Nothing But Anarchy
"Nothing But Anarchy" hosted by Chad Sanders explores and subverts sports, media, Hollywood, and culture. Chad's vulnerable and raw commentary creates a fresh podcast experience you don't want to miss. Tune in Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12PM ET on Youtube Live.
Subscribe to the "Nothing But Anarchy" Youtube channel for full interviews and more anarchy!
Game analysis, social commentary, and music.
Instagram: @chadsand
Executive Producer: Chad Sanders
Producer: Morgan Williams
Music: Marcus Williams
Nothing But Anarchy
Eps #97 Dissecting Media Mayhem, Being Back in Creative Spaces, Draymond Green & Steph Curry, and March Madness & Caitlin Clark
On this episode Chad delves into finding topics for the show, creative spaces, seeing people you have tension with, Draymond Green making Steph Curry cry, and March Madness standout Caitlin Clark.
Tune in Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12PM ET to watch the show live on Youtube. Follow @chadsand on Instagram and subscribe to the Nothing But Anarchy Youtube channel for full interviews and more anarchy!
Executive Produced by: Chad Sanders
Produced by: Morgan Williams
All right, this is Nothing but Anarchy. Welcome to Nothing but Anarchy. Episode number looking at the docket 97. That's crazy. We're going to come up on episode 100. I bet right around the time of one year of the show, maybe, maybe. Mortgagron is here, we are in different rooms, we are. I'm in my house, she is in an unknown location and we're doing the show via Riverside. I think, possibly, that we will be doing more of the show via Riverside, so let's figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 1:My friend, justin G, chatted me this morning. He says random thought but have you found that there's more stuff to talk about in 2024 than there was in 2023? Which I thought was an interesting question because I had not considered that. My experience with time and subject matter right now is just that there is as much to talk about as we can possibly fill space with. Which is said differently is like I don't know that there are ever. Let's just take modern history Like in the last 10 years, people have said a lot.
Speaker 1:People say a lot of things like things have never been this bad, or I can't believe all the things that are going on right now, in this time, and those sorts of comments that are meant to say like this is the most fraught time or even just this is the most eventful time in history, those like sometimes, when people say things like that, they just wash over and that's not what I think my friend Justin was saying. I think he was literally just saying this year seems more packed already with stuff than the previous year and, to be honest, like 2020 did feel like a special year in a lot of ways, with, obviously, covid, kobe Bryant died and then the summer of, you know, racial tumult and unrest and George Floyd and all the things. But like, generally speaking now, with the way that media is set up, I mean let's just talk about this particular show, the job that I have coming into this show. The reason why Justin even asked the question is because, whether or not anything interesting has happened, I have to manufacture interestingness out of whatever has happened. So I woke up this morning thinking I looked at my text story with Morgan and we didn't have very much in it and I was like I wonder what we can find that is interesting to talk about here. And we have to. We as the creatives. I guess we, as like the writers here, have to make something interesting out of whatever exists, and I think that is the case for the larger media industrial complex that we have right now, which is to say, there are people who are, who have a financial incentive, an economic incentive, a job incentive, as we do, whose job it is, all over the country, all over the world, to make something interesting out of whatever is happening, even if what is happening is inconsequential. And so, in that way, I cannot say definitively that there is more going on right now than there was last year or the year before that, the year before that, because we've been in this sort of media industrial complex for probably I'm going to say the last like 10 years, but we're really, really, really, really, really in it right now. So, with that said, here's what's on the docket. Here are some really important, interesting things that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:And don't get me wrong, once I have coffee, I have a lot to say about everything. Everything is in its own. I had this kind of back and forth argument I don't know what to call it with a friend years ago, where I'm like this is a core belief of mine. I think every single person has an interesting story to tell. I think every single person is interesting. I think every single person has been through something. Every single person has a dream. Every single person has a point of view that is unusual or unique to them. I think every single person might have something to say if they only just look at what they're experiencing and what they're thinking about with a certain lens on it, and he felt differently. He felt like no, some people are just dull, some people are just boring. Some people live dull, boring lives and then they die. And I guess that mirrors what I'm saying about this time that we're in, which is like any time can be interesting if you are willing to open yourself up to look at it with a certain lens, just like any person can similarly be interesting if you're open to look at it with a certain lens. This is what we're looking at today, with a certain lens. It appeared that Draymond Green's tactics last night made Steph Curry cry, which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1:Kaitlyn Clark, who is probably the biggest star in college basketball men's or women's right now she plays for Iowa. She's like a swing woman, I guess, like a shooting guard three, but she also plays some point. She is likely to be the number one pick in the NBA draft, the big three, which is Ice Cube's three-on-three league, which is like Ice Cube's kind of startup league that he means to take a little bit of market share of the basketball viewing viewership. Ice Cube wants to offer, or may have already offered, kaitlyn clark five million dollars to come play for the big three. She's likely to make around a hundred thousand dollars or something like that playing in the wmba next year not, not not including sponsors, sponsorships and brand deals and all kinds of other money she'll make off the court.
