supremebve

The biggest difference between the two eras is that Robertson's era shooting was terrible. Robertson was able to get a lot of rebounds because there were so many rebounds to get. Jokic is doing this in an era with all-time great shooting while having the 4th-best true shooting percentage of all time. The top 3 are guys who pretty much only dunk, but he shoots 40% from 3. It's not unrealistic to think he'll be one of the five best players of all time. He's that good. The biggest piece of evidence for my point about the NBA needing an American face is the fact that Jokic and Giannis are by far the two best players of the 2020s and we're still talking about LeBron and Steph like they're the pinnacle of the sport. Neither LeBron or Steph have ever had a season as good as any of Jokic's three MVP seasons. Neither of them has won a championship without multiple future Hall of Fame players on their team. Between their two championships, their best teammate was Jrue Holiday. The've been the best players in the league for half a decade and no one really acknowledges either of them as the face of the league.

How many things does Aaron Rodgers say and do that would warrant a wellness check if it was literally anyone else?

No it's not. Roger Goodell would make the call to get Troy Aikman thrown out of the booth in the middle of Monday Night Football if he even insinuated that Patrick Mahomes wasn't as good as him. It's the only league where the best players aren't only trying to prove themselves against their current competition but against players who haven't played in over a decade. I do not understand why the NBA hasn't stepped in to do something about messaging. Marcus Morris got on television with a league partner and said that Nikola Jokic wasn't even a top-20 player in the league. There is no situation at all where that should be tolerated by the NBA. I don't think its appropriate for Shaq and Charles Barkley to talk bad about current players, but it takes some nerve for Kendrick Perkins and Marcus Morris to talk down on current NBA players. The entire NBA media space acts like Bobby The Brain Heenan except there is no Guerilla Monsoon. They can absolutely do something about that. This is absolutely true...in theory. If you could reliably have great players from big international markets this would matter more than having a singular American star. Yao Ming was massive for the NBA internationally, because he was a legitimately great player from the country with the largest population in the world. Jokic being from Serbia probably doesn't move the needle like a viable Magic/Bird/Jordan/LeBron type player would. Wembanyama has the potential to be a massive boon for the NBA, but Jokic, Luka, and Giannis are all from countries with a smaller population than Michigan. I think the NBA's best case scenario is to have all the international stars playing against a group of elite American stars. To bring this full circle back to wrestling, there is no problem if Stan Hansen holds the belt for a while, but we also need Jumbo and Misawa to be on the hunt to keep the fans engaged. For what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong. I talk basketball with a decent amount of people who have a really hard time giving credit to anyone who isn't in the Jordan/Kobe/LeBron lineage. The year the Nuggets won, it was so apparent that Jokic was totally unstoppable, but I was talking with multiple people who played basketball tell me that he wasn't good enough.

I mostly agree with you, but I don't know how much this matters to people who aren't already a huge fan of the NBA. The vast majority of casual NBA fans are not big fans of foreign born players. The biggest problem with the NBA in my opinion is how everyone who talks about the NBA on any of their media partners talks about the NBA like it sucks. We have multiple prominent voices on television trying to act like Jokic isn't clearly an all-time great player after a season where he was top five in points, rebounds, and assists, and steals per game. This conversation will be comical when Anthony Edwards becomes the face of the league in the next year or so. He's kind of LeBron and Steph combined with more personality than both. He is always one step away from dunking on someone's face and just led the league in 3-point FGs made. He's only 23, so he'll be around for a while, and he's on the trajectory to become the type of player the NBA needs to convince the older players he's the best.

Jamiroquai is probably my number one draft pick of bands I'd probably really like, except I never actually got around to listening to them.

