Dunk the Rest

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in out Kick Podcast listeners. Appreciate all of you.
Hope you heard on yesterday show Danny G dropping the
five winners. For Thursday, we'll have some more winners. Go
give us five star reviews. I'm a little bit concerned
to Danny G can be bought just pointing it out,
so maybe you can try to bribe him. I don't know,
but the books are going out to the people whose
reviews were read. We've got a loaded show for you. Uh.

(00:22):
We're talking about Vince Carter's retirement MLB versus NBA in
terms of how they're going to set up their bubbles.
Chris Manno's NBA insider joins us, and then I bring
in a couple of my OutKick readers, writers who you
hopefully will be reading, with Bobby Barack and Ryan Glassbagel
to talk about some of the controversies of the week
as we continue to unpack the Bubba Wallace story. Now

(00:44):
that NASCAR has released the photos of the alleged race
soul incident, there all that still to come. I appreciate
all of you, and I want to thank you for
making this week one of the most listened to in
the history of Outkicked the podcast begins. Now I'll kick
the Coverage with Clay Travis live every weekday morning from

(01:05):
six to nine a m. E Stern three to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs are you're listening to Fox
Sports Radio. One of the things I think is most fascinating,

(01:30):
First of all, help all of you are having a
good Friday wherever you may be across this great country
or this great land. One of the things I think
is most fascinating about the return of sports is the
way in which we're deciding how to return. And in particular,
it seems to me there are two pretty clear differences
in what Major League Baseball is deciding to do compared

(01:50):
to the NBA. And let me explain what I mean. Uh,
the NBA has created this bubble. And if you listen
to the show regularly, you know that I've said, Hey,
you know what, the NBA bubble idea made sense in April.
I'm not sure it's gonna make sense by August. And
what I mean by that is, is it still going
to be necessary to create a quarantine like situation and

(02:13):
a one city campus or by August will a lot
of us be looking around and say, man, this doesn't
make a lot of sense. Who knows, right? The one
thing that is clear is in this era that we're
living in right now, things can change in a hurry.
One week, you can think one thing, the next week
you can think a completely different thing. Okay, But if

(02:36):
you look at the overall trend lines, and I know
people are out there like, oh my god, look at
what's going on in Texas and Florida and Arizona. Terms
of the overall cases going up. The death rate though,
and the death rate can sometimes lag the cases, but
by and large, the death rate is going to be
a function of who is getting sick. The death rate
is going down substantially. I told you on Sunday and

(02:58):
Monday we were down nine sent Throughout this week, we
have continued to tick down somewhat, right, not a massive decline,
but we have continued to tick down in terms of
the overall debts that are occurring, such that Monday and
Sunday we had a ninetent decline. The rest of the week,
we're down about seventy off the peaks that were set

(03:19):
in late April. Now, some people are concerned with what's
going on in Texas, Florida, Arizona that that's going to continue,
and obviously that can impact in a major way the
return of sports. But it's also worth noting that most
of the people who are testing positive now are in
their twenties and thirties, and that people who are in
their twenties and thirties, by and large, have much less

(03:40):
severe health consequences than people who are substantially older. Over
half in most states of all deaths are occurring in
nursing homes. So if we can keep the virus out
of nursing homes, heck, if we could have just done
that from the start, if New York hadn't sent all
those people into the nursing homes, if Michigan hadn't done it,
if Pennsylvania hadn't done it, if New Jersey hadn't done it,

(04:03):
if Illinois hadn't done it, if all of those states
had not sent sick people into nursing homes, then by
and large we would probably not be much different in
general than a regular season flu outbreak that is bad
right in terms of what the death rate would look like.
But what I have been saying from the get go

(04:25):
is if you are in your twenties and thirties and
you feel compelled to go out, and you feel like, hey,
I've got to go out to this bar, I want
to go out and chase this girl. I've got a
date to get involved in. I want to get back
to normalcy in my life, then stay away from older people.
That's what we need young people to do. If you
are living your normal life, then stay away from elderly people,
your relatives, friends, certainly anybody associated with a nursing home.

(04:49):
All right. Now, that's what's actually been happening from an
outbreak perspective in college football is the guys haven't been
testing positive because they're playing sports. They're testing ausday because
they're going out to bars and house parties and hanging
out with a lot of young people being in close proximity.
And the virus spreads rapidly among young people. Now, that's

(05:11):
interesting because what the NBA is trying to do is
they are basically creating their own bubble. But what Dr
David Chow said with us, if you listen to him
in the third hour of the show yesterday was he said,
in theory, the bubble makes a lot of sense, but
what happens if the bubble gets punctured, then everybody inside

(05:31):
of the bubble is all easier to expose because they're
all in close proximity to each other. And this was
something that I hadn't really thought about very much, because
the n b A is requiring that all the players
stay in the bubble, but they're not requiring that all
of the staff that's serving the players stay in the
bubble at Disney World. So in theory, if one person

(05:54):
gets sick in a hotel, it could easily spiral into
a bunch of different players getting sick because they're all
physically located in the same place in a way where
it might not happen if you had individual teams in
thirty different cities and locations like Major League Baseball is
trying to set up. And that is something that I

(06:16):
hadn't really thought about. So we have got a pretty
intriguing test case scenario going on right now between Major
League Baseball and the NBA, because the NBA has got
their bubble and most people are saying, oh, it's gonna
be hyper secure. It's gonna be hyper safe. But as
Dr David Child just said yesterday, actually putting everybody in

(06:36):
the same place, if the buck at the bubble gets punctured,
could be more dangerous than having thirty different NBA teams
in a different location. Now, nature finds a way. Yes,
I'm quoting Jeff goldbl In there, because my family has
been watching all the Jurassic Park movies. My kids, we've
gone through everything. My kids probably, like a lot of

(06:57):
your kids, love dinosaurs. So I was like, well, these
movies are a little bit scary, but also they love
dinosaurs and it's pretty fun. So we've run through all
five Jurassic Park movies this week. And Jeff Goldbloom's character
it's kind of interesting to watch because he's a chaos
theorist and he's in the first two Jurassic Park movies

(07:20):
and his philosophy is nature will find a way. Oh
we think we only created female dinosaurs. Nature will find
a way. Oh we think that we're gonna have a
situation here where the dinosaurs are never gonna get out.
Nature will find a way. The virus is a product
of nature. Will it find a way to infect people?

(07:40):
Even when the best ideas and devices of man are
put in place to kind of combat it. Maybe we'll see.
But the NBA plan is much more aggressive than the
Major League Baseball plan because the Major League Baseball plan
it doesn't require right now, at least Major League Baseball
UH player to give up much of their life. They

(08:02):
get to go and live in their in their normal cities.
They'll be playing in the usual stadiums. They are playing
against teams that are theoretically traveling less than they would
in normal years. But they are taking a completely different
route than the NBA is. And so which of these

(08:23):
two pathways is going to end up looking like the
better decision We don't know. And by the way, it
can vary on a day by day or week by
week basis, because after July four, I may come back
and I may say, man, you know what, it looked
like things were getting a lot better, but the death
rate has gone back up after July four. Maybe we

(08:44):
need more isolation. And then the NBA's decision is gonna
look smarter, or it could be. After July four. As
we get into the middle part of July, the death
rate is going to have to continue to come down
and a lot of people are gonna say, man, this
is ridiculous. We're opening up all the rest of the
country and the NBA players are all set down in
Orlando and they can't leave. It's also possible that Major

(09:06):
League Baseball will have less infections than the NBA does
because of the theory that Dr Child laid out, the
puncture bubble theory, which is, if everybody's in the same location,
then all of a sudden, you puncture that bubble boom.
A lot of people can end up getting sick, and
it can spread more rapidly than it would have if
you'd had the NBA teams and all these different cities.

(09:29):
So all of that is interesting. What is also interesting
is the continued evolution in what crowds might look like.
The NBA is basically saying, hey, we're never gonna have
any crowds. Nobody is gonna come watch our games at all.
We are sticking to that. I don't even know if
they'll have crowds in NBA Arenas next year when they
come back after they complete this season. Major League Baseball

(09:51):
seems to be keeping its vest, its cards close to
the vest. It looked like Texas, which allowed fifty capacity
was well on its way to normalcy. Now they had
a little bit of a blip. As they've returned to
normal activity. Now the question becomes associated with Major League Baseball. Uh,
what are they gonna look like from a crowd perspective.

(10:11):
But meanwhile, you've got other sports parachuting in and taking
a really optimistic tack, which is what happened yesterday with
the Kentucky Derby. The Kentucky Derby is one of typically
the hottest messes that exists in all of sports. If
you have the opportunity at some point in time to
go to the Kentucky Derby, it is a bucket list

(10:33):
item for most sports fans. I have been fortunate enough
to be a couple of times. I had an incredible time.
But it is a hot mess of a sporting event.
It is virtually impossible to do the Kentucky Derby with
social distancing. The entire point of the Kentucky Derby is
social in a way that very few sporting events are.