Speaker 1:But whatever, um, I guess we got to talk about diddy. Um, there's a, there's a chapter in my new book titled. I guess we should talk about kanye. Uh, my book is about selling out, and there are some things where I literally forgot to talk about diddy the other day because, like, there are some stories that are so big and so right down the like the middle of media that reach everybody they're almost so much everywhere that they're nowhere, and this is one of those stories where I was just like I forgot. I don't think we even talked about putting it on the docket. I can't remember, though. Maybe we did. No, we didn't, we didn't. But first, before we get into any of that stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm going to talk about an experience that I had on Tuesday night, hit by a deluge of responsibilities, things I had to get moving on. Such is life right now. This is like an interesting moment in my adulthood, in my career, where everything to some extent has to run like my. My fingerprints are on everything. If something's going to get done, I have to sort of push it to get done. And that doesn't mean like me specifically, necessarily like Morgan does a lot of pushing. There's a couple other people who do a lot of pushing, but like it's sort of it's my team and me and my team used to mean actually a bunch of people who, as I came to realize, were not my team. I was like a client of theirs that was one of a zillion clients and one of the least important among them, unless I had a deal that was right on the precipice of getting done. And we have sort of moved the power center back over to be a little more centralized around me, which means that if things need to get done, I have to make them get done. And when your car battery is done, when you get off a flight, when your car battery is dead. That makes everything take longer. But one of the things that I was excited to do on Tuesday was I went to a poets and writers gala with my sister that my sister invited me to.
Speaker 1:I'm going to talk about why it is cool to have siblings. I have only one, which is my older sister. She, as many of you all know, debuted her first published full-length work called Company, a collection of short stories that she wrote about the dynamics of families is how I would describe it the complicated dynamics of families. And my sister and I are close. My sister and I talk almost every single day. My sister listens to every episode of this show, sometimes multiple times, often multiple times. My three-year-old nephews, who are twins who can talk, but obviously they just turned three so they still speak in their own sort of language. They know the sound of my voice from this podcast so well, from my sister listening to it in the car, that one of them will sometimes ask to listen to Uncle Chad's podcast.
Speaker 1:And my sister took me as her plus one to Chelsea Pier, which is all the way on the west side, next to the water, all the way further than West Side Highway. It's literally touching water. She took me to this gala and it was fancy. It was fancy people I shouldn't say fancy people, it was people behaving fancily as you know them to do right. So I my sister, told me weeks ago she said where you can wear something cool and artsy, and I finally got a chance to wear the suit that I wore on the cover of my direct deposit key art a couple of years ago, which is like a floral patterned purplish, violet-ish suit that has like a tie around belt situation. It's like a fabric belt that you tie around instead of buttoning the suit together If you want to, or if you're me and you gained five to 10 pounds in your lower half over the last two years, you do that because you don't want to accidentally bust the suit open when you, when you try to button the buttons. And I spent from the time I put the suit on until the end of the night. I spent the entire night having to be thoughtful about how I bent my body so that I didn't bust the pants open of the suit, or how I crossed the legs or whatever, because that could have happened.
Speaker 1:But I go to the thing. My sister and I meet there and it is a room of, I would say, 200 or so I'm going to use the term Is power players, the right word Like 200 or so people who are actually sort of firmly in the publishing business, which means authors, editors, publishers, agents and some, like you know, corporate folks. Like I was sitting next to a woman named Liz who works in the audio books and podcasting department at Apple. She was in her fifties and or I think she told me she was 50 exactly and she's been working in publishing for like 28 years is how she put it. So she knew everybody in the room and Roxane Gay was there, which was a very fanny fan moment for me. It was one of the reasons why I was very excited, besides just getting to go and have a night and hang out with my sister without our families, without her kids, which is extremely rare in our adult life now, like I was also very excited to get to be a fan boy for someone who I look up to in a part of my work. That I think is honestly, if I'm being real, is most legitimate. Like I have read two of Roxane Gay's books Hunger and Bad Feminist and the subject matter is compelling. Her tone is compelling. But what I really love about Roxane Gay is like this is something that I also found compelling in Stephen King's book on writing You're just writing.
Speaker 1:I think people get caught up in the language of it all. It's very easy. People get caught up in the language of it all. It's very easy to get caught up in the language of it all. It's very easy to remember, oh, that one thing that you read where someone turned a phrase so artfully and so poetically and it really like lasted and stayed with you and it felt, like, felt like you had eaten something delicious and it went down so smooth and cute and whatever. And if you look on Instagram or on Twitter or on TikTok, everybody's trying to like say something so artistically and so with such, you know, with so many adverbs and lies and whatnot and like and all these extra words that fill up space and don't actually add anything to the sentence, because they're not actually trying to like say something. Necessarily, they're trying to make a pretty picture that people will share and that will, you know, have virality.
Speaker 1:But writing, when it's done well and meaningfully and effectively, is supposed to. It's not supposed to be about the words. The words are accoutrement. The words are window dressing. It's supposed to be about what you're saying. Like are you saying something that is a lasting idea for someone that they can digest and put into their own like, build into their own cycles, their own ethos? I'll say that all really plainly how Stephen King says. It is like whatever language you have, whatever lexicon you have, however many words you have, use those, but just say what you're saying. And that's what I love about Roxane Gay is like her writing says what it's saying, so you don't have to spend time in your head like interpreting oh, did I get that right? Did I read that right? Et cetera.