I don't think the NBA needs an American star to operate at a profit or anything like that, but it is the sport where the #1 guy matters the most. We're already at the point where the best player in the NBA is not American, and it's been that way for a good while now. The last NBA MVP to be born in the United States is James Harden in 2018. We do not talk about Giannis, Jokic, or SGA like we talk about LeBron and Steph. Jokic and Giannis are probably already top-20 all-time players and I'd bet if you asked the average sports fan they would disagree, because we do not discuss either of them like they matter as much as LeBron, KD, or Steph. None of the American sports outlets discuss foreign players like they do American players despite that they've been the best players for a good long while now. NPJW is in the same boat. The entire promotion revolves on not just Japanese, but home grown Japanese talent. Takeshita is great and is a worthy champion, but he'll have a tough hill to climb to reach the popularity of a home grown worker. It's not that an outsider can't be on top, but when historically you get to see these guys grow from young lions to main eventers, it's going to not feel the same when a guy shows up fully formed at the top of the card. For instance, Shingo Takagi had a cool run a few years ago, but he didn't stick. He's great, everyone likes him, he puts on great matches, but he never felt like he should be the face of New Japan long term. I honestly think it's a uniquely New Japan issue. When there promotion is really cooking it revolves around talent that was built up from day one within the promotion. Okada is the best example of someone starting elsewhere and becoming the Ace, but it's not like Okada spent years making name outside of the promotion. He got his start elsewhere, but he still went through the dojo and was a young lion before he made a name for himself.

I went to a NJPW show last year when they came to DC. It was really fun and the matches were really good. I don't think the problem is that they have a bunch of guys who can't work, that's pretty much never been their problem. Their issue is that no one is breaking out as "The Guy" and their product kind of relies on having an Ace. It's like if the NFL didn't have any star quarterbacks. It would feel like something is missing, even though the rest of the talent was still really good. Not only do they need "The Guy" he probably needs to be Japanese and built through their dojo. I probably should have compared them to the NBA over the NFL. They need an American star to take over for LeBron when he finally retires. He probably overstayed his welcome, because it could have been Steph, but he's getting close to retirement as well. When Jordan retired the league felt like there was a vacuum until LeBron played for a contender. For whatever reason, Shaq, Kobe, AI, KG, Tmac, and the rest didn't feel like they were "The Guy," and the league struggled in the eyes of the public. That is what NJPW is going through right now, because they don't have a Tanahashi, Okada, Naito in line to take over the #1 spot.

I feel like between Ospreay and Jay White, they lost both of their next guys at a time when they desperately needed a next guy. It's kind of the risk they took when they started pushing gaijin to the top of the card, they might just up and leave. Is Naito the last homegrown NJPW main eventer? Even Okada got his start in Toryumon. They have had a pretty long drought of homegrown Japanese talent from the dojo.

I have to say, between Creed and Kid Rock, the only positive feelings I've ever had about either of them is because of a WWE music video.

I mean, this seems like a problem they should have brought up when their coach was in charge. Seriously, if my dad is in charge of something that I excel at, is he supposed to wait to honor me and honor some dude that ain't his son? I'd call that insufficient daddying.

That's pure nostalgia talking. Kordell Stewart wasn't nearly as good for Colorado as Shedeur Sanders. I remember that pass too, but Sanders threw more touchdowns last season that Stewart did in his 3 years as a starter combined. I don't think there is any rational argument against Sanders as the best quarterback in that school's history, and when your dad is the coach and program savior on top of that, you get your number retired.

This is the dude who quit his job without another job lined up. This is dumb if you work at Walmart, but incredibly stupid when you are making $2 million. You need to get your $4 million dollar job before you put in your 2 weeks. To paraphrase the great poet and philosopher Devin the Dude, if you fuck up your fa' sho money trying to get some mo' money, you might end up with no money.

The crazy thing is that we all know who is the problem,but we also know that he's not going anywhere. Firing your coach and having to get rid of your best player because you're being held hostage by Bradley Beal and his contract is fucking crazy.

I'm legitimately terrible this game. Some times I'll go into the right door in the entryway and within five or six moves, I've successfully blocked the middle and left doors too. That, or I get deep into the layout, but I've used all the keys and gems and have a 42 steps left, but nowhere to go. Another is the exact opposite, where I just found a bunch of keys and gems, but I don't have enough steps to get back to the other side where the locked doors are.

I didn't know I wanted a Bronson Reed/Jeff Cobb tag team, but now I'm pretty sure I want a Bronson Reed/Jeff Cobb tag team.

Everything about Weezer makes more sense when put in a frame of a band who tried to be one thing, but didn't quite fit so they decided to do something else.