(10:55):
You want to get dressed up, you want to see
and be seen, you want to interact, you want to
have drinks, you want to gamble. All of that requires
theoretically you be in close proximity to other people. And
so if you look at the derby and they are thinking, hey,
we're going to have fans present here, that's a pretty
aggressive sign if you are a fan of college football,

(11:19):
that the SEC is gonna have fans present. Now. Phil Fulmer,
who's the University of Tennessee football coach, he went on
one of My Buddies shows, the mid Day one eighty
in Nashville recently and he said, yeah, we're planning on
having full stadium. Now, I don't think that's gonna happen,
but there's no harm in planning for everybody to be there,
because the challenge and figuring out who's gonna get into

(11:40):
a football stadium is a problem and a challenge that
I wouldn't want to have because it's not just people
buying seats at a college football stadium. You typically are
a graduate of the university and you're donating money in
order to buy those seats. So everybody out there was like,
I don't understand why college football needs to come back. Well,
and not only funds all athletic departments, but a huge

(12:03):
amount of the dollars that come in for athletics go
in to support other aspects of the university through the
donor requirements before tickets are even bought. So it's one
thing to tell somebody like me who has a season
ticket to the Tennessee Titans, Hey, Clay Travis, you're not
gonna be able to use your your Titans tickets this year.

(12:23):
It's another thing to tell a donor who has given
thousands of dollars to the university to be able to
get these seats, Hey, despite your donation, you're not gonna
be able to get your seats this year. Those are
conversations I would not want to have because they can
undercut the overall totality of the university's endowment and of

(12:44):
their annual front raising. Because I would imagine a lot
of people will get upset if they are told that
they can't be involved in their normal seats and they
can't be involved in going to the games. I don't
know what the solution is. A part of me thinks
what's gonna end up happening is we're gonna have a
high set up. I think, before all it's said and
done in college football, you're gonna end up with everybody

(13:05):
in the luxury suites able to go because there's a
natural social distancing involved in the luxury suites. You can
stay in the luxury suites without having any major issues there.
You have your own food, you have your own bathroom.
You can limit it to twenty people or so. And
then I think they're gonna allow college kids to go
because I think the argument is gonna become wait a minute,

(13:26):
you're okay with college football players playing games, but you're
not okay with college students going to the games. And
I think college will end up doing what the NFL
is gonna do, which is they're gonna block out the
first several rows of seats in the stadium. Maybe they
can sell those as advertisement, but that way the players

(13:48):
can't come into contact at all with any of the fans.
I think, as you look at where we're headed into
the weekend, those are big stories that are worth paying
attention to that are not going to resolve themselves anytime
soon own, and we may not know the actual outcome
until well into the fall. Who's making the better decision,
is that the NBA bubble or is it Major League

(14:09):
Baseball trying to play their games in the cities and
keep their players from having to quarantine or and or
how are you going to handle the seats the Kentucky Derby,
which is the quintessential social event, arguably more of a
social event than even a sporting event. They're gonna have
fans present. We just had the race in New York.

(14:30):
The Belmont didn't have any fans present. But the Kentucky Derby,
which is running, by the way, remember in September this year,
as opposed to May when it typically runs. Things are
going to be a lot different as you try to
assess the direction in which we are headed here. All right,
when we come back, Gonna be bringing in my buddy
Jason Martin. A lot of you remember j mart as

(14:51):
the producer for Outkicked before Danny g took over. He's
hanging out with me this Friday. Gonna bring him in
because there's actually an intriguing story out there. Vince Carter,
who has one of the great longevity laden careers in
the history of the n b A, is hanging them up.
What do we think of Vince Carter's career. What were
some of the best moments of that career? We will discuss.

(15:14):
We're gonna bring in Jason Martin to discuss that with me.
That is where we are headed. In the meantime, I
want to encourage you guys check out out kick dot com.
Make out kick dot com one of your regular stops
when it comes to keeping up with sports news. Jason Whitlock,
you guys know we have hired him. We are rolling,
We're posting different stories a day. It is a great

(15:36):
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(16:19):
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You can go sign up at out kick dot com.
When we come back, we're talking Vince Carter and his
impact and legacy in the n b A. This is
Outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis. Welcome back in Friday

(16:42):
edition out Kick the coverage of all of you are
having a fantastic day wherever you may be across this
great country or this great land. We were just talking
about the MLB and the NBA and the challenges they have.
And one of the most iconic NBA players of his
generation is Vince Carter. And Vince Carter has decided, after
a monu mental career in the league, to hang up
the sneakers and move on. I think he'll probably have

(17:06):
a lot of different really cool options in the media
because I've seen this guy, uh and the way he's
already started to kind of dip his toe into the media.
He's forty three years old now, um, and he had
a twenty two year NBA career and uh, this is
just incredible. He hadn't really let us know what he
was gonna do, uh when with the NBA season continuing,

(17:27):
but he said that he's basically done. Uh. Several different
stats here. He's nineteenth all time and scoring league's Rookie
of the Year. Over his career, he averaged sixteen points
seven points per game. UH. Played for eight to eight
different teams. I think most people out there remember Vince Carter,
at least I do. If you think of him as
kind of being at his apex as a Toronto Raptor,

(17:50):
is that fair? I think for most of you that
would be where you remember him. I know he also
had a decent little stretch with the nets as well. UM.
And you think about a lot of his iconic dunks
over the years. He won the Slam Dunk Contest back
in two thousand, uh and UH really different. Uh. An
incredible career that Vince Carter had, playing all the way

(18:12):
until he was forty three years old. How will you remember?
And a lot of you remember, I would say, is
it Frederick Weiss? Is that the guy's name that he
dunked over from France in the in the Olympics, one
of the all time most iconic dunks. Seven foot something
French big man. I think I'm correcting that. Frederick Weiss,
I believe that's his name. Uh, the dunk in the Olympics.

(18:35):
What will you remember most from Vince Carter's career, Jason Martin,
Just how hyped it was after you saw what he
was capable of doing as a dunker, and then just
how he seemed to be comfortable in his own skin.
Just look, I'm not I guess I'm not gonna be
Michael Jordan's, but I'm gonna be okay. And he just

(18:56):
he lasted so much longer then I think you would think,
because there were times when it didn't even feel like
he cared that much about basketball, Like it was so
natural to him early in his career that he got
caught up in the half man half amazing thing. And
he won the dunk contest, greatest dunk contest to me,
performance wise, the greatest dunk contest performance I've ever seen

(19:17):
just still blows me away. But when he comes out,
he's fifth out of North Carolina, the fifth pick out
of u n C. His numbers are good, and people
are talking about him as one of the greatest players
of all time. And that's not what ended up happening,
but he ended up playing for over two decades in
the league. He won the Rookie of the Year in
he played for a lot of different teams. But yeah,

(19:37):
you're right, obviously, I think the Raptors is what most
people are gonna remember. Then probably the Nets, but I
can already throw in Magic Sons, Mavericks, Grizzlies, King's Hawks.
I actually think a lot about Vince Carter the same
way I do about Grant Hill. Just two guys that
you you really thought were gonna be super special. Now
Grant Hill dealt with some serious injuries. You can also

(19:59):
look somebody like Penny Hardaway, who I don't think he
ever ended up being what he could have been because
of injuries as well. Carter not necessarily in the same
vein although I mean he was, he was banged up
from time to time, but just an ultimate competitor that
just played because he wanted to keep playing. And look,
he was still good like he was still good enough

(20:20):
to contribute on the floor, and he never made it
just about basketball. That's what you're talking about. With maybe
what he's doing in the media, he's doing podcasts, He's
gonna have options, just like you mentioned, but when you
look at what he's done, he's third on the all
time list with forty one regular season games played nineteenth
that you mentioned on the scoring list, he's a strong
Haul of Fame candidate. He in in Toronto he was

(20:42):
averaging twenty three, five and four, and then with the
Nets he was averaging five and five. Never played in
the NBA finals in over two decades, never made it
to the finals, and I think that's always gonna be
the one thing you look at and say, he's somebody
you thought was gonna be good enough to carry a
team air and it never necessarily happened for him like that.

(21:03):
But Vince Carter's just I'm I'm happy to have gotten
to watch his career. And I thought maybe he was
just gonna fade off into the sunset, not this year
but long ago. But no, he was still productive. He
made his last bucket. He made a three in an
overtime game for the Hawks against the Knicks in a
game that basically turned out to be it because the

(21:25):
league got shut down because of COVID nineteen. He didn't
know at the time, but I remember as soon as
they shut the league down that weekend, I went on
Fox Sports Radio and I said that might be our
last experience watching Vince Carter because at his age, with
everything else, this might be the time to shut it down.
And then, of course yesterday he said, I'm officially done playing.
I'm retired. This is uh, this is an interesting question.

(21:49):
I think that comes out of Vince Carter being out
and it is this, Um, what do we think about
his statu Is he the greatest dunker in the history
of the b A. I mean, I think it's the
most spectacular. I think you can make an argument and
let me let me also add in this caveat, I'm
talking about guys who were actually good players, right, because

(22:12):
I think you have to add like, there are guys
who uh you know, are almost like and one mixtape
right back in the back of the day where they
are renowned for their leaping ability and their dunking ability,
but they were never necessarily the greatest player in the league, right,
or an all Star caliber player where you were like, oh,
this guy can really be something special. And I'm trying

(22:34):
to think like Seawan Merriman was a good player, but
early in his career his dunks were just like at
times breathtaking, right, I mean, his athleticism was off the
chartbod example, that's a good examp. There are lots of
guys who win the NBA All Star Dunk Contest that
aren't ever going to be All Stars themselves, right, Um,

(22:57):
I think you can make an argument that Vince Carter
is up there. I'm gonna just give you five names,
and you tell me whether you agree that they are
without question top ten dunkers who are also All Star
caliber players. All Right, I'm running through right now. I
haven't even written this list down. I think I can
just do it off the top of my head. Here

(23:18):
are five that I feel confident almost everybody out there
will have in their list. All Right, I just said
Vince Carter. I think most people would say for an
All Star caliber player, Vince Carter is one of the
best dunkers of his generation. And by the way, I'm
talking about like people that I've actually watched play, So
I'm not gonna go all the way back like I'm
sure Will Chamberlain had some incredible dunks back in the day.