Speaker 1:Now my sister and I my sister very much hosted. She was a host for this thing, she was a host for this event. It was her event among other people. It was fancy, the table was, the tables were all nice and had nice cloths and nice food and champagne and desserts and all kinds of stuff first, and she knew that I wanted to meet her. And I never do this Like if I saw, I don't know, I never, I never. People say this all the time, but I never do the thing If I see somebody out who I admire or even who I just have known about for a long time. It's really difficult for me to get the bravery or the confidence to go over to that person or the brazenness to go over to that person and introduce myself, unless I'm in a place of urgency and I need something from that person, which is what I did for Spike Lee, many, many, many, many, but like eight years ago when I first met him. But my sister spots Rockton Gay seven years ago. So this is Rockton Gay. She comes back over to the table and she says, hey, she's sitting over there and we have. This is like the sibling part of it. We, we, we go over there, she'll know the side of the room, sitting quietly, eating and just being frank about it all.
Speaker 1:Roxane Gay has written and spoken openly, speaks openly about her own issues with her weight and with food, and so me and my sister, as siblings, sort of tiptoeing in her direction around this room full of, let's be honest, mostly, you know, rich white folks, like we're tiptoeing around this room to get to someone that I think is a hero, which is Roxane Gay, and she is a, as a, you know, she's a self-described fat black woman who has some stuff with her eating. And so we stand there and we watch her eat for about 20 seconds, while my sister and I contemplate okay, who's going to be the one to go over and speak? Who's going to? How is it going to be done? Should we give her space? What if she's not feeling it? What if she doesn't really want to talk to us right now, whatever? And then we go back to our seats without saying a word to her.
Speaker 1:The night proceeds. People give speeches. Roxane Gay gives a great speech. People give speeches. Roxane Gay gives a great speech. People talk about how important it is for there to be writers right now and for there to be publishing right now, because people are literally burning books and when they burn books, they will also burn bodies, et cetera, et cetera. It's pretty heavy. The speeches are. There's a lot of fundraising going on. I think $60,000 were raised in the room. Over a million dollars were raised for that event altogether, and afterwards now we got to go back over and meet Roxane Gay and we tiptoe our way back over there. We finally speak to her.
Speaker 1:My sister, I think, is the one who said hello to her first, and you know, my sister and I are in our 30s, like my sister's. A lawyer I'm me and like we're not like you know, we're not some little like tiny Tim head ass niggas. We're not like, oh my gosh, like it's such an honor to meet you. But that's exactly who we were when we started talking to Rakten Gay and she could not have been she herself almost I don't want to say like childlike, because that's probably has the wrong connotation but she was so earnest and warm and had such a humility that I was not expecting. I almost thought there was a chance she was going to want to flick me specifically away like a bug. When we came over to her and she could not have been more like um, inviting and and and almost like wanting to see us there, especially my sister for it for real, for real, like based on the eye contact and the body, posturing and etc. Etc. Like she was happy to see my sister there and that that was very nice. So, anyway, that was our night on Tuesday.
Speaker 1:After that, me and my sister I want to say this this is what I want to say actually One is I would be lying if not to say so me and my sister both got recognized a few times in this place by different people. It's really cool to be like a writer duo, as bro and sister. Like me and my sister went to the same colleges at the same time. I followed my sister's path through elementary school, middle school and not high school. She went to a different high school. We went to piano lessons at the same place, went to church at the same place, like there was a lot of our lives where we there was a connection, that is, we are shannon and chad, like that. That was a thing for where we grew up and people knew us as two kids that were smart and creative. Like that was the vibe. They were like those two kids. They not necessarily that they do great in school, because at different times I think each of us didn't do great in school full of, you know, fancy schmancy, wanting to be people.
Speaker 1:I felt like I felt more centered, I felt more safe. I felt like there was someone in that room who was going to know if I was having a bad experience and was going to know how to read my face or my tone or my fake laugh and help me and vice versa. And on top of that, I think there's a chance, I think there's a likelihood that as both of our imprints grow here, that more and more people will come to know us as a duo, know us as a duo, and I think there's power, there's real power in that for a duo of sibling Black authors. There were a bunch of folks in that room and I would have to guess that less than 5% of the authors who were in the room were Black authors. Maybe I don't know, who knows. There was one more thing I wanted to say, which is this I needed to be in a room of book people. I have been.
Speaker 1:I have had my head, very my head and my money deeply invested in marketing lately, and marketing is synonymous right now with social media. Marketing is synonymous with paid advertising, digital advertising. It's like it can make your head go beep, boop, beep. It can definitely turn you into a little bit of a of a robot and as a part of that, I think it can detach you from the art itself. Like so much concern with the marketing is storytelling. So like the storytelling around the storytelling, like actual storytelling, is your book, your TV series, your podcast sometimes, depending on how you do it. But the storytelling around that storytelling can start to make me feel more and more and more distant from the actual product, like from the actual thing that you give to people. And it was nice to be around people again who, who or I shouldn't even say again, because when I published my book it was 2021. Like there was.
