Bryant, Lebron, James Luca, They're all looking for fouls. So it's a little interesting that this is the title that's stuck for Shay, but it hasn't stuck for some of the other great scores.

Yeah, I mean you kind of brought it full circle there, a little bit to what I was talking about earlier, where you know, the major networks program off social media, so they're like, look at me, I'm part of NBA Twitter. I'm saying free throw merchant, you know. Like so there is that aspect. What bothers me though, where I would go to the free throw. What bothers me is when players attempt to draw the foul rather than attempting to score. It's one thing when you're attempting to score and you get fouled within the process of attempting to score. It's another thing when you're manipulating the defenders and trying to manipulate the rest to draw fouls. And that's not a Shay Gildes Alexander problem. That's been i think a problem throughout the league in recent years, with Joel Embiid flopping to the floor and with James Harden trying to get his arm up under people to draw the foul and stuff like that. It Harden in particular, I think one of the reads. Two of the reasons I think he struggled in the playoffs and has the playoff failure narrative other than failing in the playoffs is he doesn't play very well off the ball, so he's not moving very much, not getting open, not you know, running around, curling, coming off you know, the and shooting. And he's also sometimes looking to draw the foul rather than looking to score. And when you don't get bailed out in that situation, it hurts you. But yeah, to your point, it might not be fair for Shay to be labeled that as he's winning an MVP and a's sending to the NBA Finals when he's hardly.

The first Yeah, Okay, so I do want to ask you this before we go. Is the West as good as we thought it was? And is the East as bad as we thought it was? Here's the reason I ask we Okay, see sailed to the finals, and the two best teams in the East aren't. Neither one are going to the finals, and neither one made it to the Eastern Conference finals. And it looks like the team that just went to the Western Conference Finals for the second time in a row, the Minnesota Timberwolves, are going to get measurably worse and they're not good enough now. They're probably going to lose Nikaile Alexander Walker and may maybe either Nasried or Julius Randall some version of that is going away. And outside of the Timberwolves an aging Nuggets team, I don't really know who stops this OKC team. And I look at the East and I say, I could see New York going to the finals next year. I could see Cleveland figuring it out. I could see Boston two years. You know, Boston's gonna have a bad year, but maybe Tatum comes back in March and Boston makes a run.

Oh yeah, I mean, I don't think there's much difference at all. Yeah, I mean, look, Boston was perhaps the favorite. Now they were going to lose I think whether Tatum got hurt or not because of the way that that series it went. But Indiana now is likely going to beat the team I forgot. We can't do the predictions. Indiana at one point in the series was up three to one the New York Knicks. So you see, like those two teams are pretty evenly matched. In fact, if the Knicks hadn't, I think it, you know, Game one was the real issue for them. What I really think it is, Trista is the stars, the most famous players are in the West, and that's not exactly I just talked about how I don't think that's how championships are won. And in the new CBA it's it's even tougher. But if you're just like, like, who are the most famous? Lebron and Steph are still the two most famous players. Durant is probably next. Luca's right in that mix. Anthony Edwards is the guy everybody's trying to annoint their.

You know, j is the guy who say the jaw.

Yeah. So it's not necessarily the teams are any better, but the the individual stars are more famous versus the guys like Halliburton and Brunson. Who are you know? Brunson has never dubbed a star. He had to make himself star. Halliburton same thing, like has made himself into a star rather than these guys who carry the the you know face that that goes on the billboard.

So awesome stuff. Love the w NBA talk. Can't wait to have you on next, especially once these finals are set. Maybe we can talk a little like current current events in the W or in the in the NBA, no doubt about it.

You said we were gonna talk rap before when we were going back and forth, you got any quick uh you know, hip hop take to throw at me? A question to throw at me?

Oh, hip hop take to throw at you? Yes, let's let's talk top five most underrated rappers? Oh, underrated underrated rappers you can say in your lifetime?

Okay, underrated rappers?

Black thought, black thought. I'll give you one big L, big L.

Yeah, yeah, big L. Definitely a beast. See it's hard to like what what quantifies or inspected deck?

Inspected deck. You're a Wu Tang guy. I feel like Wu Tang is one of the most overrated rap groups.

Oh in Ortal Enemies.