(23:40):
But these are guys that to me immediately stand out.
And I think, man, that was an iconic dunker who's
also an All Star caliber player, in other words, well rounded,
not just an athlete, but also an All Star basketball player.
Michael Jordan's I think Michael Jordan's on anybody's list of
the top ten best all stars in the last you know,

(24:02):
thirty five or forty years. I think you would have
to put Michael Jordan's on that list of the best dunkers. Um.
This one, I think also is from the same era,
and I think you'd have to give him credit for
it because they had some really interesting head to head battles.
I think you'd have to put Dominique Wilkins on that list. Uh,

(24:22):
And Dominique Wilkins was a great basketball player but also
an incredible dunker. And if you're a young guy out
there and you're listening right now, I think watching the
Slam dunk contest back in the day with Spud Webb
and Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan's, I think that's something
that you would really enjoy doing and it would be

(24:43):
worthwhile in your time to go and spend some time there.
So I feel good about all three of those guys.
This one may be a little bit outside of of
the expected realm, But I think Blake Griffin. Now he's
a little bit big, right, and that's always a challenge.
Big men don't get as much credit for being outstanding
lee athletic as they do. But Blake Griffin is an

(25:05):
All Star caliber player and over the years Lob City
and beyond, what he was able to do from a
dunking perspective is pretty phenomenal, you know, to consider in
terms of again All Stars who were incredible dunkers, Vince Carter,
Michael Jordan's, Dominique Wilkins, Blake Griffin. Let's see who I

(25:26):
want to put in my five spot as a guy
that I feel like, Man, this was a All Star
caliber player and this one maybe I'm going to count
him as an All Star, but a lot of people
are gonna remember him from the years when he was
super fat. Shawn Kemp Sean Kemp was one of the
most electric dunkers that has ever existed in the history

(25:48):
of the NBA. How many times did Shaun Kemp make
the All Star Game? I feel like he made the
All Star Game a lot of years, so I think
he counts as a electric dunker that was incredible, also
All Star caliber player. During his career. So my five
basically over the last let's say thirty thirty years or so.

(26:09):
Vince Carter, Michael Jordan's, Dominique Wilkins, Blake Griffin, Sean Kemp.
What do you think of my list? J Mart? Who
would you add? We took a few off? Um, but
I understand that I thought about Blake Griffin, and it's
not because he's not an All Star caliber player. I
think he's a good dunker. This is the way I go.
I have Vince at the top of the list. I've

(26:31):
got Dominique, and the one thing about Vince, Dominique, m
J and another guy that I'm gonna mention is I
think they fully understood how to be like out of
your mind dunk contest performers on top of being All
Star level players. I have Lebron written down because he's

(26:52):
a great in game dunker. I don't think he's particularly creative,
but he's breathtaking in game as a dunker. There's a
there's a different classifier here. Yeah, Lebron is an interesting
one because he never actually competed in the Slam Dunk Con.
Because he's not a dunk contest guy that that's what
I'm saying, he I don't think he has that gene
in him. I think he knew that he might have

(27:12):
won because of his name, because well, you know how
the voting goes with the with the guys that are
out there and everything. The other two guys that I mentioned,
you did. The other two guys that I have written down,
one of them I've only really gotten to see a
lot of highlights of. But Dr J and what he
was able to do with the rock the Cradle and
the fact that he's one of the greatest players of
all time, that's a good one. I I took him

(27:34):
out of my equation, so I should clear that up
because I never remember watching Dr J play. So when
I'm saying like, these are guys that in my life
as an NBA basketball fan, I remember watching playing, Dr
J was just a little bit before my time. But
he's one that's certainly I think you're right in terms
of the way that he was iconic moving with the
basketball and dunking. I think that's a I think that's

(27:57):
a strong argument as well. And then the other one
that I'm gonna mention is Dwight Howard. Dwight Howard who
won dunk contests at a height that it's hard to
You talked about how difficult it is that size to
do it. Just could jump out of the gym had
every God given gift that you could possibly have. Now
was he able to maximize that on the floor. He's
an All star level player that carried an Orlando team

(28:19):
to the NBA Finals that lost to Kobe Bryant and
the l A Lakers. But Dwight Howard was, you know,
a top two pick in the draft that looked like
he was gonna be everything. His career has certainly taken
a bad path in recent years. But Dwight Howard to me,
I would put in over Blake Griffin. By the way,
I was. I wanted to look up Seawan Kemp because
I felt I think it was six time all start,

(28:40):
time NBA All Star, so I think he would classify
in uh in terms of being one of one of
my guys. Now, look, I said five at the top ten,
so you added several more. I'm sure Twitter wants to
react as well at Clay Travis Um and we'll hit
some of those that we may have left out, because
I'm sure that we did. When we come back, I
Ony dunkers. Who is the best dunker that has ever

(29:03):
existed in your mind? And again that you've watched play.
So and I understand I'm forty one. Dr J just
a little bit before my time, So I don't doubt
at all that if you're fifty, you're like, oh, dr
J has got to be on the list. But for
if you're forty, And by the way, if you're thirty,
you might be like I, I never really saw Michael
Jordan play very much. I'm not sure Michael Jordan's on

(29:24):
this list. Uh. And you might not remember Dominique Wilkins
very well as all very well at all. But I
would say those are the five that I have seen
that are all star caliber players that have performed at
an incredibly high level. UM. Vince Carter Hall of Famer.
With the question just based on longevity, I would be

(29:44):
fine if he gets in. I don't. I could make
an argument either way, but I'll say, yeah, I think
he gets in based on his longevity. Um, obviously he
did he have he never got to the what was
the I know you said this early the finals? Yeah.
What I remember about that Toronto Raptors era is didn't

(30:04):
he travel to do graduation at U n C before
a game seven. At some point in his career, I leave.
So I mean again, remember that was that was one
of my things that I was saying, is just like
there were times when I didn't feel like basketball was
all for him, which I appreciate. I mean, you had
a lot of things going on, and that's why he's
gonna be That's why he's gonna be successful going forward
in life because he I don't think he ever put

(30:26):
all his eggs in one basket. If you want to
go back to your bubble discussion, that's like the bubble,
you're putting all your eggs in one basket and hope
that bubble doesn't get punctured. In the NBA side, Vince
Carter didn't put all of his eggs in that one basket.
And that may have kept him from like elite elite status.
But he was so good for so long, and he
was a great ambassador and and from what I can remember,

(30:47):
he's just kind of an affable guy in general. Wasn't
hard to get along with at all. Yeah, I think
he's a great teammate. I think he will make uh
the the All Star list. I mean, you play as
long as he did. And and you are a member
of so many different iconic moments like Vince Carter was.
In terms of being an NBA fan, I think he'll
definitely get in. When we come back, we're gonna talk

(31:09):
a little bit more about the return of sports, in
particular what it could look like. We talked about the bubble,
MLB and n B a UH and UH an hour too.
By the way, we're gonna be joined by Chris Mannix
to talk about the NBA bubble. More up next Eddie Garcia.
But first I'll tell you when we come back, what
obligation to media members who buy into things that are

(31:31):
proven not to be true have to their audiences to
correct that and also make it clear that they were
in the wrong for buying in. I think this is
an intriguing question because so much happened so quickly on
social media, certainly surrounding Bubble Wallace. We'll talk about that.
But this is OutKick on Fox Sports Radio. This is
Outkicked the coverage with Clay Travis, Jason Martin sitting in

(31:55):
with me. He will be in next week. I'm gonna
take some days off for the first time really in
a substantial way. Anyway in the summer, I'll be I'll
be in on Monday with Jason Martin and then I
will hand him the baton and he will have the
show Tuesday through Friday of next week as I'm going
back down to Florida to hang out for the July
four holiday with my family. But Uh, this Bubba Wallace story,

(32:17):
there were so many different flaws from the sports media,
from NASCAR, from Bubba Wallace and his team himself. But
one of the things that I have seen is there's
very little uh, coming out and saying, oh, I was
wrong from the people who decided to rip NASCAR or
the people who decided to rip the people of Alabama,
or or the culture of NASCAR and everything else because

(32:41):
of this story. And it's the usual suspects. I don't
even like to name them, but you know, in sports media,
the people who are going to cash in on divisiveness
like this. And I don't understand, Jason Martin don't How
is there not an obligation when you are wrong like this?
And again I'm saying, when you come out with an

(33:02):
opinion before you know any of the facts and then
it has proven to be wrong, like there's no acknowledgement
of the wrongheadedness or anything else. I don't understand how
people trust those people, right, like when I get something wrong.
And I'll give you an example. On the coronavirus, I
bought in to the numbers out of China and the

(33:25):
numbers out of the w h O, and those numbers
were lies, and I said them and I used them
as evidence of why the coronavirus was not likely to
be very significant. Well, if I had known the full
story from China, and if the w h O hadn't
screwed up, my opinion there would have been different. So
I came out and I explained everybody where that opinion

(33:47):
had come from. How do you trust these people who
are basically merchants of negativity and when everything they say
has been blown up and then they stick to it like,
oh no, no, no no, I didn't say anything wrong. This
doesn't disprove anything that I said. I mean, it's really
kind of frustrating. Do you feel the same way that
I do? Claire, we had a conversation Sunday night about

(34:11):
this story. We were just kind of talking flippantly, you
and I were, and I said, when when we first
heard this story, I said, certainly, I'm not gonna say
it isn't true, but I am going to think, how
dumb is this racism? Like this is cartoon racism, This
is Keystone Cops level racism. This is so like blatant
if it's there, Like, how dumb do you have to

