 What's the word y'all? Today we had NBA media day, man. And it was a circus. We had some old faces in new places. We saw Lonzo Ball and Demarda Rosen, the Bulls Jersey for the first time officially. I had just been looking at the photo shops and it's real. They sign those contracts, baby. It's a real deal. So a lot of different things happen today and I'm here to talk about my favorite, at least favorite things about media day. I don't do this around here on this channel very often but I'm gonna remind you to leave a like and subscribe. I have big time goals for this channel. I wanna hit half a million. And here's my elevator pitch for you to subscribe if you're new around here. We, as a community, are a group of NBA fans that love the game of basketball more than a lot of things. But we also respect each other's opinions. So if you disagree with what I say or what someone else's community say, we not squaring up and trying to fight to the death. So if you want rational NBA conversations, this is the place to be. So let's talk about the elephant in the room because the most asked question in media day this year was about the virus and about the vaccination to the virus. Hopefully this is the only time I have to talk about something like this. This is a place we try to keep everything basketball related but there are some impacts when it comes to basketball around this and it was such a big part of media day. I have to talk about it for a brief second. So whenever someone came up to the podium, one of the first questions they were asked was about their vaccination status. Are they vaccinated? What are their opinions about it? And we had an entire organizations like the Utah Jazz come out and say, hey, everybody here is vaccinated on our roster. The Minnesota Timbers said, hey, we got one more person that needs one more shot and we're good, we're 100% vaccinated. That was one thing we saw. We had players to come to the podium and say, hey, I am vaccinated and here's why. John Morant told the story of the reason he got vaccinated is because he has a kid at home and he wants to be safe for her. Montrez Harrell told the story about his aunt that's on dialysis and he wants to try to protect her as much as possible and that would be getting the vaccination. We had some people come to the podium like Josh Richardson and Coby Irvin and say, hey, that's private information. I'd prefer not to talk about it. Let's keep it basketball. And we had some people tell the world, no, I am not vaccinated and here are the reasons why. I am never going to tell anyone to do anything. I would encourage everyone watching this video if you have the opportunity to get the vaccination but at the end of the day, it is your choice. So as much it will be cool to have Bradley Beal be an advocate for this, it's just not gonna happen and that is okay. But one thing I want or I would prefer with Bradley Beal's approach was for him to realize the amount of weight that his voice has. If Bradley Beal were to go down with Verona, he will be okay. He is in the top 1% when it comes to physical health. His job relies on him being physically healthy but he has to remember everybody that listened to the things that he said today aren't in peak shape like him and the virus could get to them and do some deadly things to them. He deserves the right to not get the shot. Same thing with Jonathan Isaac who spoke about it as well. But I just want people to maybe approach it in the Kyrie way and say, hey, I would rather not talk about it. And that's my only complaint about Bradley Beal. But it does have some on-court implications, right? Kyrie Irvin couldn't show up to media day because he was not vaccinated. I went to New York last week and he barred restaurant anything I tried to do before I walked into the door. They say, hold on brother, show me that car and show me all ID to prove to me that this is you. And that is the way New York is. So unless Kyrie decides to get the yadig, he can't play at home games. And of course that is a topic of conversation for the Brooklyn Nets. It is a topic of conversation when Kevin Wright steps into the podium, when James Harden steps into the podium and they have to say, hey, listen, we trust Kyrie Irvin and we believe that he will be ready to play when the ball is bouncing. But it seems like Kyrie Irvin is not gonna get it at least at the moment. Anything can happen between now and the beginning of the regular season. So there are some implications there. That's all I'm saying. And I just want to clear some things up. Everybody that came to the podium and said that, oh, that's private information. That doesn't mean they aren't vaccinated. I talked to a player that 100% is vaccinated that went to the podium and said, hey, that's private information. You know why? Because everybody in the organization is it. So hypothetically, if I come