 Can former NBA superstar Dwight Howard actually convince John Morant to leave the NBA and go play basketball in Taiwan? Let's talk about it. Get ready to learn Chinese, buddy. Get ready to learn Chinese, buddy. It won't be long before you're playing point guard for the Wong Dong Tigers. Yo, this is pretty funny, Andrew. Did you expect that to become such a popular meme on NBA social media? Man, I wanted to learn Chinese for actual reasons, but everybody's got to learn Chinese because they're banished from the NBA and they got to go play basketball in the CBA. For the Wong Dong Tigers and the Taoyuan Leopards. Yo, that was crazy that they made memes about Dylan Brooks, Jordan Poole, everybody. But anyways, David, we're not here just to talk about that meme, although playing basketball in China is now a meme amongst NBA Twitter, but we're talking about Dwight Howard. Yes, he is going viral on sports websites, Andrew, as well as non-sports websites right now for two reasons. One, for roasting everybody who had subpar playoff performances as well as John Morant to come to that Taiwan to play basketball since their status is going down in the NBA. And number two, Andrew, he actually got involved in a geopolitical incident. So Dwight Howard, Andrew, you know his personality, probably loves attention. Well, I'll tell you this, Andrew, he's not in the NBA anymore, but he is back on the front page of the news. Well, I'll tell you this, Dwight Howard's trying to learn some Chinese right now. Nihao, Washi, who are you? All right, everybody, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys because this has to do with being Asian and the NBA. And you know, we love it. So let's get into the comments section, David. Real quick, I got to provide some quick backstories. Andrew Dwight was getting older, right? He was trying to get a spot in the NBA. He couldn't do it. He made an unconventional choice. He went to the T1 basketball league in Taiwan, not the CBA, the Marbury went to, right? And then he really increased Taiwan basketball's exposure exponentially in one season. Right, especially him and Jeremy Lin, Jeremy being in the P-plus league, Dwight being in the T1 league. So both leagues kind of had a star of their own, right? And actually, eccentric NBA All-Stars, Andrew, they play an outsized role in like geopolitical relations between the East and the West, but we're going to get into that later. The first comment was, uh, Demarcus Cousins, I'll be playing in Puerto Rico. Can Dwight and Demarcus Cousins still be in the NBA right now? Like, could they help a team guard Yolkich in the post? Long story short, I think physically and skill-wise, maybe they could still be on a roster, but I think attitude-wise, a lot of people don't want to deal with boogie cousins, and then Dwight might be a little slow, to be honest. Yeah, they would hunt him and put him in the pick and rolls on defense. Somebody said, uh, Taiwan is a great place to play pro sports, man. It's like a non-evil version of China to me. Clean modern English has spoken widely great manners. I love it. Dude, I'll play some T1 League highlights down below. It looks fun, man. The cheerleaders are going viral. They're shooting air out of the top of the, uh, shot clock. Right, right. All the players are on the bench doing the little eyeglass celebrations. They're at a really small league, um, but it seems like they're having fun. For sure, for sure. I mean, they're bringing that beachy funness that Taiwan is known for. Somebody said, Dwight, you're already rich. Why dunk on a bunch of short Asians over in Taiwan? We want to do it. Guys, I'm not going to lie. A lot of highlights from street ballers or, or dribbling coaches always come from, like, shaking, like Asian kids. In America and in Asia. Not even shout out to Bone Collector and shout out to all those guys. Professor. Yeah, professor. They shake a lot of Chinese guys. But anyways, um, regardless of that fact, I guess, uh, Dwight, he's, think about it, you're a, you're a former NBA superstar. You still want to play basketball. You're kind of image and branding in the NBA kind of got a little bit like embarrassing. Like people started to make fun of Dwight Howard. And listen, he gets to be the biggest man on campus in Taiwan. He gets to be Kawhi in Canada. Yeah. And he's just like, he's fun. He's fun loving. He's trying to learn the culture a little bit. So pretty much I think they're accepting him and he has a lot of fans. And by the way, guys, we're going to get into a later Andrew eccentric NBA personalities, Dennis Robin, Marbury, Dwight Howard. For some reason, they can just bridge the gap. I don't know. Just more than you think. Um, Dwight, obviously he also had a geopolitical incident where he called Taiwan a country in a promotional video for a politician. This is the thing that made him go viral again. Andrew, even on like Fox news, right? Because a lot of people who were into the NBA might have heard about Dwight going to Taiwan. If you kept up with it, but this reach like mainstream geopolitical news, even people who don't care about basketball, right? Just care about like the China US issue. Somebody said, come on guys, let's be honest. Dwight is over in Taiwan because he is probably getting with so many Asian girls. This was a real comment. This was a real comment. You know, it's a little bit un-PC, but I had to pick it out. Dwight can probably, yeah, just flying all his friends and whoever he wants. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, who knows? Somebody said, you know, let's talk about John Morant situation, Andrew, because obviously Dwight also went viral for tweeting at John Morant saying, come on, John, come on over to Taiwan because they're about to kick you out of the NBA. But make sure you just leave that thing at home. Right. Because John is going through these issues of him holding guns and people don't know what's going to happen to John Morant in the league. I'm sure I think he won't get kicked out of the NBA, but he could get suspended. But the joke is that Dwight's like, yo, John Morant, why don't you come to Taiwan? You know, because basically you got to leave the NBA. Yeah. I mean, I think realistically with the John Morant situation, I do not think he's going to go play in Taiwan. I do not think he would play in the CBA. I think it would be more and more likely if he did get kicked out, he'd go play a year in Puerto Rico with DeMarcus. I mean, I don't think he would do that either, but I'm just saying Puerto Rico sounds fun. I'd say realistically, I think John's going to get at least a 16 game suspension, two X of the eight game suspension he got last year. Why not double it up? Right? Do you think Dwight Howard can actually recruit more other like NBA players to play in Taiwan specifically? And no, I'm not. Obviously the Taiwan leagues and the CBA are completely different. But I'm saying like, do you think he can recruit some to play in the small leagues to build up Taiwan? Because Taiwan is, it operates differently than China obviously. For sure, for sure. I mean, I think it's way more loose over there. There's way, you know, it's just more fun. It's beachy. It's more sunny than for sure Beijing. So I think that he can because prior to Dwight Howard playing in the T1 league, I believe that the highest profile players playing in either league P plus or T1 was OJ Mayo. And previously before that, Jeremy Lin's younger brother. And now Jay Lin's over there. Obviously his season just ended. I hope he's okay with his injury. He comes back next season. Why not, right? Wouldn't you say, Andrew, that a lot of players are playing in Puerto Rico now because DeMarcus cousins sort of like made it extra cool? Yeah, it depends on what they build and the impact. Like obviously I think a lot of players also played in the CBA partially because DeFon Marbury. So once one guy breaks through and kind of shows the life and can kind of even mentor you and kind of tell you, maybe they have people on their squad that are like, hey, like maybe Stefan was like, hey man, this guy's coming to play in the league. Can you go like mentor him, tell him how to move and how to deal with things and how I did it? You know, so like it depends on if they set up a system for future players to come by, then yeah, more players will come by. And I do think that even the style of play in the CBA right now, it's overly physical, Andrew, and it's not fun enough. There's no three in the key. The pigs, the pigs pack the paint, take away all the driving angles. Andrew, foreigners take up 70% of the usage rate. That means that the ball is not distributed amongst like all five starters. Man, yeah, are you trying to say that China's not as fun? Yeah, they got to rework the CBA. They just went through a big internal gambling situation. But I don't know what's going on in the CBA. But I don't want to knock on the CBA and the CBA fans because a lot of Chinese basketball fans, especially Chinese people in China who are fans of the NBA or people who are in the Chinese speaking part of the world, they have a lot of hilarious nicknames for people. Like the Chinese translations of the nicknames are some of the best that I've heard. Yeah, I know that Dwight, when he was on The Magic, was called Magic Beast. And then when he had a real downside gear with the Lakers, they called him Evil Baby. Because he was like winding like a baby. They even used to call Michael Jordan Gang Boss. And they used to call James Harden Free Throw Mamba because he would get to the free throw line so much. And anybody, Mamba would be obviously like based off of the Kobe. So anybody who could do that one thing really good got the Mamba tag. Yeah, they called Andrew Wiggins Strength Conservation Mamba because it looks like he's not playing hard, right? And they called Ryan Anderson Standing Around Mamba because he would stand around at the three point line. And they called Isaiah Thomas the short one, 175 Mamba, right? Because he was only 175 centimeters tall, but he was a beast. Yeah, he was the greatest of that, yeah. And then, so it's just, man, there's this whole like thread that I was, I just, it kind of comes down to how much like Chinese speaking people love the NBA. They love it, bro. I cannot tell you between the Chinese speaking countries, bro. They love the NBA. Yo, it is literally, the closest thing I could describe it to is real life Dragon Ball Z. You know how in Dragon Ball Z everybody's like Vegeta versus Goku versus this and this and this. I think people in Chinese speaking countries treat the NBA like real life Dragon Ball Z. Bro, and it's, I think the way they look at it, because it's almost like the NBA players are kind of their like superheroes or their cartoon characters. Comic book heroes. They're super humans in a way. Like, they know they're human, but they just are flying through the air and doing all these cool things that they like. Well, Dwight, I still remember when you were like Superman, child run? Yes, amazing. I still remember. Dwight, remember when all the Chinese fans left that video for D. Rose? When D. Rose was, his career in America was going down side, made D. Rose cry? Yeah. I mean, long story short, Andrew, back to my more geopolitical takeaway. Why do you think people like Dennis Rodman and his friendship with King Jong-un and Marbury, his statue that he has in Beijing, as well as Dwight now in Taiwan? Why do these former eccentric personality, gregarious NBA All-Stars have such a crazy way of like relating to the East? I think at the end of the day, basketball is a universal language that despite what is going on geopolitically between the