Speaker 1:There were no live events like this for me to go to with my first book. It has been. It has been nice and I'm including the Chanel event in this. It's been nice to get back in front of warm bodies of human beings that read, that care about words on a page, that care about ideas sharing, that care about something that is not just like what is getting the most clicks and the most shares and the best clicks per dollar spent to your profile. People who actually give a shit about the art. I needed to absorb that and I needed I needed to I'll be honest like I needed to feel seen for what I can do creatively and not just for, like, what I can do with my face and image on these apps. So that was a blast and thank you, shannon, for taking me to that. I really, really, really, really needed that and it was so fun.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give words to this because this is not a backtrack. This is going to dovetail into our next segment, which is about Steph Curry and Draymond Green. I'm going to tell you, guys, something that happens to me. Morgan, you can tell me if this happens to everybody. Sometimes I feel like Chad, this is a you thing because you have so many feelings, but sometimes I'm like, no, I think everybody goes through this. So, morgan, would you say it is safe to say that you know how I feel about you. When I feel it, yes, yes, I would say like 80, 80%, okay, 80%, that seems high-ish. Well, let me say what I mean here. Let me be like Rox again. Just say what I'm fucking saying. I am going to lean more Over time. That's already happening. I'm feeling it happen. I am going to lean more into the game of all of this. I am going to lean more into the quorum because I consider those to be a part of marketing.
Speaker 1:I did my, I came in, I did my push as, like you know, independent, singular I'm not going to be fake authentic artist. And it has been super cute, it's been so cute. Good job, chad. You did it. You know you even sort of formed a reputation for yourself as such and, along the way, like you punted and passed on some relationships with people that possibly could have been helpful to you, good for you. You protected your yourself or something Like yourself, and by that I mean like your actual self, like your identity. You didn't stretch so far in a way that you couldn't get yourself back.
Speaker 1:The next one month, the next 10 months, are about selling. The next 10 months are about making sure that my profile grows and that the word gets out about this book that I have coming out and a couple other things, and with this audience, this one right here I am going to be straightforward about everything. As I have been to this point, or as I meant to be right, I'm going to try to keep up that same dynamic as well with my Instagram following, which is where a large part of my audience sits. The breadth of my audience sits, the breadth of my audience sits there. That's how I communicate, that's my walkie talkie to the people. All bets are off In every other environment Because, fuck it. Like this is what. This is how the game is played. I need to do what's best for not even just me at this point, but like for the center core of like this, this team of what's happening, and that means I'm going to give you an example of what that means.
Speaker 1:So at the event that I was at on Tuesday, I saw somebody who gave me a weird vibe a couple years ago when I was making a decision about something. They wanted to work with me. I did not want to work with them, and not for any personal reasons other than just like I. Just that was just not my choice, that was just not what I wanted and I my one regret in all of this is that I didn't circle back around to this person to tell them that I didn't want to work with them. I wanted to work with someone else. And why?
Speaker 1:And I think I have left some loose ends in that way throughout my time in all of these businesses because, one, things are moving extremely fast and it's really hard to make it back to circle closest to. I try to always give honesty, like I try to always like. So every single loose end oh, there was this little conversation that ended weird here. Let's pick it back up and let's finish it, like always, always with other people, my voice cracked. Things are moving so fast. It's really hard to do that. But I'm also going to add sometimes it is just a weight. It just costs emotional energy to go back to someone and disappoint them. Go back to someone and face-to-face tell them thank you but no thank you. That is hard to do I'm getting better at it but it's really hard to tell somebody no, thank you. Saw the person and this happens to me a lot. It's happened at a wedding recently.
Speaker 1:This this is this is this happens when you, when you won't just eat shit all the time and be phony, there's a cost to that. Like eating shit and being phony, I'm starting to realize is underrated because there is a cost to that. When you are a little bit too, when you're a little, when you look people a little too real in the, in the face, like when you're a little bit too straight with your feelings, like when you're a little bit too easy to read, there's a cost to that. This is the cost. You end up seeing people outside in the places, in the, in the venues, in the spots, and they are swirling around quite easily doing the show like doing the game, doing the performance, because that is their decorum, like that is their way of, that is their decorum, like that is their way of, that is their modus operandi. I think that's the right word.
Speaker 1:But if you're sitting there and being like I'm going to be authentic with my feelings, like I'm not going to be fake whatever, whatever, like you're stuck. Like you're stuck because if the two of you do happen to have an interaction, or if you do have, if there's a way that you're not going to avoid each other, you have to address it. And so here's what's come up for me in that regard recently, and this is kind of how it is like this is how I'm sometimes. I'm like I'm like penny. Penny's my dog. This is how I'm like penny.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, if there's something in the, it's like a magnet for me, like once I see that the person's there, I am like an owning missile on them, like everything now centers around. I am going to have to have a confrontation with this person. Not like we're not going to fight. You know what I mean. Not like we're going to have an argument, but like there is an elephant in the room must be addressed. I don't know why it's that way. I actually think it's because I think it's because I grew up in a family dynamic where we did not always address the thing, and so sometimes the thing would be in the room and it would be unaddressed for the sake of keeping the peace quote-unquote peace.
Speaker 1:But I oftentimes feel like I gotta go say something. I I gotta go like I don't want to avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid. So one of my friends asked me last night on face. I was on face time with a few of my friends and he said um, he said you know, if you're Wale or Cuddy or whoever and Diddy has caused some serious harm to you or threat of harm to you, like dangling you over the side of a balcony, you have to. There's only two ways you can go from there because you're going to keep seeing Diddy again, because you work in Diddy's industry. So either you can try to avoid Diddy for the rest of time, which seems to me impossible it seems very difficult to avoid someone into perpetuity who has a private jet Because they can go anywhere. They can go anywhere that you go, they have a private jet or the very next time you see that person you've got go, say what's up, you got to. You have to like, and this is why I say I'm like Penny in this regard. Penny is only going to go say what's up.