(34:32):
be to do this? Like you need to be better
than this in some way, shape or form. So then
we find out what happens, everybody, of course jumps to conclusions. Uh,
and no one is apologizing. And the reason why is
because no one is held accountable for this, and they're
not held accountable by the people that they work for.
And the movement demands This movement demands feelings. It doesn't

(34:57):
demand facts, and it doesn't matter when it comes out
that something didn't happen. You know what my reaction was, Clay,
when I found out that this news was not a news,
that it was something hanging from a garage door. Awesome.
It is really cool that this did not happen in
NASCAR or anywhere else. It is good to know that
this was not real. The best possible thing that could

(35:18):
happen is it turns out, hey, we got this one wrong.
My bad this was not a racist situation. I'm speaking
as if I'm NASCAR in this case, and Bubba Wallace
should be celebrating this, and that's not what ended up happening.
He goes on Don Lemon twice says things that I
just didn't care for. Quite frankly, it didn't make any sense.
And then there's people still carrying the water for this

(35:39):
in media. And the reason why is because this sounds
really harsh, but they want this to be true. They
need a lot of people who want negativity. They want
to believe in negativity because it reflects their worldview exactly.
And look, they hate the country, they hate the eye

(36:00):
in the White House, and they're gonna do whatever they
can to cause discord and to try and right wrongs.
They're gonna create injustice now to punish injustice in the past.
You can't clear history because I can't go back in time.
Dr Emmett Brown doesn't exist, doctor who doesn't exist. I
can't go back in time and fix things that happen

(36:23):
back in eight nine. I can't do it. But the
problem is the sixteen nineteen project and everything that we
have seen since from the New York Times and everywhere
else suggests that nothing has changed in four hundred years.
That's the crux of this entire movement, so that you
can try to destroy the American system in the Western
way of life. So when you find something like this out,

(36:44):
it's inconvenient because it actually harms your ability to be
an activist. In this case. I mean, look at Al
Sharpton and the way that he reacted to this. This
thing isn't over. Well, yeah it is, Al, I mean
it's not because that's you're a grifter and this is
what you do. But this should be over and it
should be celebrated by everybody. Hey, we're not as racist

(37:06):
as we thought. That's even the people on the left
should be saying that, and they're not. It just at
this point, you either stand or you don't. And I
think that this show and your brand has proven that
it's time to stand. And it's also time to not
let your pride destroy you. Taken l once in a
while just say sorry, got this one wrong, my bad.

(37:29):
On that. I'll have a whole lot more respect for
that than you glomming onto things that have been debunked
nine thousand times. Yeah, And I think the challenge in
general and a lot of that was well said is
that in general, there is uh there is a demand
that everybody have a reaction on social media two things

(37:50):
before the facts are known. And I see this happening everywhere,
right the hot take industry demands a reaction before we
know what actual he took place. And the easiest way
to describe it that is a cliche is we're literally
putting the cart before the horse, right like and and
that's a funny cliche because you think about the image

(38:11):
of the cart trying to go in front of the horse.
But until you know what happened, you can't have an
intelligent reaction. It just doesn't work. And so that in
and of itself is I think a tremendous flaw that
we see happening every single day on social media, and
it's being exacerbated by many people in the media who
should know better. Speaking of should know better, we come

(38:33):
back Florida Gators band, the Gator Bait Chant. It's one
of the dumbest decisions I have seen associated with the
cancel culture in college sports. The founder, creator, the guy
who came up with the idea of the Gator chant,
Lawrence Right. He's a black former Florida Gator football player.
He weighed in saying it was a stupid decision. Be
sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with

(38:54):
Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
There's a lot of ridict ulis cancelation culture going on
in the country right now, and I'm not sure any
of it has been more absurd in the college athletics
universe than the decision of the Florida Gators to ban
the gator bait chant. Now, if you're not familiar with

(39:17):
the gator bait chant, uh, if you're not a Gator,
you are gator bait, all right, and that is uniformly
been chanted for decades now, regardless of whether you're black, White, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight,
male female. If you're playing against the Florida Gators and
you are you are in their venue, they consider you

(39:37):
to be gator bait. This all ties in well because
Florida calls their stadium, Ben Hill Griffin the swamp because
it's a little bit it's kind of fast fascinating. You've
ever been to a game at the University of Florida,
It's like some stadiums are like this, although they are
increasingly it feels like very often rare. But you walk
in and you go down, so you really do feel

(39:58):
like the very top of the floor. The Gator Stadium
is not that high up relative to the outdoors, right,
And so if you've ever if you've ever been into
a stadium like that, you can be in the upper deck.
You can look out and you're not actually that high
up because the stadium is built so far into the ground.
So when you are there, and I've had the good

(40:19):
fortune to be in the swamp for a lot of
big football games in my life, when you are there,
you do feel like you're in a swamp because it
is super hot and super humid. You are literally underground.
I remember, and this is the Lord's Truth. I went
to a Florida Gator game one time. I was sitting
behind the visiting team bench. It was the University of Tennessee. Uh,

(40:42):
it was Tim Tebow was playing, And it was the
year my first book came out, Dixieland Delight, which would
have been two thousand seven, I believe. So two thousand seven,
thirteen years ago, I am in Florida, the Florida Stadium,
and I am sitting right behind the Tennessee bench and
it was so hot. It was so hot that I

(41:04):
had to go to the bathroom. And then I swear
to guys, never happened to me in my life. I
sweated so much that I didn't have to go to
the bathroom anymore. I don't know how that's physiologically possible,
but it was so hot and I was sweating so
much that I didn't have to go to the bathroom.
I didn't pee my pants, I'm confident of that, but

(41:25):
it was like I I don't know that I have
ever been hotter. And if you think about the way
the stadiums are structured, this was a three thirty Eastern
CBS kickoff game in September in Florida, and the way
the sun is going down the visiting side of the stadium,
you are just baking in the sun. And this can

(41:46):
be a huge advantage in the South. You're talking about
home court, home field advantages. The difference between standing on
the shady side of the field, which is where Urban
Meyer at the time and his Florida Gator team we're
standing and being in the baking sunshine side of the
field is like twenty degrees difference. It already felt like
we were playing a football game on the surface of

(42:07):
the sun. That's how hot it was. But I was
right there by the Florida Gator students section is also
close behind the visiting bench, and I can't tell you
the number of times they chanted the Gator Bay chant.
That game, Tennessee got the crap beating out of him,
as has typically been the case in so many different
games over the years, uh for the University of Tennessee

(42:29):
against the Florida Gators. But that chant is so iconic
and resonent and when you hear the cords strike up,
it is part of what makes college football such a
unique pomp and pageantry and circumstance experience. The band, the cheerleaders,
the Gator Bay chant. Okay, So Florida decided they were

(42:50):
gonna ban the Gator bait chant because of a like
a history where there were jokes made about Florida Gator
gator bait for black children back in the early nineteen hundreds. Now,
there's no evidence, according to articles that I read because
I was like, I want to read about this. This

(43:11):
seems strange, there's no evidence that any black children were
actually used as gator bait, but there were inappropriate cartoons
drawn around the turn of the eighteen nineties into the
nineteen hundreds of that nature. Right, But that was almost
a hundred years before the Florida Gators started their gatorbait chant.

(43:34):
And the player who takes credit for coming up with
the Florida Gator gator bay chant is a guy by
the name of Lawrence Right, who many of you will remember.
I've got Jason Martin in studio with me. Was it
Lawrence Right who hit Joey Kent and made him nearly
sever the Tennessee wide receiver and made him nearly sever

(43:55):
his tongue? Will you look that up for me? I
believe you're right. I'm actually in it up right now. Yep, yep.
This is definitely it because the first thing it pops
up when I put in those two guys names is
Joey Kent meet Lawrence Right. Okay, yeah, so you've done it,
and i'll get to you telling that story in a minute.
But you've done a Tennessee kickoff show with with Lawrence

(44:17):
Right before up with you. Sorry, that's what I mean
with with Joey Kent before and uh, he's a really
good dude, incredibly successful wide receiver. Successful guy now that
he's not playing college football either, but he was Peyton
Manning's go to receiver and in the game that Tennessee
lost in the Swamp the final year, I believe with

(44:37):
Peyton Manning uh in his senior season, if I'm not
mistaken again looked that up. I think Lawrence Right knocked
Joey Kent out of the game early when he hit
him going across the middle. Joey Kent didn't have his
mouthpiece in I think it had fallen out for that
player or whatever, and he nearly severed his tongue on
the hit and was not able obviously to come back

(45:00):
in and play anymore in the game. And that basically
made check and see if I'm writing about there, all
that that I'm remembering, it's it's like it's it's seared
into my memory in a in a in a bad way. Now, look,
I am not a fan in any way of of
Lawrence Right. I still hold it against him for that hit.
Joey Kent totally clean hit. Yeah, whatever, doesn't mean I

(45:21):
have to doesn't mean I have to give him any
sort of credit at all for that hit, but I
will give him credit for this, and we're gonna play
this audio for you. He went on TMZ and he said,
wait a minute, I came up with this. I am
a black former Florida Gator player. I want to meet
with the Florida Gator UH president and the school association

(45:45):
and everybody else and talk about why it makes no
sense to actually ban the Gator bait chant. Listen to this.
We're saying, Hey, whoever is not for the University of
Florida the Gator Nation is Gator b any capacity. As in,
if we have a debate that our debate team is

(46:06):
debating against another university, because we're all talking about collegiate things,
all is Gaytorbate. And if there's a school, the name
of the school we describe it, uh Florida State, We'll
say Gatorbate. So we're being a descriptive in our delivery

(46:28):
who we're talking about. All right, Jason Martin, is this like,
should this seal the deal with the fact that, look,
the Gator bait chant is not racist in any way,
the fact that at some point historically there might have
been something inappropriate connected to that phrase. I don't understand
why in the world. You would have to ban it

(46:50):
today when it's cheer and chant was created by a
black Florida Gator player, right, and he's now advocating for
its return. Doesn't that make sense? Yeah? But but Clay, look,
my need doesn't been far enough for these people. It
just doesn't like at this point in time, this is
where we've come to. We're in this Robin D'Angelo world.