Now, yeah, you're a New York guy. Nobody's like, hey, let me throw on some Wu Tang, Like, hey, serie play just unless it's cream. Nobody's doing that.

It comes on. I played liquid swords, all right, you're.

One of those one of those like you're you're a hipster New Yorker like conscious rap guy, so you probably are like the most most deaf tribe called quest all all of that. You're like, oh yeah, ghost Face is so underrated that one owul albody remembers Rizza the jizz. You're like, so were you a big like Asian culture samurai guy when you were growing up?

No, I found all that from Wu Tang and then and then like my you know when I I remember people talking about how Times Square used to to play all the Kung Flu flicks. But no, it wasn't it wasn't from that. All of my mafioso like learnings came from rap too. I don't bob movies and they all that stuff came from the the I just like I like bars. I like you know, you said, tribe call requests. I like beats rhymes in life. So liquid Swords and thirty six Chambers some of my favorite albums, but the three I can tell you the three greatest rappers of all time. And I don't think this can be argued in my opinion at this point. Jay Z Kendrick lamar Eminem to me when you take across impact ability catalog.

And I can't argue because neither jay Z. Yes, I think jay Z goes on everyone's list, but Eminem's virtually unlistenable.

I can see where. Look, I don't think a lot of Eminem stuff is the kind of thing like where you're like I got the aux in a you know, I'm yea necessarily, but as far as like impact, sales ability, like you put Eminem on a track, you know, all of those things, even going back to eight or the Marshall Mathers LP. I remember the Marshall Mathers LPI like you couldn't find.

A car that was a great I saw I heard someone outside of my coworking space yesterday or two days ago playing the Marshall Mathers LP and I was like, okay, twenty twenty five, like all right, my.

Mom asking to borrow that when I was in high school. And then Kendrick. I've never seen you know, I was always a fan of Kendrick, but I don't know if I ever seen a rapper have the kind of year that Kendrick just had.

The last twelve months for Kendrick have put him in terms of impacts, like he ended, He ended essentially one of the greatest entertainer's career. He put Yeah, he's yeah, he's ned Stark, Like Drake is ned Stark out there and Kendrick is Jeoffrey and he's walking up. He's like you see that guy, Like that's the guy I fucking killed and put on a stick and he's got birds all over him. So yeah, But I would say like outside of this last album, Kendrick has a lot of like that. To Pimp a Butterfly album was just I don't I mean, what are we doing here. We're just making music to just experiment. I don't want you experimenting with my ears, Okay, Like this jazz hip hop thing, it was just too much. I love the turn the TV on. Like this new sound that we're getting from Kendrick is like what we wanted the not like us beats, Like this is what West because I'm West Coaster what West Coast hip hop feels like the let's bring the vibe up. And I think West Coast is all about like the sunshine and the drop tops and the ladies and the beach and the barbecues, and hip hop's like hip hop on the East Coast. Like I'm on the train, it's.

Called the fuck.

I'm struggling. I gotta go up this walk up ten floors and someone's trying to have me on Seventh Avenue and I got the crackhead out and that's like very much two different worlds. And to me, my personality is always loved the East cost hip hop. But when it's nice out, I start to circulate over to the girls in the in the drop tops and the barbecue.

Your turn up, Trista, Yeah, I got you. Yeah.

I mean it's like it's Snoop, It's snooping Dre, it's crying two thousand and one, it's doggy style, it's you know, West Coast. You know, it's it's Mac even Mac ten. It's just the like the it's Nate Doll and Warren g and like that's Mike.

You can do it.

But yeah, exactly, no, exactly, And you're like, oh, yeah, it's driving music. You guys don't have driving music because you're not driving.

Yeah, no, that's true. I mean though, like that's one of the reasons I would argue jay Z is clearly the best because he can do the stuff you were just talking about, and he can do the stuff where you know, the Ferrari to Jaguars swishing for a lanes, take great money and a thing, right, like, you know, that's that's whole. He's got every bag.

He does, he is, he's for me, is up there. I think we're just getting so old that people don't want to put Biggie and Poc on their top three anymore, and not just is disgusting to me, He's just disgusting.

My thing with Pac has a lot of emotion, and that brought it out, But I never I wasn't a big fan of like his raps necessarily and Biggie. The same thing goes for Pock.

