Devin Booker
In case you missed it, the ever petulant Devin Booker is crying again. This time he’s upset about Troy Daniels talking trash, so upset that he decided to start a brawl and questioned why someone like Daniels would dare talk trash to the esteemed Devin Booker.
While it’s true that Daniels has been a journeyman in the NBA and does not possess the talent of Booker, Devin probably needs to slow his roll because basketball isn’t about individual performance, it’s about getting wins as a team and Booker’s team has been putrid. For a good portion of the start of the season he had a lot to do with that as his shooting was abysmal. Booker’s improved, I’ll give him that, but the Phoenix Suns are still god awful. Less time complaining about trash talk, more time focusing on getting out of 15th, also known as LAST, place in the Western Conference.
Phil Jackson
Seriously, Phil Jackson? Once renowned for his zen ability to get the most out of his players, Jackson has most recently switched it up to zen sounding tweets that are actually just taking shots at his start player (and yes I’m using the word star loosely here). Adi Joseph broke it down quite well, explaining exactly why Phil’s cryptic tweet was a complete shot at Carmelo Anthony, and then Phil doubled down on the nonsense with this gem.
An odd mixture of emojis, life philosophy and Beatles lyrics, none of which amounts to any sort of actual response to the backlash he’s been getting about publicly throwing shade, as the kids say, at one of his players, much less a denial that that’s actually what he was doing.
James Dolan and Charles Oakely
Oh the New York Knicks are remarkable, not only are they a complete dumpster fire, but the dumpster fire burns so hot that for the first time ever one team occupies two spots on the Stiff List. Color me impressed Knickerbockers. So unless you’ve been under a rock the past few days you likely have become privy to this:
Now look, I’m not going to take side son this one because I don’t know the whole story. What I do know is that Oakley is obviously crossing a line here by becoming physical, I also notice Knicks owner James Dolan completely content to watch the events unfold and say nothing. Dolan would later ban Oakley for life from Madison Square Garden and fire his chief of security so clearly, according to Dolan’s actions at least, he’s completely innocent in all of this.
Doug McDermott
Dougie McBuckets, the once Denver Nugget for about five minutes, has set a new standard for backcourt violations. I mean this is beyond ridiculous. Remember how people questioned whether or not trading McDermoot on draft night for Gary Harris AND Jusuf Nurkic was a smart move? That line of thought feels pretty silly right now
The NBA league office
The NBA pulled a very NFL, aka No Fun League, move this week. Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum sent a memo to all 30 teams advising them that any sort of mocking of other teams or players via social media is strictly prohibited. This all stems from a back and forth between C.J. McCollum of the Portland Trail Blazers and Chandler Parsons of the Memphis Grizzlies on Twitter that was originally started by a tweet from the Blazers Twitter account. In something of a rarity, the NBA totally overreacted and sent out the memo. The tweet in question:
I mean come on, that’s just funny. Hey, here’s an idea, maybe if Parsons didn’t want to be mocked and called out by McCollum, he should try living up to that 4 year $94 million deal he signed in the offseason instead of putting up six points a game on 34.7% shooting from the field and 27.5% from three.