Speaker 1:Me and my friend Leon laugh, because people in our industry Hollywood, I'm now calling our industry they will do and say weird things to you or they will almost challenge you, like they will say, well, you know, this thing happened, blah, blah, blah. Call me, text me, blah. And they and they and they kind of don't expect you to do it because, like intimidation is a form of action that swirls around Hollywood. Intimidation like I'm this big person, I got this power, like I move things around how I want them, how I want to. Like intimidation is sort of a part of how people make things happen in Hollywood. But they don't expect you to actually go see, they don't expect you to actually go see, they don't expect you to actually give them that phone call, they don't expect you to actually text and just say, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 1:So well, here's the irony of this entire spiel, which is that this person walked right past me. He cut kind of cut through like a few tables and walked, slam past me and I have. No, I didn't see it coming. He came from behind, so I didn't know if that was like to just let me know that he was there or whatever, whatever, and like to be frank with you and I. It was gone by the time it happened. It was gone. I saw it was looking at the back of this person and I never went to go say what's up to this guy. I instead decided to like try to enjoy this night and did very much so. And like it wasn't about any of that, it was about like hanging out with my sister. It was about meeting one of my heroes. It was about like soaking in the bookishness of this place and being with other artists. But I thought about it a lot because that's new for me.
Speaker 1:That's something I am going to be working on for the for the near future is being real with my team and with the audience, and being as fake as I need to be with everybody else. Morgan, do you think this is a good plan? I think it is. I also think you don't need to be fake. I don't know. I feel like people might surprise you so that you don't have to be fake. Like I feel like going into it knowing that you're going to be fake feels like you're setting yourself up for something and then also expressing that publicly. Yeah, okay, I'm being facetious. Obviously, I'm being a little bit facetious, like I'm not going to walk around acting like, but what I am going to do is like I am going to be nimble, I'm going to be agile, I'm going to be a little bit more, a little bit more kumbaya like, a little bit more. Like you know, this thing happened. It miffed me. I don't need to hold on to it and I don't and, honestly, I don't even necessarily need to address it, unless it's so meaningful and it's going to have a real impact on my life. Like I, everything doesn't have to be something. That's the thing that I'm, that's the thing that I'm going to be walking about with. I'm not actually going to be fake. All right enough, let's talk about somebody who was not fake last night. Draymond Green did some shit last night. So the Warrior.
Speaker 1:There's an exciting thing happening that's swelling in the NBA, which is that there are now only 11 teams in each conference whose season remains alive, which is to say that they are eligible for the playoffs and or the play-in. And in the Western Conference, especially, the fight for the 10th seed, which is the last play-in spot, is very, very close. The Rockets trail the Warriors by one game and those two teams are going to play each other sometime in the next two weeks. There's two weeks of the season left, so every single game matters. The Rockets are on a 10-game win streak.
Speaker 1:I love the Rockets. I love everything about the Rockets. I love their coach, aimee Odoka. I love their stars Jalen Green, alperin Shingun. I love their young guys Amin Thompson, cam Whitmore I'm forgetting people.
Speaker 1:Oh, ja'shaun Tate Like they're just. Jabari Smith is kind of eh, but like eh. You know, everybody can't be awesome. I like, I really like the Rockets and what I oh. I love Dylan Brooks. We've talked about this. Fairground lead is kind of eh, but he's serviceable for what they need right now. What I love most about them is that they didn't quit on their season when they were seven games under 500. They are now three games above 500 with eight games left, and they're right behind the Warriors for that 10th seed. I would much rather watch the Rockets face off against LeBron and the Lakers in the 10-9 game than to watch the Warriors do it.
Speaker 1:I just think the Warriors are cooked. I think they're mentally exhausted. I think this run of the last decade for them decade plus at this point of playing deep into the playoffs almost every single year and also, frankly, just like outkicking their coverage as a team. I think they're exhausted. They don't have top five picks in their pedigree. Steph's their highest picked star. He was a seventh pick. Klay Thompson, I believe, was the 11th overall pick, maybe 12th, maybe 10th, I can't remember. Draymond Green is a second rounder. These guys have squeezed all the juice out of what they have and it looks like there's not a lot of juice left, more talent left. He has more ability to produce left, but it really is looking like mentally they are fried. This is what it looks like to be fried mentally.
Speaker 1:Draymond Green, who we have discussed on this show and who's been discussed in the public conversation ad nauseum. He is Having a meltdown. He's already been suspended. I think he missed 12 games earlier this year for whatever it was that you want to call that he did to Yusuf Nurkic and choking out Rudy Gobert, and just a lifetime achievement award for all the like I don't even know what to call them, I guess violent, semi-violent things that he's done on basketball courts.
Speaker 1:And I've said this before, like I am not against the bulldozing slightly dirty, attacking bodyguard basketball player, I think every team needs at least one or two of those guys and I think it helps if the guy who you have doing that on your team is your big man, which is what Draymond Green has in essence been for the Warriors for the last decade. He is their center. Kevon Looney is right now out of the rotation, like he'll come back for certain matchups, but Draymond is their center. Like you want your center to be the bully on your team you want?
