 What's the word y'all? All right, I know that probably sounded completely terrible. I am in my new house, which means I'm in my new office and the videos must go on even though the setup is not nearly close to done. It's actually at like 6%. But the desk is here. My editing station is here. The rest of these walls are completely bare and that's why I'm holding this microphone because if I was using my normal mic, the echo would be crazy. I think the echo might already be crazy even with this mic, but we gotta get the show on. I got hardwood floors for the first time ever and I'm rolling all over the place. I got my rug here, but the audio is still bad. If you are an interior designer and have a bunch of ideas of how it can make this office amazing in mind, let me know. I do got my MJ painting that I paid a couple racks for that's gotta go up on the wall, but other than that, I got my Derrick Rose thing back there. But other than that, I don't really know. So let me know in the comment section, man. Now I just got back from All-Star Weekend and I was gonna put together a video of me talking about All-Star and like the things that can make it better. Cause listen, I was there, there was booze. I had never, I've been to three All-Star games so far. I've been to Charlotte, I've been to Chicago and now this one, it was the first time I ever heard a legitimate boo during the competition. Now, players get booed all the time, right? You go to a team or we're in a city where the teams hate you or the fans hate you, like Seth Curry getting booed and Cleveland makes sense. He did some things to that city. But like the fact that we were in a dunk contest that people were booing dunks and the lack of dunks, this stuff was kind of wired. I wanted to put together a video of my suggestions on how to get All-Star better. Maybe that's gonna come down to when I asked us, we ain't got no basketball at all for the next couple of days. But instead, I wanna make a video about Zion because odds making things a little bit tough. The last time we talked about Zion is earlier in the season where he was cited at a game and he just looked extremely overweight. And then the next day he was in a jewelry shop and he looked just fine. But we made a video talking about him and what basketball means to him. It sounds weird to say, but there's a bunch of things revolving around Zion and I let it sit. And the whole world let it sit because we ain't heard from Zion in his camp for a very long time. Now, All-Star weekend, again, I'm there at the game so I'm not watching a pregame, I'm not watching all these interviews. So I get back to the hotel on Saturday and I see something that's trending and it's CJ McCullum. I'm like, yo, what's CJ McCullum up to? And I found the article in the video where CJ McCullum said, since I have been traded to the Pelicans, I have not talked to Zion Williams. I've talked to some people in his camp but I've not talked to Zion Williams. And immediately that was a complete red flag. And I posted a screen, so I put it up on Twitter and I've been reading through those replies. Some people saying, this is as much as on CJ than it is on Zion and I cannot disagree more because in that interview he talked about how he talked to some people within the Zion and what's to me makes it seem like he might have reached out to Zion but instead of getting Zion, he got Zion Cuzz or Zion's trainer or Zion's, you know what I'm saying? And I was just trying to explain to people that CJ McCullum is not just a guy that gets traded to a team. He is one of the, I don't wanna put a number on it but he's one of the better players in the league. Remember just last year, he was close to being an all-star before he got injured. This season he's been balling too, maybe not to that extent but he's been balling too. This is not the seventh, eighth, ninth man on the rotation that is getting traded for it. This is a guy that your organization decided, he's gonna help the growth of you, Zion, and the growth of Brandon Ingram and might be that third piece to help us get back to the playoffs. This is just not a normal deal. This is a guy that you look to in some late games and be like, hey, take us home. And the fact that they have not talked and the bro got traded almost two weeks ago or maybe it has been two weeks, I've been traveling all over the place, San Fran, then Cleveland and now I'm going to New York. I've been traveling all over the place all the time but it means something. And when I made that tweet, I was just like, what is going on with Zion? And then I woke up this morning and saw the homie, JJ Raddick and Stephen A. Smith talking about it as well. I wasn't the best player on any team I was on but if there was a buyout possibility, if there was a trade possibility, I would always reach out to team. I called Ersan Eliasova, I called Marco, I called West Matthews trying to get him to come to Philly. Like this just shows a complete lack of investment in your team. Look, I was his teammate. I can describe him as a detached teammate. That is an accurate statement. This is just basic level of humanity being a teammate. Send a text to a guy when he gets traded to your team. In those words, hold more weight than any talking head on TV, anybody on YouTube because JJ Raddick is not just a dude that's gonna spew out crazy things. That's why I like that he's doing a lot of TV stuff but also there's a dude that shared a locker room with Zion for a season. He knows Zion better than anybody in the media right now. So the fact that he would say this is a little bit alarming and I literally as I'm recording this video just got an update that says this, Malika Andrews just tweeted that Zion has reached out and the two have