This is small catalog, small catalog.

Small catalog, so event you know, like, yes, they're great catalogs, but when you can only have.

Two thousand and four when we were making this list, their catalog wasn't nearly as relevant. Yeah, I think you got to put J Cole on the list.

J Cole, Yeah, I think he took a little bit of a hit in the Kendrick thing, and I get the whole like, you know, boring kind of but I like J Cole. I have no problem with you.

Born Center is I think my favorite modern rap album.

That's a hot take, but I would agree that it is arguably his best album.

So he crushed Magna Karta crushed it.

Magne Karta sucks though, Like relatives to the jay Z album, you know.

He really did fall. I mean you have to almost stop jay Z's catalog at the Black album.

No, no, that I disagree. American Gangster is awesome.

That's a decent one.

I think is his best.

Yeah, four forty four is good, and.

Three has You can say what you want about Blueprint three, but it has like legendary epic bangers that you know, Empire state of Mind and run this Town and onto the next one or all on that that same record.

Yeah. There, it's just such an It's like this version of what we see from Kendrick Lamar where it's like I'm just gonna you guys want commercial ship putting out some commercial shits. See see how you guys feel about it. I don't know if it's a classic album. I still think reasonable doubt this is his best album I see.

I like. I like Volume one a whole lot. I like the Blueprint. I like four forty four, but four forty four is probably my favorite, you know, I guess for I always put it like four forty four made adult me feel like how Blueprint made college me feel.

Hmm. What's the best concert you've ever been to? Best hip hop concert?

I just went to the GNX show by myself. It met life. That was fun.

Was that fun?

Yeah? It was fun. But the best one I think. I if I it would be the jay it would be a j show at it was called All Points West Festival just because of the whole the whole setup to it, Like the Beastie Boys were supposed to headline and they dropped out unfortunately, because this is when MCA got cancer, and that day, like it was like torrential downpour and mud and all this. We didn't know if the concert was even gonna happen. And then you had this crowd that wasn't there for a jay Z concert, right like, and they were there for a Beastie Boy, and it just whole different crowd. And he opened with a full on cover of No Sleep Till Brooklyn.

Oh that's sick.

I had the whole crowd in the palm of his hands the rest of the time. So I would say it was that one I saw.

There's two for me. I saw my first concert ever was the No Way Out tour. So it was Little Kim, it was it was Diddy, it was Mace, it was Black Rob, it was one twelve, it was the Locks. Who else was there? It was Usher. It was just an insane tour for me at like twelve years old. And then I saw jay Z and Beyonce on the Run and it was at the Hollywood Bowl. No, I think it was at the Hollywood Bowl. Maybe it was. I forget. It was in LA And when he came out and you could clear they it was clear they didn't they were not fucking with each other at that moment. They were broken up. It was a stop. It wasn't supposed to be, but it ended up being the last stop on their tour because she got sick or they whatever happened, you know, And he came out to song cry and it was she was standing on one end of the stage sitting like sitting down. They put turn it all black and then turned the spotlight on him and he was sitting down and it was like maybe August, and it started to rain right when he came out. I can't see it coming down my eyes, but I gotta let the song cry. And I got and I was in the second row, got tickets like the same day, last second, got goosebumps and I was like, oh wow, this is this is like as spiritual as you can get. There.

You go there, you go start. Sorry, I didn't mean to like, you know, do it.

No, this is awesome and extended take over the show, Robin whenever you want. I'll let you. Just co host Robin Lundberg. Find him everywhere serious ex m SI. He's been He's been putting on for the w NBA for a really long time before it got popular. Me and you have been in these in these trenches pre COVID so broke down some w NBA, broke down some NBA, and broke down some rap. If you have anything to plug Robin, now's your time, you know, just.

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Awesome stuff from Robin. I'll see you soon. Let's chop it up again. That's all the time that we have for this episode of the Heat Check. Come back Friday. Many thanks to Robin Lundberg for coming on. Check out the feed for past episodes that drop unexpectedly, like canceling the main event in the UFC in Vegas, dude to with seizure that was crazy? Do you never forget to follow the Heat Check all playoffs long off finals long that's where we are. That means download, subscribe, how your.

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