This is the ultimate, "well, we have to fire somebody," firing.

Don't worry guys, I took over Kent State in College Football 25. They're in good hands. Fun fact, I was a football obsessed kid who actually lived in an off-campus apartment at Kent State for the last year my mom was in school. I don't think it ever crossed my mind to ask to go to a Kent State football game.

The weirdest part of the story is that the belt was created when they wanted to give Rude the NWA championship, but didn't actually give him the belt that ended up being the continuation of the NWA championship. To quote Kris Zellner, "WCW, everybody."

Yeah, I feel like the term "world champion" means a completely different thing depending on the person talking about it. I think of Rude as a world champion, but I didn't watch much WCW at the time, because I primarily lived in a place without cable access. When I was 12, my age when all of this took place, my WCW knowledge was based on whatever was in whatever random wrestling mag I looked through at the mall that week. So, my memory is based on seeing him with that belt all the time and the mags treating him like a big deal. Rick Rude was also one of my favorites from his WWF run, so I see one of my favorites with a belt that looks like what I recognize as the world championship, and without any ability to actually know how it was being presented...so, he's been a world champion ever since in my personal record book.

OK, the Rick Rude one is a little trickier than that. The International championship only existed because the NWA objected to Flair dropping the NWA title to Rude. The booking eventually turned into a different secondary championship, but it started by them wanting to put the world title on Rick Rude. This is also the event that was the start of the snowball that eventually grew into ECW being the 3rd biggest company in the states. When WCW withdrew from the NWA, the NWA made Eastern Championship Wrestling the promotion that booked the NWA world champion. I'm not saying that this is or isn't a legitimate world championship, but if this isn't a real world championship how do we feel about the 45 different versions of the WWE world championship, the World Championship, the Universal Championship, etc? Scott Hall wasn't much of a world title challenger, but he was absolutely a gatekeeper to the top of the card. Hall is kind of a unique case, because the reason he wasn't a world champion is because he couldn't be trusted. You can't put someone in a world championship program if he can't be trusted to show up sober. I believe that he would have absolutely been elevated by his upper midcard work if it wasn't for his demons, but those demons kind of put him in the gatekeeper position. I honestly don't know if there is a better not a world champion, but gave credibility to world champions than Scott Hall.

Rick Rude is a really good one. I don't think the Ultimate Warrior gets his run at the top without proving he could be carried to good matches by Rude. He was the first WCW champion, so he doesn't quite fit the second criteria. I think the best non-world champion who fits is Scott Hall being a huge part of putting Shawn Michaels over as a serious main event player. Depending on how you feel about AWA championships, Curt Hennig adding credibility to Michaels and Bret Hart on their way to the top.

The crazy thing about Bradley Beal is that he seems to be completely content with everything as long as the checks clear. It's so clear that everyone on the team hates him, but when the team wants to trade him, he's like, "What?!?!?! I love it here. No, you can't trade me." So, they have to try to trade Kevin Durant, who is better than Beal, less of a problem than Beal, and would probably want to be there if it wasn't for Beal and his ridiculous contract.

Their core is the best player in the world, and two dudes who are never going to make an all-star team who are massive injury risks. Aaron Gordon is the perfect player to play next to Jokic, but after that, the cupboard is pretty bare. They are the best team that has no chance to win the championship and it's because this roster is super shallow. The issue they have with Westbrook is that they need Westbrook's versatility to fill out the holes in the roster. He's kind of their entire bench and with Murray out, he's their primary ball handler and secondary scorer. The coach and GM bickering about it wasn't helping

The crazy thing is that I kind of understand the perspective of everyone involved. Malone liking veterans when on a championship run makes all the sense in the world. Booth wanting young guys who are cheap, when Murray and Porter are expensive injury risks makes total sense. Malone not repremanding Westbrook, who for all his faults is a professional who's biggest mistakes are based on the fact that he's trying really fucking hard at all times, makes sense when he just complained about how many players aren't doing the extra shit they need to do to succeed. The owner or team president looking at Malone and Booth and realizing that they can't work together any longer and deciding the team needs a full reset makes sense as well. It's the perfect storm of, this shit is not working and we have to do something about it.