to the podium and say, hey, hell yeah, I'm vaccinated. And my next teammate said, yeah, I'm vaccinated. Then my next teammate said, yeah, I'm vaccinated. And that one teammate said it's private or I don't want to talk about it. Then the whole world knows that he is the one that hasn't been vaccinated. And yeah, maybe you would want to know that as an NBA fan, but as a team that's trying to build camaraderie, it ain't the safest thing to be like outing that player the first day of media day. So yeah, everybody that said that doesn't mean they haven't got to shop. Someone pointed out on Twitter that if the Brooklyn Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers were to meet each other in the finals, Kyrie literally couldn't play. He'd be at the Korea watching like me and you. Anyway, people be safe. Please be safe in any way that you can. All right, let's get to the actual stuff that y'all want to hear about. It must be weird for like, the Philadelphia 76er organization as a whole because they knew going into media day, there is one thing on people's mind and one thing only. And that is the Ben Simmons situation. Again, I don't want to be the dead horse, but we saw a lot of good quotes whether it be from Joel and B, Doc Rivers, Daryl Morrie about the situation. And some of them are a little bit outlandish and some of them are comedy. But I believe that Daryl Morrie came out and said, like, hey, we believe that we can reconcile this relationship kind of like, who was the court Jimmy Garoppolo? I guess he requested a trade once upon a time. Then he decided not to. And now things are fine and dandy. I believe they're too far gone in Philadelphia. Let's be honest with you. My favorite quote about all of this is they asked Joel and B, okay, if Ben Simmons does come back, what do you want to see from him? And Joel and B, he is a funny dude without trying to be a funny dude. Like, I do believe that he was not trying to take a jab or trying to make fun of Ben Simmons, but just the response is so, was this funny? He say, well, we all saw the videos of him working. Now we want some of that. Yeah, we do. In the workout videos of dudes shooting 100% from three. He doing stuff he ain't never done in the game. But I feel like that's just so far gone. I don't know. Joel and B also talks about the business side of the NBA. And I love to hear players be, again, transparent about these type of things. His exact quote was, you have to deal with them. If the Warriors called and offered Steph and Clay for me, do you think the Sixers would say no to that? I wouldn't say no to that. Because at the end of the day, the game of basketball, the NBA itself is a business, right? And organizations are gonna try to do what's best for them and kind of cut off the head of the players. Is that the right thing to do? Is it the wrong thing to do? You make that decision. But it kinda is a fact. Yes, Ben Simmons' name is gonna be in trade rumors until he gets traded. If he comes back into the Philly practice facility, that don't mean that he not gonna be thrown into trades until he is traded. My favorite thing about Media Day was Carl Anthony Towns in his transparency, right? I did not watch the Minnesota Timberwolves press live. I actually got a tweet. I asked people on Twitter before Media Day started, if you see something great, please tag me in it so I can see it, so I can talk about it in the video. And y'all did an amazing job. Thank you for that, because without that, I would have missed a lot of these gyms. Someone said, hey, Kenny, you gotta go to the Timberwolves Facebook page. Why the, who the, I had to download Facebook again. It was a scary place. And go watch Carl Anthony Towns' interview and he was dropping a lot of gyms. But Carl Anthony Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves, our team, I want to be successful, but not because of the organization, because they've been a dog, a dumpster fight for a long, a long time. Now, because I feel for Carl Anthony Towns, bro, he dropped a lot. Man, he was so similar to what I said about Joel. He was so transparent about everything. He told his entire journey as an NBA player. Hey, I came into the league and flipped Saunders. He passed away, man. Now I got his son. I love that family. Then now I'm switching this team. I'm switching this regime. All of this is happening. We sold the team. And just a week before, right now we got rid of a dude that I was a big fan of and Gersot Rosas. Yes, it's tough. And I've been the punching bag to a lot of the jokes around the league. And I've just swallowed that. I ate it because I love the Minnesota Timberwolves and I'm ready to go to war for the Minnesota Timberwolves. It got me hype. I want to see them be successful. They said the Anthony Edwards grew like an inch or so. I don't know what's going to happen. But for Cardin Towns segment, I just want