spoken. So CJ and Zion have finally had that conversation. And that's just, it's crazy that national TV and then a little bit of backlash was what was needed for these two dudes who have a conversation. This is a dude that's like, isn't CJ McCullough like the president of basketball operations because Chris Paul stepped down a little while ago, this is a guy that everybody in the league got his phone number because he's representing the league in all of these meetings. And it took CJ going on national TV. Now I don't think CJ meant any harm when he went on. It didn't seem like there was malice intent but he was just saying, I'm not gonna lie to y'all I have not talked to Zion just yet. And I never just liked to be the dude talking about players being unhappy. Cause at the end of the day it's all speculation until Zion formally says anything but a lot of his actions just seem like this might not be the place that he wants to be. His camp came out a little while ago and it was rumored that this is how he felt but he was saying, no, I'm here to stay. And every time I talk about this there are people in the comment section like Kenny blank player said that he wants to say Zion literally said this season before the season started that he would love to stay in New Orleans. He's happy to be in New Orleans. But that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. Anytime a person is at a media day especially in the early to season right after they get traded they gonna say what they believe is the right thing to say for the fans. You know what I'm saying? Was James Hard as first choice actually Philly? Who knows? Was Paul George actually a Clippers fan grown up? Who knows? They're going to say what it takes to keep people behind them. Carrie Irving when the season was starting and Boston told the fans I'm gonna stay and guess what Carrie Irving was on the first flight out of Boston as soon as he got it. Things change, people change and people will say the right things to keep everything cool. Because if you were at this pre-season interview the media day and Zion said I don't know. I don't know if I wanna be here forever. You know how much of a pop is going to be starting that? So of course he's gonna say that. Again, I'm not trying to say that Zion is the one that's trying to ask out but these actions are kind of wild because the Pelicans are trying to get people to sign back up for season tickets and this is something I saw couple of days ago. The WBD, I don't know what that means. Pelicans just sent an email to season ticket holders about renewal for the 2022-2023 season and no mention of Zion. Led by new head coach Willie Green and players Brandon Ingram, Jonas Valenchuna, CJ McCullum, Herb Jones, Herb Jones. The Pelicans are building something special across the street from Caesar Superdome and with their best ever season ticket package now on sale they did not mention the guy that they drafted first overall just a couple years ago. Again, this is something that people can see and hear and try to dissect or go deeper into it. This is about as damning as it gets. Now this could be alarming for two different reasons, right? I was trying to look up a season ticket flyer for the go to say words for the 2019-2020 season. As you know, Clay Thompson got injured during the finals and I was trying to figure out are they still gonna advertise Clay Thompson at season even though they knew Clay Thompson probably was not gonna play. But the reason why this is different is because they've been telling us that Zion will eventually come back and if you're trying to say the reason they don't have Zion there is because they don't know if he's gonna play. That's alarming for other reasons that we only want to talk about. The fact that, bro, is on pace, on pace when it comes to the amount of games played in these first couple of seasons is Greg Oden like. Again, Greg Oden never came to the league in the average 27 points per game and they can all start periods. I understand that. But he has not played much in his first three seasons. So if you're telling me they didn't advertise, bro because they don't know if you're gonna play next season it's wild because even if he was only gonna play half the season next year, third of the season next year, it's Zion Williamson we talking about. This is the same organization that with healthy, the news that he had foot surgery so they could get season tickets, people in the seats, right? So even if they believe he gonna play 10 games next season you should still advertise it because people still wanna see those 10 games. So what's going on with Zion? What is going on with Zion, bro? It's unfortunate because as in the NBA and I'm gonna sound like overhead here but I promise I don't mean this in a super negative way. And the NBA where it seems like a lot of the league plays very similarly as far as like, hey everybody can shoot and everybody does this. Having a guy that is like a 6566 bruiser is just different and I love watching that. And if we about to get to the point where things are getting kinda iffy for Zion, I'm gonna be pretty upset man because I like watching Zion play. And listen, this is coming from the same dude that in the last episode was trying to put it on the same course as Joel and Bede who missed a ton of time in his first couple of seasons but it wasn't like a bunch of malarkey involved in it. You know what I'm saying? The 76ers then traded for a top 50-ish player in the league and Joel and Bede didn't give him a call. Joel and Bede wasn't completely detached from the organization on the different side of the country rehabbing. At least as far as I remember, I don't know, it was a couple of years ago. Can you believe that Joel and Bede