(47:11):
Where do you remember the story in Oakland from a
couple of weeks ago where the guy had hung ropes
from trees for exercise and it was determined that that
was the point here, and the mayor of Oakland, California, said,
it doesn't matter what your intent was if it hurt people.
So you go back to this and you look to
nineteen twenty three where Chipley, Florida, where this story originally

(47:33):
comes from. And then this article I'm even reading from
the Miami Herald, this goes into the steel. There's no
evidence of racism involved here at all, that it actually occurred,
other than some cartoons that were made at the turn
of the eighteen to nineteenth century. So we're talking about
nearly a hundred years passing between that phrase and the

(47:55):
way it's been applied in a college sports context. Yes,
it's preposterous. What we're seeing, Clay, and you know this
full well is a bunch of white liberals trying to
explain how everything is racist, even to black people. In
this case, Lawrence Right being a prime example of this,
because Lawrence Wrights like, what the hell are you fools
talking about? And then the white guy's gonna point out him,

(48:18):
or the white woman's gonna point at him and say, oh, no,
no, no no, you don't understand. We're going to help you
out because you obviously can't make decisions for yourself. This
culture has become so pathetic and so ridiculous. I just
this is so dumb. This gator bait thing is so dumb,
Like why we don't have better things to talk about

(48:40):
than this? This is preposterous. Hopefully they bring it back.
When we come back, we're gonna be joined by Chris Mannix.
This is out kicked. The coverage with Clay Travis. Chris
Mannox joins us now at SI Chris Mannix, you can
find him there, covers the n B A r n
B A insider Chris Baseball, and now to their plan

(49:00):
to come back. They're Basically, it appears using the home
stadiums and their players will have a relatively normal life,
they won't be quarantined. In other words, the NBA sticking
with the quarantine bubble in Orlando. Pretty divergent opinions from
the Major League Baseball UH perspective and the NBA perspective.
Which one is gonna look better? I mean, if I

(49:23):
had to to argue any position, it would be that
the NBA looks better, um for no other reason than
they are creating a sanitized quarantine environment, whereas baseball you're
just gonna be on the move. You're going to be
traveling on planes and buses and in hotels presumably UM,
and that just increases your risk of of contracting coronavirus. Now,

(49:46):
I'm not convinced CLA that any of it's going to
really work. I think that both sports have the potential
to be significantly corupted by positive tests that could make
their respective seasons and postseasons look kind of goofy. But
at least basketball is trying to create a environment that
will get them through this without a rash of positive tests.

(50:09):
I have very little confidence that baseball is going to
do it alright. So one of the big discussion points.
And I'm sure you saw the p g A talking
and you've seen the direction that we are moving in
general where l s U, Clemson, Kansas State. Every time
somebody test positive, it's a big news story. We know
you saw the Sacramento King stories. There's been a lot
of different NBA players that have tested positive. Let's start

(50:31):
with this question, Um, do you know whether or not
the NBA players are going to not only be tested
for the coronavirus but also antibody tested when they arrive
in Orlando. Yeah, I believe both, and my understanding is
that testing will be a daily thing down there. Um,

(50:51):
I don't know exactly what kind of tests they'll be
doing specifically, is it the throat culture that they take
with the show lon nasal swab or the incredibly invasive
deep nasal swab, But my understanding is that they'll be
tested daily. And the antibody test a lot of players
have already had it, and and a lot I'm sure

(51:12):
we'll do it afterwards, but I think that's something that
will be at least in the beginning, will be taken
and then they'll go from there. So the antibody tested,
And this is I'm kind of laughing to myself because
you and I never would have anticipated if you had
told us the last year that you were going to
be coming on like and you're basically gonna have to
turn into a virologist or an epidemiologist in order to
talk about supports. So like, just hearing you talk about

(51:34):
the deep nasal swab versus the normal nasal I mean
like it's kind of a weird. Like if we just
were able to parachute into you know, June and I've
been like, Hey, I'm gonna interview Chris Mannix about the
NBA and we had been able to listen to this
a year ago, we'd be like, what, what in the
world has happened? But so I had the deep nasal
swab done because I was like curious for this reason
because so many athletes and coaches are going to be tested.

(51:56):
I tested negative, but I wanted to go through the
process and see what it was actually like so I
could at least experience it. Um. But you talked about
this antibody issue, and we've talked about this a lot.
We don't know exactly when the first person with the
coronavirus was in the United States. But we can at
least know it was in January, February, and March, and

(52:17):
we know that these guys were playing games in front
of crowds in January, February, March a lot of times
on the coast where this thing was growing pretty substantially.
It stands to reason that a lot of NBA players
probably already had this never knew they had it at all. Right,
don't you think that's that's that's probably likely. Oh, I
think that's almost a guarantee. I mean, and I only

(52:39):
based that on the number of players that I've talked
to that have had it and didn't know they had it.
I mean, you can go all the way back to
Donovan Mitchell with the Jazz who was literally on the
floor at Oklahoma City getting ready to play thirty five
minutes um and he deested positive the next day, like
this is there. There's no question that there are a
number of players that that had it and didn't know

(53:01):
that they had it and played right through it. And
even now, like you're seeing some of the names come
out because guys are releasing their own information personally, but
I know for a fact that there are a number
of high number of other players have also tested positive
that just aren't having their names out there because they
don't want to them right there just yet. So you've
got I mean, you've got guys, a lot of guys
that were in the last couple of days since the

(53:23):
NBA started testing protocols have been very surprised that they
tested positive. So in some ways this is a positive,
right because when a guy test positive, uh and or
test positive for antibodies in theory, based on all the
evidence out there, it seems unlikely that he's at least
going to be able to catch it again in in
the new year term, right, um. And the more people

(53:46):
on a team who have had it, the less it
would spread in the event someone actually catches it. Right. So,
while a lot of people are reacting like, oh my god,
look at all these positive tests, in some ways, whether
it's called football, NFL, you know, Ezekiel Elliott, NBA players
until the season actually starts, in many ways, it's actually

(54:06):
positive to have guys who were testing positive because that
eliminates them as a risk factor in theory once the
season begins. Yeah, in some ways, it's like a herd immunity, right,
Like you you have a bunch of guys that have
tested positive that uh, it just creates a better environment. Um.
But I mean if he here's the biggest question I
have over the next couple of weeks, Like there's going

(54:29):
to be positive tests inside the bubble, like I mean
covering boxing. I have seen what Nevada and Top Rank
have been going through over the last few weeks where
they have a very tight bubble, but they are still
getting having fights. Being scrapped because of positive test just
keeps happening. My question I have about the NBA is
how many positive tests or how many teams have to

(54:51):
be deeply impacted before they kind of I don't know
if the scrub the whole thing is the right phrase,
but decideses not for a real championship. That's the big
question I have, because you're gonna have I mean, there's
no no question you got have three or four players
on one team in the playoffs test possible. I think
that's the foregone conclusion that it's going to have. And
will the NBA continue with this, uh, this desire to

(55:12):
crown a legitimate champion. It really haven't spelled that out
just yet. I Mean I read every page the hundred
thirteen page memo, and that's one of the things that's
still a little bit ambiguous, like how many positive tests
um have to happen before the NBA decides this isn't
how we're going to finish the season. It's a great question.
I think it's the most important question because the first
version of that question was if you're going to shut

(55:36):
everything down like happen with Rudy Gobert as soon as
there's a positive case and you're gonna quarantine everybody, you
can't come back at all because that is going to happen,
right and uh And now the p g A is
kind of grappling with that. How many tests does it
take to be positive? Where you're just like, yeah, this
was an experiment that didn't work. Do you have any

(55:57):
sense for that? Like how tough is Adam silver are
going to be? Because that drumbeat of negativity that exists
on social media every time somebody tests positive. It's like
the first comment is go ahead and stop at all. Right,
but there's a lot of money at stay here. The
NBA has spent a lot of time trying to figure
out how to do this. How resilient do you get

(56:17):
the sense that Adam Silver is going to be to
the negative drumbeat of positive test, very resilient. And I
don't know if there's a benchmark that the NBA has
for number of tests where they just say, you know,
this is ridiculous. But you know, one thing I've set
and written and talk to you about is that the
NBA badly wants to protect the postseason, like they want

(56:38):
to crown a legitimate champion one way, the If it's
not holy legitimate, they'll find the way to crown champion
no matter what. Like they want to do to go
through these playoffs and finish the season with an NBA
Finals with a champion, and fulfill those TV obligations that
they have, the ESPN Turner and even the regional networks
that are going to get their piece of the pie

(56:59):
in the end of the regular season in the first
round of the playoffs. So I think they're going to
be incredibly resilient. I think there's a there's a very
good chance, Clay that this from the outside world that
it starts to look really goofy, but the NBA just
keeps plowing forward because they want to finish the year.
A couple of people who have made interesting decisions. What
is the NBA response you have heard too. I believe

