00:00NBA All-Star Weekend.
00:01Friday stunk.
00:04Saturday stunk.
00:05But yesterday, money.
00:08We actually got four games, four 12-minute games.
00:11Yeah.
00:11And the guys actually played like they gave a damn.
00:13Yeah.
00:14Not all of them, though.
00:15Not all of them.
00:16I'll get to that in just one second.
00:17How are you today, Tyrone?
00:18Well, I'm also concerned.
00:22Concerned about the guys that did not participate in the manner that they should have?
00:27Because I know the guys that didn't.
00:29But I don't know if you're going to say the guys that didn't.
00:34Well, I think you've known me long enough to know I only speak the truth on this show.
00:38And my gut is that they're not one, but the two guys that were major disappointments.
00:45If the idea is that we get all the big names to buy in.
00:48Everybody actually tries to play basketball, meaning we play some defense.
00:53We pass.
00:54It's not just dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk.
00:57And to be fair, I thought we got that.
01:00Now, the last 12 minutes of championship, 12 minutes, just a bad game.
01:04Not because the guys weren't trying, but one team made every shot.
01:08The other team didn't make any shot.
01:10Yeah, they went cold.
01:10So, it was a wrap early.
01:12Yeah.
01:12That being said, I thought USA vs. the World was a huge success, except for two guys.
01:18Yeah.
01:18And I think if these two guys were Americans, they were not, we would go crazy about it.
01:24We'd be ripping them.
01:25If these two guys were, oh, I don't know, Kevin Durant and LeBron James, we'd be killing them.
01:33Uh-huh.
01:33So, because I'm a consistent commentator, I'm going to say what needs to be said.
01:39LeBron James did a great job.
01:42Kevin Durant, outside of the burner account, which we'll get to in a second, did a great job.
01:48Yeah, played hard.
01:49The American stars showed up.
01:52The American stars that for some reason were playing for the world team also showed up.
01:59And just a quick aside on that.
02:00Yeah.
02:01Carl Anthony Towns was born in Edison, New Jersey.
02:05He grew up, I believe, in Piscataway, New Jersey.
02:08Yes.
02:08He is as American as I am.
02:10Yeah.
02:11I have relatives from Romania, but I have played for the Romania Olympic team.
02:16Of course not.
02:17Carl Anthony Towns played for the world team to honor his mother's heritage from the DR.
02:24Yeah.
02:25Nothing but respect for honoring your parents' heritage, but you're an American.
02:29There's nothing foreign about you.
02:31Nothing.
02:32There's nothing world about you.
02:34Your mom, may she rest in peace?
02:36Yes.
02:37But I always find it interesting when we kind of grease the skids for a guy to get on an
02:44Olympic team, or in this case, the all-star team, as a world player when he was born in
02:51America.
02:52And by his own admission, I think he's only been to the DR once.
02:56Yeah.
02:56He did not.
02:57It was strange.
02:58It was very strange.
03:01And he's playing okay?
03:03Right.
03:03No.
03:03They actually needed him because of one of the guys you're about to rip in a little while.
03:07They needed him because they needed size on that squad.
03:09He did help them.
03:10Yeah.
03:11But it was odd that he was on the world team.
03:13I agree.
03:13Now, when he was like 13 or 16 years old, he did play for a Dominican national team.
03:18So, it's not the first time he's ever done it.
03:19That's just because he was tall.
03:20There's nothing Dominican about him.
03:23I'm not even sure if he speaks Spanish.
03:25No, he doesn't speak Spanish.
03:27I don't know.
03:28No, he's on the Knicks.
03:29He would have been speaking Spanish at this point if he could.
03:31At some point, I guess.
03:32So, here's the two guys that, and I've checked, I've searched high and low.
03:37I don't know if people are afraid to criticize them, or if the weekend or the Sunday yesterday
03:42was such a great success, no one's really paying attention to it.
03:45But I want to be fair about this.
03:47If LeBron had done this, I'd be on him like Wadon Rice.
03:51You would be.
03:51If Durant had done this, I'd be on him like Wadon Rice.
03:54If you pick your favorite star, don't matter me, right?
03:57So, I think we have to be fair about this.
03:59What Luka Doncic did, and what Nikola Jokic did, frankly, is everything wrong with the NBA.
04:06It's what we've been talking about.
04:08Why is the All-Star weekend so bad?
04:11Because the biggest-named stars, either A, don't participate, or B, their participation,
04:17is a clown show.
04:18So, those two guys, you have a multiple-time MVP, and for some people, still arguably the
04:26best player in basketball.
04:27And you've got Luka, who obviously, at worst-case scenario, is a top-three guy in the NBA.
04:34At worst.
04:35And in the first 12-minute span that the World Team played, they played five minutes each.
04:40The second game that the World Team played in, they didn't suit up.
04:45They didn't play.
04:47They said, nah, we're good.
04:50Now, this is a World Team already missing Giannis due to injury, missing SGA due to injury.
04:57So, there's no debating, even with those guys, that the two biggest stars on the World Team
05:03are Luka Doncic and the Joker.
05:06Yep.
05:06And those guys decided to do, frankly, the most American thing they have ever done in
05:14their lives.
05:15And that is sit out on All-Star Game, and in the five minutes they did play, show no interest
05:22in playing basketball.
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