two countries, on a sports level, everybody can always share love with each other. So it's like Staphon Marbury's out there. And you know, if you follow Staphon Marbury on Instagram, you'll see that he does post a lot about anti-China stuff along with like anti-black stuff that's happening in America. So he's just talking about all the kind of like issues that he cares about, that he's trying to like, you know, help like kind of bridge the gap between. Mapoli. Yeah. So it means a lot. I think it gives them meaning more, too. Think about it. Dwight Howard, he could be chilling in America, partying every day. He made so much money. He's super tall. Everybody knows him. He's famous, right? But I think America, a lot of people did want to make fun of him and clown on him. You know what I mean? Yeah, because he was corny. And it's sort of like China Clay where everybody thought Clay Thompson was this really like sheltered, awkward dude. But then remember Clay Thompson was like leading the whole club with the DJ in China and stuff? It's kind of like you kind of come to Asia for a second life, for a second career, a fresh start. They only know you for the good things. They don't really care about the American rumors or whatever. You're not cool. You're corny. Do you have cheesy sense of humor? It's not that Dwight's not cool in Taiwan. He's cool. That's it. He came there. He's cool. And as long as he is open and nice to people and respectful to the culture and plays hard, they're going to like him. I think there needs to be more research done into why these NBA All-Stars couldn't just bridge the gap. All right, guys, in the comments down below, let me know which other NBA players you realistically think would actually go to play in the CBA or in Taiwan League. Let me know. I'm trying to think of someone. Jon Marant's not going. Jon's not going. Pat Bev, I don't think so. He has the gregariousness, but I don't know if you like it. Who would fit? Because you kind of need a personality to be out there because you need to like stomach being in a completely different culture and environment. Yeah, you kind of need a wacky person a little bit. And real quick, just to do a quick hitter of some NBA topics. Andrew, what do you think about Victor Wimbanyama? This is really big in the NBA right now. ESPN calling him the greatest prospect ever. Of course, a lot of people are like, no way. That's Braun. How good is he realistically going to be? I have no idea because I know he's been doing well in his French League that he's in, but he hasn't been doing what LeBron was doing. Is he going to be more like Chet Andrew or Porzingis plus KD plus Bowl ball? I have no idea, man. It's very hard to say because I feel like a lot of the big men I'm not going to lie of the past like eight years have kind of been disappointing. You're talking about Andre Barniani. But Porzingis had highlights. And at Porzingis' peak, if he could have kept his peak up, obviously he seemed like he was going to be a great. But he couldn't. He got injured and all this stuff. I believe that every player over 7-3 statistically, every single one has that significant injury. Yeah, I think it's really going to come down to his IQ and his mentality. And that's going to keep him healthy and keep him getting better. But of course he has the tools to be great. I would actually keep him on the perimeter for the first couple years to test out his body and his strength before I put him in the paint and get him all injured. David, what do you think it's going to take for more players to go play in Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico is another market that a lot of players are choosing to play. Is it much closer to America? I think to be honest, the off-court life is way funner. Yeah, it's more liming. It is technically in American territory. So yeah, I guess DeMarcus Cousins chose to play in Puerto Rico, not Asia. What do you think? I would just say this. I think it's going to come up. I think it depends on the infrastructure of the league and how much they invest in it, but it being in American territory, Commonwealth is huge. Long story short, Andrew, why do you think that this became such an issue? It sounds like we're just talking about a sports issue, but there's a lot of soft power and geopolitics involved, even in Dwight going to Taiwan and all these things going viral and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't think it shifts anything geopolitically, but I guess Dwight is, in a way, the biggest Taiwanese athlete right now. Oddly enough, I know he's not Taiwanese blood-wise, but the fact that he's playing in Taiwan and he's so viral and he's a former superstar, superstar. Like I'm saying, I think he's going to be a Hall of Famer at some point, right? They're going to induct him. But I'm saying, I guess he's one of the best players probably to ever play in Asia. Yeah, they'll probably ask him to join the national team. I doubt he'll, you know, take it, but they'll probably give him 10- Oh, interesting, yeah. Anyway, guys, basketball diplomacy in Asia, guys. More research has to be done on this, and I think these old white geopolitical guys, they need to get on this, man. I don't think they understand basketball. Is this the new trend, A? Let us know what you think in the comment section below. Let us know what you think Dwight going viral, Jaws going viral. You better learn Chinese buddies going viral. Just a lot of stuff with Asia, Chinese-speaking countries in the NBA going viral right now. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. Until next time, we're the Hot Pop Boys. We out. Peace. Ni hao. I'm De Leon Brooks, and I... I'm happy joining the Sichuan... These memes are hilarious. Oh, the Sichuan blue whales. Yeah, the Sichuan blue whales. All right, guys. Until next time, we out. Peace.