(57:19):
it's Devise gortech Uh making the decision not to come back,
or sorry, Dave Devise per Tands, all these names run together,
Devise per Tans, I believe right making the decision not
to come back for the for the Washington Wizards. What
is the NBA reaction. I've seen some of his teammates
kind of not necessarily take it. Well. I gotta be
honest with you. If I was in his position, and

(57:40):
I was about to be a free agent and make
a lot of money, and I had had double A
c L injuries like he had, There's no way I
would play when I don't believe my team as a
chance to win a championship. No, the the NBA doesn't
love Burton's decision. They're like, they can understand Avery Bradley.
Certainly he's got a son that deal with the respiratory illness.
They can understand Trevor's a I mean, that's a deeply

(58:01):
personal situation with his his his ex, and he's got
to deal with that. The Burton stuff is more of
a you know, precautionary measure that I agree with you.
Burton's is well within his rights and should do something
like that. He is in line for potentially at twelve
to fifteen million dollar per year contract. You don't screw
with that. You don't mess with that for playing eight

(58:23):
games in a meaning, meaningless regular season where the maybe
the only outcome that that you know could happen would
be suffering some kind of injury that would be consequential.
What why the NBA hates it though, is that there's
a trickle down effect from it. If Burton doesn't play.
There's no question Bradley Beale is probably looking around going, well,
why am I going to play like I have no
offside here? I'm gonna come back and play with John

(58:45):
Wallen next year in Burton's will be back next year,
and let's just get up for that season. I actually
texted before I spoke to you with in the Wizards organization.
We were kind of joking like, are you gonna, you know,
suit up George Morrison for like fifteen mess the game
at this point because I think there's going to be
uh seven of their high profile players that are play
like free games and bow out or don't play at all.

(59:05):
So Burton's was kind of the first domino, and I
think there'll be a lot of subsequent dominoes with a
team like the Wizards moving forward. But but keep an
eye Clay in the coming days. Like I've long said that,
you know, it's the young players that we've talked about,
that Jason Tatums, the Donovan Mitchell's, the guys in the
line for max contracts. They're not the ones you have
to watch for bollowing out of these things. It's the
Burtons types. And there are a bunch of guys like that.

(59:26):
It's you know, Marcus Morris with the Clippers, Paul Millsap
with the Denver Nugget, Danila Gallinari with the Thunder. These
are guys in their early to mid thirties that are
looking at maybe the last contract of their professional careers.
And how comfortable are they going to be going out
there after having virtually I don't say virtually no warm up,
but a very limited warm up, uh and potentially risking injury.

(59:48):
I mean, the Burtons was the exact type of player
I anticipated bowing out. And I don't think you'll be
the last. You talked to a ton of people in
the n b A and you came on, I think
it was last week or two weeks ago, to talk
about how you saw this thing breaking out in terms
of whose advantage, whose disadvantage. Because it's basically a tournament
more than it's a continuation of the existing season. What

(01:00:10):
are you hearing from executives as they assess how this
thing is going to play out and which teams they
think stand to gain the most by the way this
situation is set up. Honestly, they have no idea, Like
the the executives I talked to, I, I'll put it
this way, I have yet to hear an executive from
a playoff team say, oh, we're screwed, like I had

(01:00:30):
my best player come back, you know, twenty pounds heavier,
out of shape. They're not seeing that yet. But again,
as we speak, there's still guys just kind of trickling in.
They're doing one on one workouts and you know, just
starting to get in with assistant coaches. We haven't seen
five on five yet, and that really is the first
benchmark or measuring stick that team's gonna look for to
see where they currently stand. So everything else, you know

(01:00:53):
at this point is complete conjecture, speculation, you know, looking
at numbers. They these guys need to see what their
players look like when they go through five on five scrimmages.
See who's in shape, see who's sharp, and and you
know again frankly, see who's actually there and ready to participate. Okay,
So you yourself, I think told us a couple of teams,
like if you were going to take a flyer on

(01:01:15):
the gambling situation, because you've got a lot of teams.
Everybody's focused on the Lakers, the Clippers, the Bucks. But
what is really kind of interesting is looking at some
of these lower tier teams that could theoretically make a run.
Who do you like outside of the traditional powers that
you look now at the way the NBA is set
up and you say, boy, this team could make a run.

(01:01:35):
I'll give you the update. By the way, I'm looking
at Fox Bet Milwaukee, Bucks, Lakers both plus two fifty,
Clippers are three to one, and then there's a lot
of teams that are all double digit underdogs. Who stands
out to you? You know? I I brought this up
on your show a few weeks back and actually wrote
about it a little bit later on after we talked
to me in the Sixers to me are a smart

(01:01:56):
bet um And I called Brett Brown, the Sixers coach,
and of ran my theory by them, Like, you know,
you guys suck at shooting threes. You know everybody's gonna
suck and shooting threes. Uh, you've got Ben Simmons back
Joel and b claims he's working out six days a week.
Who knows how true that is, but um, you know
there's some merit I think to the argument that Philadelphia

(01:02:16):
is the team most equipped to win those down in dirty,
grimy type of slug fest. I mean, they're not a
prolific scoring team. They're not a prolific three point shooting team. Simmons,
who was done for the season in mid March, is
going to play and probably give them thirty thirty five
minutes to night. I mean, they they are almost built
for a pandemic playoffs. They really are. And you know,

(01:02:40):
I think there's a lot of variable. It's not the
least of which is you've got to kind of like
each other. And I'm not sure the Sixers do. You
know down in Orlando you've gotta be around your teammates
a lot. But on paper, Philadelphia, to me is one
of the best long shot bets you can possibly make
at this point. And what what is it in particular
about Philadelphia? I mean, they've oviously had a lot of

(01:03:00):
internal tension with their team getting wrong and getting along
and everything else. But right now you could get the
Sixers at one mm hmm, I do it. I mean,
look their their ability to defend at three positions at
an elite level is the first one. I mean, Simmons,
You've got Embid, You've got Josh Richardson, You've got guys

(01:03:24):
that can lock you down individually. And they also have
a guy that, at least on paper, should be able
to give you high percentage shots in Joel and beat
so while everybody else, like Houston Milwaukee is shooting like
low thirties from three and and giving and by the way,
giving the Sixers a great transition team opportunities to get
up and down in the half court. If your Philadelphia,

(01:03:46):
you can just dump it into embiid and try to
win like the old Jordan Bulls, one of the old
chem Elajan Rockets. One played through the post and succeed
that way. So I just again, I need to see
what they look like when they come back and exactly
where Simmons is at with this back injury. But they
just make too much sense as one of those long
shot bets to to kind of put something together and
make a run. Is this more? Does this matter more

(01:04:09):
for Lebron the way this season ends than almost anybody
else in the league, Because you've got the Warriors that
are going to surge back into contention in the West.
You've got the Nets, which theoretically when Kevin Durant comes back,
assuming he's healthy and Kyrie, they're gonna be a lot better.
The overall depth and talent across the league is going
to surge whenever they come back for another season. The

(01:04:32):
Lakers have a lot of older pieces in theory. Is
this Lebron's last best chance to win an additional championship
as the focal point? I know he could hang on
for a while as a guy who's a role player,
but as the as the driving force for a team.
Is this it? Yeah? You can make that argument for
two reasons. One is what you said that the league

(01:04:53):
around him is going to get better next year. I mean,
the Warriors I think are at least the candidate to
trade that hop pick and get a veteran player to
add to that mix, to fit into their timeline with
guys in the early thirties, and the Nets I think
are gonna be great with Durant and and Kyrie back
next year. And look, we look at Lebron as indefatigable,
and it's fair because he's he's never shown any significant

(01:05:16):
drop off in his game. But at some point, you know,
in December, he's gonna be thirty six years old. You've
got to anticipate there's gonna be a slippage there. And
Anthony Davis, as great as he's played this year, he's
been fragile in his career. He's been banged up. So
you know, you can certainly make the case that Davis
might get hurt, might deal with some kind of injuries
that would derail the Lakers next season. I mean this,

(01:05:36):
I look, this is the Lakers I think best chance
during the Lebron era to win the championship. I mean,
circumstances can certainly change that my trade or acquire somebody else,
but right now, as you look at the landscape, this
is the year the Lakers need to win. Avery Bradley
steps out let's go into the Laker match up against
the Clippers, which I think most people anticipate is going
to happen at some point, I would make the argument

(01:05:58):
that the Clippers are now the better team top to bottom.
I'm I'm betting you probably would agree, and also that
the Clippers would be advantaged by not having crowds president
because they were going to be the underdog in all
seven games in terms of crowds if they were playing
in the Staples Center. Would you agree with both of
those premises? And would you agree that maybe the Clippers
have what it takes to get past the Lakers. How

(01:06:19):
would you assess that matchup in the event it happens, Yeah,
I would. I mean, you know, a seven game series
of Staples is all gonna be purple and gold there,
no matter who's got home courts, So that's certainly part
of it. I think the Clippers the time off probably
benefits them. I mean, Kauai we know is knee issues,
Paul George and battling different injuries. I mean, you know,
at least as far as what we know, it definitely

(01:06:41):
benefits them more than it benefits, uh, the Lakers and
the Bradley loss is huge. I mean, this is a
guy that was playing twenty five minutes the game. I
mean he was an integral part of their backcourt rotation.
His last game or one of his last games, I
forget if it was the last one, but it was
against the Clippers and he scored twenty four points. And
he was having his best month to date in the

(01:07:01):
month of March, averaging like ten points per game, playing
close to thirty minutes. I mean, you do you have
some depth there in l A. Alex Caruso has been
really good alongside Lebron. The numbers backed that up. Um
god knows if they signed j R. Smith, I don't
know how that's gonna go. But you know, Danny Green
is still there. But losing Avery Bradley takes away a
ball handler, a three point shooter, and on ball defenders.