Speaker 1:I actually like thinking back on my own experiences playing ball, especially in like middle school, high, high school, you know AAU even just like running around playing pickup, like even now as an, as a fucking old timer at the run like man. Do I hate when me or somebody else who is not a big man is like the most aggressive person on the team man? Do I hate it when the actual tall big guy out there it wants to like float around and not have too much contact? It changes the dynamic of everything. So anyway, I've over-talked this, but like I don't care that Draymond Green gets a little dirty. I think that's part of the game and I think that's what winning teams often have as a reminder to you all. Nikola Jokic is dirty. Okay, nikola Jokic ran up and shoulder slammed into the back of Markeith Morris a couple years ago and left him out for the season, and Markeith Morris has not really been like a rotation NBA player since that happened. Okay, so you're going to be three-time MVP, nba champion. Nikola Jokic is that player for the Denver Nuggets. If anybody's ever wondering, do they have that guy Like it's him. He's the dirty guy. Every team needs somebody like that and Draymond's that guy. What you don't need and this leads to what happened last night is you don't need anyone on your team, including that person, also having these moments of emotional lapse where they are now putting your season at risk.
Speaker 1:Draymond Green last night in a must-win game because every game is a must-win game from now to the end of the season for the Warriors got himself ejected in the first four minutes of the game and it wasn't, you know, any sort of active aggression or like a tiff with another player. There was no standoff, nobody squared up, no punches thrown, no, whatever. He just couldn't leave a ref alone First four minutes of the game you guys Like. This relates directly to what I'm talking about when I see someone who I know I have had an issue with and I cannot stop centering that person until we have talked. Draymond needs to learn how to do that with a referee. It's the first four minutes of the game, dog, nothing is being decided. He might say well, the tone of the game is being decided and if you let certain things slide in the beginning, those things come back to haunt you. Fine, maybe, but Draymond Green, you are smart. But like Draymond Green, you are smart.
Speaker 1:I've listened to your show. I see your points of view. I see your genius on a basketball court. On both ends You've made the most out of so precious little compared to other more talented basketball players. Okay, you are. You are an I believe you're an NCAA champion. Two-time Final Four. You got triple doubles in the final four. You are among, I want to say, the top five all time in triple doubles in the NBA, something like that. Stop, I don't have a sheet of paper in front of me, but our point is you're smart. Your teammates are stressed, your coach is stressed.
Speaker 1:After he gets ejected, steph Curry ducks his head into his jersey and first he's seen kind of shaking his head. Then he, like, ducks his head into his jersey, pulls his head out of the jersey and Steph's face is red and his eyes are misty. J-mon Green, as effectively as it appears now, made Stephen Curry cry. Okay, stephen Curry, who, when Stephen Curry shows any form of emotion on a basketball court, it's almost always like highlighted on ESPN. Okay, like, when he kicks a chair, throws a mouthpiece, it's like, wow, stephen Curry, who otherwise, unless he's celebrating, looks like a robot on and off the court, like, never says anything interesting, Never does anything interesting outside of what he does on a basketball court. Maybe basketball is just his, his form of expression, but like, but, like he's showing emotion.
Speaker 1:Draymond has frustrated you know the thing where people get. Have you guys ever seen someone who's about to get in a fight and they don't want to get into the fight? Because I have memories especially of, like, kids who were always getting suspended for fighting when I was growing up and you could feel it when a fight was brewing for that kid, like, maybe they're getting into it with another kid. Words are being, you know, words are being thrown back and forth. Maybe another kid is egging them on, specifically because they know that they will fight.
Speaker 1:And I have memories of certain kids with a North Face jacket, zipped all the way up in the middle of April, put on in the classroom and they're getting so mad and so frustrated frustrated, I think, with themselves, knowing that they're about to fight because someone has triggered them to the point where they know they're about to fight and they start crying. I have specific memories of dudes particularly doing that in high school and middle school. Middle school especially, they start crying because they know they're so frustrated but they know they can't control themselves. They know what's about to happen. They're going to get in a fight, there's a good chance they're about to beat somebody's ass, then they're going to get sent to the principal's office, then they're going to get suspended, then they're going to get there and they're going to go home and, if I have to guess, there's a high likelihood that when they go home someone else is going to beat their ass. And I think all of that frustration is like swelling up inside them at once and it literally just makes them cry because they don't there's's. They feel like the situation's out of their control and there's nothing they can do.
Speaker 1:Now. I don't think stephen curry has a fight trigger response, but I think stephen curry has like a what's the word? Maybe like almost a repression response. He is, he is, it's been said, like you know, his wife has even gone on record saying like this is him all the time. He's calm all the time. Nothing gets under his skin, nothing bothers him. He, you know not nothing bothers him. But nothing gets a big reaction out of Steph Curry. That's just not. You can see it even in his quote, unquote big reactions on court in basketball. They still look relatively tempered in basketball. They still look relatively tempered.