to see him be successful because he's one of those players that when you watch and play, obviously he's super fun to watch. But when you watch interviews with him, he tries to be selfless. He tries to be down to earth or he is down to earth. And those are the type of players I like. Cardin Towns has gone up on the list of my favorite players. I'm not saying he number one or even number 10, but I'm just saying a player that I enjoyed watching before is like just a normal fan. I'm actually actively rooting for Cardin Towns at this point. And you gotta think about all the stuff he's personally been through that outside of the Minnesota Timberwolves organization, bro. It's been a crazy, what, six, seven years of Cardin Towns in the NBA, but it even crazed your personal life for Cardin Towns in the last two years. It came out even before me today that he had lost 50 pounds because of the Rona. 50 pounds. Or if I lost 50 pounds, I would be 70 pounds. No, I would be 80 pounds. That's insane, bro. And I'm saying it's a little bit different because he's a six, 10, six, 11 beast, but you get what I'm saying. But I'm actively rooting for Cardin Towns. I wanna talk about the Dallas Mavericks. A weird off season for them, right? They didn't do anything dramatic. They brought in Reggie Balak, which I think is gonna be a really good pickup for them. And they got a new coach and that coach is Jason Kidd. Now I'm on record on my podcast and saying that I don't believe in the Mavericks as a whole. I believe in Luca, but everybody else on that team right now is kind of iffy. Tamar Dewey Jr. had a great end of the season. I want that to be him. Porzingis has had up and downs in Dallas and I want him to be on the up and up. And this is an interesting thing that Jason Kidd said about Kristaps Porzingis at the presser. They wanna start him at the Power Ford, not the center. Okay, he's seven, four, but okay. He wants to be a basketball player. Who would have thought it? Porzingis wants to be a basketball. The guy in the league wants to be a basketball. Feel free to put the ball on the floor, make mid-range shots and I'll be limited to shooting threes. Then Porzingis himself said he wants to be what's best for the team and doesn't want to clog driving lanes for Luca just because he has the green light to post up. He acknowledges the game is changing and there aren't as many post-ups anymore. But he wants to post up more. All right, let's talk about it. I am not of the camp that says, hey, Porzingis, because he is seven, four, he got to post up because he's bigger than everybody on the court. That ain't the case. The statistics tell you straight up. When Porzingis posts us up, it ain't a good sight. You know, his points per possession are extremely low when he posts us up. But I am at the camp of him putting the ball on the floor and being more of the spot of shooter. And if that's what Jason Kidd of Porzingis have discussed and that means he will get more to the Porzingis that we saw be an all-star and that makes me a little bit more optimistic about the Dallas Marics. But today is media day and everything that people say is going to be exciting. The Bulls had a lot of different things. They got me hype, but I know 80% of it probably ain't gonna come true. And that could be the case in a lot of these situations. Briefly, I want to go over, clean in the glass, shout out to them. One of my favorite websites to be on. And Chris, that's Porzingis last year with the Knicks. He shot 23 of his shots from the three-point line. And then once he got to Dallas, that's when he became a guy that's gonna spot up and only shoot threes. And that got you to the 39% of his shots being there, the 35% of his shots being there. And what you saw in his years where he was successful in being an all-star, he shot a ton more mid-range shots than when he did, 20% more. So if he gets back to that, then he might be able to get back to form as an offensive player. The idea of Chris Dapsporzing is being exactly this. And there's so many things that happen in media day. I'm not gonna go down all 30 teams. We could talk about the fact that Zion broke his foot and then he came to media day and people were talking about how chunky he looked, whatever. But this was another interesting one to me. This is from Neil Loche. If you didn't know, Neil Loche is the general manager of the Portland Trailblazers. He said, we will never be receptive to moving dame. End quote. Something that, this is something to think about. Oh, and Michael Porter Jr. got a Max Ricki extension. So shout out to MPJ. Big things coming for him. Media day. What was your favorite part? Let me know in the comment section below. And interact, man. Y'all know this community is as good as it gets. Interact with your fellow, your fellow viewer, your fellow friend. And I'll be down there too, man. I'll see y'all tomorrow.