(01:07:21):
Those guys don't grow on trees like Bradley's loss, I
think could be the kind of loss that tips the
balance of power in the Western Conference. Good stuff as always,
anything else. As we let you go and we roll
out into the weekend and into the July four holiday,
what's next for NBA fans? What should we be paying
attention to? For those of us who are intrigued and

(01:07:42):
interested in how this is going to play out. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's just the protocols moving forward.
I mean, we've seen the medical protocols in that report.
But you know, what does the NBA say about a
run of positive tests? I don't look, you know, these
are young guys, healthy guys, but the most part, there's
no signal if it can help risk associated with them.

(01:08:02):
But how far And we talked to us at the
top of how far will the NBA go if their
playoffs start to look goofy? If you get to the
conference semifinals and two teams are just decimated by injuries,
will the NBA continue on this path and say this
is the real conference semifinals or will they pivot away
and call it something else. That's the one area Clayer
that just really isn't a lot of clarity yet. I

(01:08:22):
know Adam Silver has been talking to the union about it.
I think over the next few days we will get
more insight into what the NBA's mindset is on that.
I know I said last question, but you said something
that I think is interesting and worth unpacking. It's true
that these guys as young and healthy themselves, and considering
that they're not going to be exposed to very many
people in the bubble are not under that much physical
danger themselves. To what extent do you think the NBA

(01:08:45):
players know that? In other words, it's very easy if
you just put on the news, or if you just
read headlines, or if you sit around on social media
to really get lost in fear right. It's very very easy.
And I think if you're young, that can be easy
as well, because the data doesn't really get shared. To
what extent do you think the average NBA player is

(01:09:06):
well informed about the health risk to them specifically based
on their age. I actually think they're very informed about it.
But I would also say that there are a lot
of players that have circumstances that mirror Avery Bradley's, whether
it's you know, a spouse or a girlfriend that has
some kind of immune issue, or a child that's dealing

(01:09:28):
with something. And these guys are going to effectively jump
in in mid July, and you know, several of them
that I've talked to are people around them say that
they're legitimately tormented by it, like they don't know what
to do, like they want to be around their kids.
You know, the NBA is big on that, like having
their kids come out there and shoot around with them,
Like a lot of NBA players do that. Um, they
want to be around them, but they're just there's the

(01:09:49):
process and the information about how dangerous it is for
loved ones. I don't think, and I have yet to
talk to a player or a representative a player that says,
like my guy is scared of contracting and what it
might means for them. It's always about what it means
for people around them, which I think is it's certainly
a legitimate concern if you've got family members effectively becoming
your roommates for several months down Orlando, no doubt. Chris

(01:10:12):
Mannos always great s. I Chris Mannos following there. Appreciate
the time a man have a good weekend. You've got
a claction. This is outkicked the coverage with Clay Trafficks.
We haven't talked a lot. We we did in that
discussion a little bit with Chris Mannox about Avery Bradley
and his decision not to play. You guys know that

(01:10:34):
I believe sports needs to return and that it's important
for our country to get back to a sense of
normalcy by having sports return. But let me just be
clear here as well, every individual athlete or coach should
have the right about whether they want to play without

(01:10:55):
having to worry about what other people think. Right. The
great thing about America, I believe that you are going
to be safe, especially if you are a young and
healthy athlete. But everybody's got different family situations, everybody's got different,
unique lifestyle concerns. I'm not walking in every single person shoes.
So if a guy like Avery Bradley, because of his

(01:11:18):
family situation does not feel comfortable going down to Orlando
and playing in that bubble for the remainder of the
NBA season, more power to him for not going. I
don't begrudge anybody, And I would say this the same
thing college football players, NFL, college basketball, n b A, NHL,

(01:11:38):
Major League Baseball. Everybody should be able to make the
decision not to work. That's fundamental to our rights as Americans.
And if you don't believe it makes sense on an
individual basis because of family concerns or maybe just personal
considerations of your own to come back to work, you
shouldn't do it. We shouldn't have to bully anybody to
being able to come back. Now, I think there are

(01:11:59):
a lot to people out there that would be happy
to work. For instance, if some major league baseball players
are like, I'm not gonna get paid enough money, I
think there are a ton of minor league baseball players
that would love the opportunity to come and play in
a sixty game season, even in the middle of a pandemic.
And so if they make the decision a major league
baseball player doesn't want to play, or an NBA player

(01:12:20):
doesn't want to play, or somebody in the NFL doesn't
want to play, that's a hundred percent there, right. It
should be a next man up scenario, just like it
is whenever you have an injury. And I have to say,
that's what I think the vast majority of you out
there thinking and listening to me would would agree with
as well. Like, I don't think this is remotely controversial,
even if it's a great player, right, uh, even if

(01:12:43):
it's a great player, even if Kawhi Leonard, which I
don't think is gonna happen obviously, but even if somebody
like Kauai said, you know what, I don't feel comfortable
coming back and playing you're not gonna get paid, right,
that's gotta be the scenario as well. But if you
decide not to come back and play, that you're right.
And I think you should have have the decision and
may be able to make that decision like anybody else
and uh, and we should respect it. And so whether

(01:13:05):
it's Avery Bradley, it's a little bit different with Davis
Bertans right, because he's got more to worry about in
terms of he's a free agent and he doesn't want
to injure himself. But I've said this for a long time.
If you told me, and I've used it to talk
about college football players, if you told me, hey, Clay Travis, tomorrow,
your voice might stop working on the radio, but if

(01:13:27):
you sit out for a month, you'll never have any
concerns with your voice for the rest of your career.
I'd probably sit out for a month if you told
me there was a decent chance that I could have
major voice issues for the rest of my life. Why
would I risk it. I'm gonna make a lot of
money talking. Why would I risk my voice, which is
how I make my livelihood. If you're an NBA player

(01:13:51):
and you're set to make a ton of money as
a free agent, and your team has no chance to
win a championship, why in the world would you come back.
So I kind of agree with both of those decisions
that have been made in the context of the NBA return.
I understand sitting out instead of coming back and playing
eight games for the Washington Wizards that really don't matter
very much. And I certainly understand sitting out for health

(01:14:13):
related reasons because you're concerned about your family situation. Doesn't
mean necessarily that I would make the same decision. But again,
everybody has unique circumstances that are different than what you
or I might be going through, and so that decision,
to me can make an awful lot of sense. And
I don't think anybody should be criticized for making it.
I think every pro athlete and every college athlete should

(01:14:36):
have the right to make that decision on their own
without feeling the peer pressure of having to go just
because other people are going. Now, I have said a lot,
and you guys know, if you listen to the show,
young and healthy people have very little risk. So I
would go. If I were an NBA player, I was
a Major League Baseball player, I would play uh, this year,
NFL player. Same thing. If I were an athlete, if

(01:14:58):
I were a tennis player, golf or whatever, so I
would be doing it. That's my personal decision, but I
wouldn't judge anybody else who makes a choice not to
do that. When we come back, we'll talk a little
bit about Vince Vince Carter deciding to retire the Kentucky
Derby being off and running. Fox Sports Radio has the
best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of
our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within

(01:15:21):
the I Heart Radio app search f s R to
listen live walking in our number three of the week,
the Final Hour, fourteen hours in the books. I'd encourage
you to go download the podcast make sure you didn't
miss anything. It's been a hectic, wild, crazy week, as
many of the last several weeks have been hectic, wild
and crazy. A lot of different stories as we kind

(01:15:43):
of put a bow on the week that have catapulted
and moved around. We got Major League Baseball coming back.
We have certainly got the NBA continuing a little bit
of controversy, but at things like it seems like the
controversy surrounding the NBA's bubble has died down. We have
got UH the p g A making the decision to
stick to UH their schedule, even though UH there was

(01:16:07):
a uncertainty about the number of people who might have
tested positive and how to respond. You also had the
NFL announcing that they were moving their Hall of Fame game,
which creates its own story. But the biggest story by
far all week long has been the Bubba Wallace NASCAR story,
and NASCAR released a photo yesterday of the news. We

(01:16:29):
talked about this a little bit earlier in the program,
but it has dominated the overall news cycle this week since.
I guess it feels like a long time ago now
Sunday night, when NASCAR initially put out their statement and
set us all off in the idea that that there

(01:16:50):
had been a hate crime committed in some way surrounding
Bubba Wallace, and in particular that NASCAR statement I thought
was flawed because it presumed the outcome of the investigation already.
And this is why I've said, one of the great
flaws that exist right now in our society is a

(01:17:12):
need to have an opinion before all the facts are in.
And so if you go back and listen and I
would encourage you guys to do it because I think
this show, uh an out kick in general, got this
more right than any other media source almost anywhere. Because
on Monday, we had Jason Whitlock on the show, and
if you went back and you listen to what we said,
then we said, look, uh, this sounds like it could

(01:17:35):
be an ugly incident for NASCAR. If someone is responsible
for it, they need to be banned for life and
face potentially criminal charges for their actions. But let's wait
and see what exactly is going on. And then on
Tuesday on this show, we had Shannon Spacon, who was
fantastic and who was connected directly to NASCAR, and we
talked through the entire process and I asked questions, put