has been an all-star starter for half a decade now? Isn't that crazy to say? You don't even feel like Joel has been dominating that long but time flies. And then we're gonna have, if this does happen where down the line in the next year or so, Zion decides to one out or he doesn't pick up that rookie extension, the NBA is gonna have extreme conversations and there's going to be a lot of backlash around it because how was a team like the Pelicans, the small market team in the league, supposed to build an organization? Because no, the Pelicans are not shooting 100% on draft picks or trades or this or that but I think that they've been doing an okay job since Zion has been there and the fact that he might not wanna be there still is alarming for the other small market teams across the league. If Zion decides to turn down that rookie extension and go to a big market team, it is, the NBA is gonna have to change some things and it's gonna, how dramatic do you want me to be? It's gonna cause an NBA lockout. Shit, I said it, it might cause an NBA lockout because how was a small market team supposed to build like this? They made the trade for Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, bling, bling, bling, bling, bling, got a ton of first round picks because they had an unhappy guy and Anthony Davis and yes, Anthony Davis won on a winning championship but this looks like a trade that was beneficial for both teams because they still got a lot of draft capital, they still have a young core and they're still on the fringe of making a play-in even without Zion being there. They get the first overall pick and they draft well and Zion and Brandon Ingram in the minutes they have played together, have looked decent and now they're telling the world, hey, Zion gonna come back eventually, we gonna buy in because we got a million first round picks in the Anthony Davis trade, we got a million first round picks in the Drew Holiday trade so we're okay with giving up some of those picks because those CJ is 31 years old or whatever, we believe he can be a piece that helped us grow to make that play-off because our organization, our fans have been missing the playoffs for the last couple years. They hit on some draft picks, Herb Jones is like an absolute stud, I don't even, was he on drafted? Regardless, they got a guy out of nowhere that's an absolute stud and you can look at the Lonzo Ball walking and this and that and say that that was a mistake and it might have been but other than that they've been pretty solid. The Jonas Valantunas trade for them has been a W, they have a core there and the fact that they're number one player, they're star player, the demigod, the generational talent that people are saying might not wanna be there or might not be healthy enough to play enough games in his first four seasons is bad for the entire league, let's be honest. And it's a couple of days ago, a guy that I genuinely respect when it comes to this sports stuff, I met Howard Beck, he's a cool dude, he followed me back on tour, I didn't even ask for it, I didn't say, hey, follow me on Twitter, he followed me back on Twitter. And this was in his article from Sports Illustrated, teams are bracing for a potential Zion Williamson, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell trade demands because they believe that those might be the next three stars that request out. We know Damian Lillard not about to do it, so it's up to Zion and Donovan Mitchell and the Donovan Mitchell thing is something we can talk about in the next couple of days is when you got no basketball to talk about, about his backhanded compliments or backhanded comments between him and Rude Gobert, yada, yada, yada. Zion Williamson looks like out of these options the most realistic one, and it's not a great thing. I'm very far away from calling Zion a bus like I've been seeing crazy on Twitter. I don't think that is the case, I think he might be an unhappy guy in a market that he doesn't wanna play in, which again, like I said, is not the best of things, but that's the case. It would take a lot more for me to consider someone a bus because I feel like in the NBA world, or just sports world in general, that word gets thrown around so early and it gets thrown around so often that it's lost its value. Zion was just a dude that averaged 27 points per game and when he does play the game of basketball, he is elite, it's about getting them there. And I'm not willing to say that he won't get back there after him missing or he played 85 games in his first three seasons. I'm not there just yet. I need to see more before I start throwing that label around on players. But yeah, let me know what you think about this whole Zion situation. I literally have no idea. Let me know again what I can do for my room because right now it looks kind of weird even with this lighting. This room is not red like my last room. This is a normally colored room but I have my lights back here because y'all are used to the color red. So I just put it back on. Do y'all need the color red anymore? I don't really know. You feel me? Shout out to MJ. I was in the same building as Michael Jordan again. That is the third time in three years, ladies and gentlemen. I'm close to, okay, I'm not close to meeting them but I was in this presence. I was in the presence of majority of the NBA 75. You know what I'm saying? Which is crazy to even say. I was in the same building as them. I don't know. The energy on Sunday was crazy. And I think I would talk about more about All Star in the next video because there's a lot of stuff to happen. This was actually one thing to happen, right? Talking about the CJ thing. But anyway, if you enjoyed it, leave it a like and I see y'all soon.