Speaker 1:And I think a person who's wired that way where it's like you internalize emotions and you don't push them out, like you saw on that person's face, you saw in his eyeballs a level of frustration that was just like I have, like A level of frustration that was just like I have, like I am. So it's like that kid. I am so frustrated by how much this is out of my control and this person is out of my control and out of his own control, that all I can do right now is cry. And this is a 36-year-old adult. That's where the warrior season is right now. And yet and this part sucks, I don't even want to say this part because it's annoying to me and I'm involved in a competition where this is relevant to me because I have this team. Unfortunately, I still think the Warriors are going to get that 10 seed, even though the Rockets are charging like full bore for that thing. They're 10 and 0 in their last 10 games and they just beat the Oklahoma City Thunder the 1C last night, but without Shea Gilgis, which is a major, major omission. But I still think, looking at their schedules that are upcoming, that the Warriors are going to get that 10 seed. I'm going to tell you guys what those schedules look like right now, because the Rockets have a difficult path ahead, like if they're going to tell you guys what those schedules look like right now, because the Rockets have a difficult path ahead, like if they're going to keep this up and the Warriors just don't. So here's what it looks like Rockets have remaining.
Speaker 1:I'm doing a very basketball segment, so bear with me Anybody who doesn't give a shit about this. Rockets have remaining the Jazz, the Mavericks at home, which is tough. The Timberwolves, which is extremely tough. The Warriors, which is very important. The Heat, which is tough. The Mavericks, again like the Magic, the Jazz, the Blazers, the Clippers. So out of those remaining, I want to say nine games. Six of them are against likely playoff teams, not if we include the Warriors in that, on the other end, the Warriors have remaining the Hornets, who are a bottom feeder. The Spurs, who are a lottery team. The Mavs tough. The Rockets meaningful, the Mavs again tough. The Jazz lottery team, the Lakers, who this week they're good, who knows next week? The Blazers, the Pelicans, the Jazz lottery team, the Lakers, who this week they're good, who knows next week? The Blazers, the Pelicans, the Jazz. So I mean not a huge like, not it's not a 60 percent difference of margin in the difficulty of those schedules, but I would say it's about 20 percent. And right now every single game matters for those two teams. They're fighting over one game of difference in the standings between them. So I hope the Rockets come out.
Speaker 1:On top of that, I want to see Aimee Udoka. Aimee Udoka called LeBron James the B word. He said it twice. Lebron said stop saying that to me and he said it again. I want to see those two teams in a one game elimination. That at this point, that is more interesting than the adult swim LeBron versus Steph that we've been doing for 10 years. Like I, we've seen it. It's cool. You know what I mean. It was fun, it was cool. They were competing for championships. They're not anymore. So let me see, I'm a Doka and Dylan Brooks against LeBron James in a one game elimination. That's the kind of theater that I want.
Speaker 1:All right, I literally got to one thing on our docket today. Maybe two, is that right, morgan? You got like two. Okay, great job by me, thank you. Okay, caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1:So the first thing I want to just call this out it needs to be said which is anecdotally I do not have the ratings numbers in front of me, but anecdotally, I think that this year's NCAA tournament, both men's and women's have been, I think the men's has been more interesting, more exciting than most people expected for it to be, and I think the women's has to this point and it's early, so we haven't even gotten like the big marquee matchups yet, but like has has lived up to expectations, which is to say, I think the women's game has had more buzz. Anecdotally, I think it's had more, more excitement, more enthusiasm around like the broader sports audience than the men's, and it's lived up to that and the men's has been interesting. It's been, it's been cool, like um. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the blue blood teams face off this weekend in the men's side and the women's side I'm interested in very specifically, like I'm interested in lsu. I'm interested in south carolina because I think those are among the best two teams and I am such an outsider on this so let me not even try to sound like an expert at all.
Speaker 1:But caitlyn clark is someone who has sort of like the superstar cachet right now and the nation watching and she's getting a very generous whistle. Her team is right now because I think that the women's game is like building momentum on her back to some extent and there is excitement about what might happen when she matriculates to the WNBA and how that could affect that league. Now and I love this Ice Cube entrepreneur sees a marketable oh, I'm so excited about how I'm going to talk about this white person, the way they talk about us. Sees a marketable asset on the block is how they talk about us Absolute, absolute freak of nature. It's a little more complicated though, because she's a woman, so I need to be careful here. I'm just not gonna do it. Um, he sees caitlyn clark, who is a superstar, who is who the wmba is so excited to have come to their league so that they can market around her and basically say, like this is our Stephen Curry and build, build, build, build on that. And already she is attracted to the women's game an audience, including me, that never paid very much attention to the women's game, especially the college game.
Speaker 1:And one thing that I just want to have said, as I now listen to, on all the podcasts that sports podcast that I listened to, which are all hosted by men, I know if I were a fan of the women's game and I had and I had been for as long as I have been a fan of the men's game. So let's say so. Let's say I've been watching and loving and supporting the women's game for 10, 20, 30 years. If I started to see and feel people like me and then people like Bill Simmons and people like Van Lathan and people like Bomani Jones swirl around the women's game and talk about it as if they know what they're talking about, as if they actually truly care about this product and these players. And if they actually.
Speaker 1:I heard Bill Simmons talking about, for instance, how Caitlin Clark's this part of Caitlin Clark's game is going to translate to the pros. Kaitlyn Clark's this part of Kaitlyn's card's game is going to translate to the pros. And I imagine Bill Simmons and I think he would even admit this if asked. I imagine Bill Simmons has paid less than zero attention to how, for instance, a volume three-point shooter woman in college has translated to the professional women's game in the WNBA. I bet, anecdotally, if you ask Bill Simmons name three other women who you've paid attention to have gone from the college game to the pro game. Tell me about that transition for them. He wouldn't be able to and I wouldn't be able to either. The one who I know is Kelsey Plum. That's the one that I could speak to and I think her shooting is translated marvelously. That's all I got to say about it, because I don't know shit about it.
Speaker 1:But if I saw a bunch of people men specifically crowding around this game, that I love this game, that I have been paying attention to, that I know and understand the way, using this as a way to continue to build their own platforms and sell advertisements on their platforms, I would be annoyed. I have an analogy to this, which is that I watched one episode of Dave last night and it was a challenge for me. I cannot stomach a show where the voice and message of the show is look how silly it is for this white guy to be in here with these black people. Look how silly it is for this white guy to be in here with YG. Then there's I watched the pilot. There's a section at the end of the pilot where little Dickie is rapping and everyone is like sort of, and he's like rapping and walking around the room. This is what I imagine Hamilton looks like. He's like walking around the room and kind of like really in his rap and doing his white boy thing with it. Everybody's amazed by it and I'm like I almost had to turn it off during that segment of the show. I cannot believe we are still in such an unselfaware place where, like this is the type of show that people like.
Speaker 1:That show is whitesplaining hip hop. The pilot at least. I can't tell you anything that happens after that. Now, I know I will never be able to tell you anything else that happens after that. It was my third time trying to watch the pilot. I finally got through it. But that's how I feel about white people crowding around things that are black things. Hip hop, that's a black thing. That are black things. Hip hop, that's a black thing. Crowding around it and making themselves experts of it to explain it to each other.
Speaker 1:That's what I see right now happening with men and the women's game, the women's basketball game. Now, it cannot be denied the analogy stands up here it cannot be denied that from an economic standpoint, there are some things that are good about that for the women's game and its players. As an example, there will be more NIL money coming into women's basketball game because there's more attention and more eyeballs there. There will be more. Kaitlyn Clark is being offered $5 million to play in the Big 3 next year. She'll probably turn it down and hopefully make that money off the court. But, like, hopefully, more things like that will happen for women's basketball players. I imagine this is good for the coaches, this is good for the players, this is good for the schools, which I don't care about at all, but some people will eat off of this.
Speaker 1:And similarly, it can be said that, hey, when 50 Cent's album Get Rich or Die Trying has a huge grassroots swell, that's pretty cool, that's pretty awesome. To get rich and famous by being known among your people, it's better for 50 Cent famous by being known among your people. It's better for 50 Cent even better when that becomes a worldwide phenomenon and now people all over the world and, frankly, white people in this country want to give you money to do other stuff because of the popularity of this thing. That's a part like Eminem comes in with Dr Dre and 50 Cent, and this is another way that we can now translate what we do to the broader audience and make money off of it. That's where it's cool, right, when the money and stuff like that, when white people white-splain to each other, when men mansplain to each other, and it brings more attention to our thing and more money to our thing. But here's where it gets fucked up. Here's where it doesn't hold up. Hold up.
Speaker 1:What that also brings is more people trying to upstream you on that money. What it means is more dudes, because most agents, most sports agents, are dudes now crowding around your women's game and your ladies like your women's players, saying, hey, I got $70,000 to cover your training as you get ready for the WNBA draft, if you'll be my client, because the money gets passed around between dudes, predominantly white dudes. That means more people of certain levels of privilege being able to afford to go to an Iowa basketball game as an example. That means more dudes. That means when Kaitlin Clark an opportunity to come and play in his league with dudes, instead of going to the WNBA, which has been waiting to have Kaitlyn Clark for four years. I think sometimes when people say, oh, that's awesome, you have transcended, you have blown up. Now you have access to the masses. Now you have access to Bill Simmons talking about your sport. It's a big deal Dan Levitar, skip Bayless, stephen A Smith, shannon Sharp your game is now transcending. It's making it into the mainstream. Who's that actually benefit? Maybe Caitlin Clark and a couple of the other star players, but it's going to end up. Those same people will show up with their drills on your property and say I struck oil here. This is mine. Now Caitlin Clark belongs to us. We have decided as men.
Speaker 1:I got friends right now who are arguing about the history of women's college basketball. I know these people have paid no attention to women's college basketball until the last two years. I know that because I talk to these people every day. I got people arguing about is Kaitlyn Clark the best women's college basketball player of all time or not? They have no idea. They can only name five stars in women's college basketball history. And so now you get, now you're going to see it. It is happening in front of us. You are going to see.
Speaker 1:It goes back to the very beginning of this episode people filling up the voice sphere, the ideal sphere, the internetosphere, the mediosphere, with takes and information and opinions on a game that they have paid zero attention to and, frankly, that they are still paying very, very little attention to. But aside from this part of the attention, which is like we got to be able to talk about it so we can offer it to our sponsors and offer it to our listeners and make ourselves seem to be experts, for as long as this is something that matters to the broader audience. So I have enjoyed. I am going to try to continue to enjoy celebrating and watching the women's game, but I am naturally skeptical about what happens from here if it continues to explode into popularity. I am skeptical about who that actually will serve. I don't know if it's going to be little girls who want to grow up to be basketball players and female basketball players. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:All right, this has been Nothing but Anarchy. This is the show. This is the show. I'm Chad Sanders. Like us and subscribe to us on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get podcasts. We'll be back next week Tuesday, maybe Tuesday, I don't know. We'll be back next week with another episode for y'all. Goodbye, outro Music.