(01:17:57):
on my lawyer hat, and I said, you know, it's
important to realize their three potential outcomes here. While everybody
is focused on the idea that this is a hate crime,
that's one option. The other option is this is a
this is an issue of misidentification. And the third, in
other words, this is not directed at a racial incident,
it's just there. And the third uh, And in particular,

(01:18:22):
we referenced the fact that it might be a garage
pole rope. And then the third and I think this
is significant as well, is we said, hey, it could
be staged because we've seen so many different cases, whether
it's Jesse Smallett, whether it's Michael Bennett, whether it's Lebron James.
The Michael Bennett racist Las Vegas police officer story was

(01:18:42):
a lie. It was debunked. The Lebron James racist graffiti incident.
The l A Police Department investigated, found out there was
no crime there. We know what happened with jos Jesse Smaalllett,
that he made up the whole thing. And so then
on uh, then on Tuesday afternoon we get what lands
like a bombshell. Fifteen FBI agents have investigated it. It
was not directed at Bubba Wallace. There's no way to

(01:19:03):
know which garage he was gonna be birthed in. Uh,
there was already this rope there last October. We don't
know how long it has been there. It is a
garage pull rope and it has been there a long time.
And some people are still like, well this is a
definite news making that argument and everything else, and look,
the reality is, Uh, if you've ever been on a boat,

(01:19:24):
There are lots of ways that you tie a boat
that can look like a noose. Right, A noose is
really just a tie in a rope. The same thing
can happen if you are out walking your dog. It
can look like a noose. Like what was going on
here is for whatever reason, a handle had been made
to allow the garage door to be pulled down. I
thought the most interesting question was why didn't they just

(01:19:45):
pay for electric garage doors? Right, NASCAR makes a lot
of money. It seems like maybe that would be a
solution that could make a lot of sense as opposed
to having the old rope. I remember as a kid
growing up. Uh, A lot of you probably do as well,
if you had a garage. I remember one out and
having that rope that you would grab that came from
our ceiling that you would pull and uh and it

(01:20:05):
would close and uh. Now I think a lot of
people in their garages have the automatic garage door opener
and closer. But if you're old enough, or maybe you
still have a lot of them out there, I don't know.
I think most of it's automatic now, it seems like
to me. But if you have an older house, so
you're old enough, to remember doing this. I can remember
grabbing that that garage door and pulling it down. So

(01:20:26):
so there are a bunch of different things out there
about this, but what I think is ultimately this was
a media failure. And the story continued all week with
the release from NASCAR of the photos, even in the
wake two days later of the overall story. And I
think NASCAR set in place this mess by being out
there and basically saying this was a hate crime before

(01:20:50):
they realized that it had nothing to do with that
at all. So I've got Jason Martin in with me.
He's sitting in with me today. He'll also be sitting
in with me Monday, and then he is going to
take for the show, uh for Tuesday through Friday. Old
producer of the show. A lot of you will remember
jmart Is being so fearful that he would not drive
in the in the weather related conditions in the in

(01:21:13):
past years. But we bring in j mart here now
and what is your biggest takeaway of the week that
NASCAR had. One of the big takeaways can be we
probably talked more about NASCAR on this show this week
than we have in the four years previous about NASCAR
in general, The first thing I think about is the
stupidity of the jump to conclusion matt idea from office space,

(01:21:37):
and how when it's laid out, they say, that's the
worst idea we've ever heard in our life. And it
makes me laugh because it is awful. But that's the
culture we live in at this point. It's more important
to be out there and get your points out there
in virtue, signal everybody to death before you even look
to see if the story is true. And the first
thing that I thought about after it happened is, first,

(01:22:03):
I'm happy. I'm glad that this turned out not to
be true. Bubba Wallace ship. NASCAR's reaction was great regardless, Yes,
and I mean all those drivers, everybody in NASCAR pushing
Bubba Wallace's car. That's a great, great show of unity.
It really is. To a young superstar on the rise,

(01:22:24):
for sure, in Bubba Wallace, that's awesome. It's absolutely awesome.
But when you see the reaction from the flip side,
I just asked myself of a real simple question internally,
and it is why do these people need this to
be true so badly? Like why can't you just accept that?
Just like I think Ben Shapiro mentioned there have been

(01:22:45):
about a dozen of these we found a new incidents
in the last handful of years. All of them have
turned out to be gay. They've turned out to be fake,
they've turned out to be phony, They've turned out to
be explainable. Why can't it be this situation and just
wasn't what you thought it was. Why does it have
to be racist? Does your movement need to create false racism?

(01:23:06):
Because that seems to indicate to me racism is nowhere
near as systemic a problem as is being indicated or
as as is being fought for that that just drives
me insane. And when you look at, you know, stuff
like the statues, the way the statues are being taken down,
and the fact that we've moved from Confederates Clay to Founders,

(01:23:28):
and now we've got a call from Malcolm X, your
boy Sean King to take down all of the Jesus statues,
all of the stained glass windows of white European Jesus,
his white mother and his European friends. I guess that
means his disciples and all these kinds of things. And
you've got people in sports media going after other media

(01:23:50):
personalities and using go pray to white Jesus and stuff
like what are we doing here? Like why can't this
just be a situation that was misread, conclu usion was
jumped to. Let's learn from that. But the best news
in the world is that this was not a news
and someone was not this racist or trying to hurt
Bubba Wallace or anything else. And we still got a

(01:24:13):
show of unity out of it, Like why can't this
be a positive moment, Why can't we try to unify
around something in And I continue to go back and
Clay and and You've said it forever. COVID nineteen has
taught us to try and get away from each other.
Even when you see a mask, it's basically an indicator
of don't come near me, don't come near me. This

(01:24:35):
is the first time in recorded history, I think, in
America where a situation like this, we've been told not
to go to church, we've been told not to congregate
with one another, stay away, and this isolation has fomented
and I think it's just pushed us further divisively. And
so this stuff, I think has been made worse as
a result of that. But I don't understand why we

(01:24:57):
can't just admit if something is positive development, that this
is a good thing for the country, that this turned
out not to be true, as opposed to oh no, no,
no, no no, this is still true. It just wasn't about
Bubba Wallace or going down the Al Sharpton grifter route. Yeah,
it's interesting. I think you you hit on something that's
really kind of fascinating about the way that everything is

(01:25:18):
set up. What social media does is it leads to
people behaving in ways on social media that they would
never behave on real face to face interaction. Right. And
my test for what I would say is if I
wouldn't say it on the radio or I wouldn't say
it on television. And a little bit difference with FCC restrictions. Right.

(01:25:39):
I occasionally will curse in a tweet, and I obviously
can't curse on the radio, and I can't curse on television.
But if I wouldn't say it on the radio or
I wouldn't say it on television, I try not to
say it on social media. Right, And what the reality is?
I think one reason this show has grown is because

(01:26:00):
I'm pretty authentic and honest across all of the platforms. Right,
If you read me on out Kick on the website,
then I think I sound similar to what I sound
like on radio, to what I sound like on social
to what I sound like on television, because I'm trying
to be consistent in the way that I talk. Now,
there's different topics, right, Like the gambling show that I'm
on is about sports gambling. So whatever I think about

(01:26:23):
Bubba Wallace outside of gambling, or about NASCAR outside of
gambling is not a topic we would discuss there. And
you know, the OutKick platform basically gives me the ability
to talk about any and everything and uh and so
I think this Bubba Wallace story has exposed many of
the flaws that exist in sports in general. Uh. We

(01:26:45):
will talk about that, uh and more with up next,
Bobby Barack, who is a writer at OutKick. I want
to talk with him for a few minutes about all
of this before we go any further the reaction to
Bubba Wallace. And then I'm gonna bring on another OutKick
writer to finish off the program this week, Ryan glass Peagle,
to talk a little bit about the Bill Simmons mess

(01:27:07):
and UH and more in the world of media. So
we're gonna kind of put a bow on a lot
of what has happened this week. Up next, it's Bobby Barack.
This is Outkicked the Coverage with Clay Travis. Welcome back
in Geico OutKick the Coverage. We are joined now um

(01:27:28):
with Bobby Barack and uh, Bobby this story. We were
just talking about Jason Martin and I about the alleged
news that was found in Bubba Wallace's garage which ended
up being a pull door. NASCAR has released a photo
of it. Uh. NASCAR says, now, we should have said
an alleged noose, which certainly would have maybe changed the

(01:27:48):
way the story was covered. Um, because uh, you know
the intent of that pull rope can matter. And I
am not an expert in how you tie ropes, but
I do know for anybody out there who has been
in the Boy Scouts, they teach you because my kids
were in the Boy Scouts, they teach you how to
do a variety of not ties and uh and people

(01:28:10):
you know can can fashion many different ways to create
a loop handle so that you could be able to
pull down a garage door. So first question for you,
you write it out kick. You can follow Bobby on Twitter.
You are twenty two years old. I think, do you
ever remember in your life being in a garage where
you had to pull a garage down with a rope? Involved? No,

(01:28:33):
but I've seen a lot of movies where you've had
to product. I found that to be the case. So no,
I have that personally, but I know that that's how
it used to be. That's how that's how it used
to be. Yeah, in the old days, I'm there, but uh, yeah,
I have not, but maybe yeah. Well, hold, J Mart,

(01:28:53):
I didn't ask you in the last segment, have you
ever had to uh and by the way, I should
mention we were going to talk with Barrett. Suddenly Barrett
was not able to join us, so I've I've called
in Bobby Barack and uh Ryan glass Peagle to to
finish out the week with me. But have you have
you I'm sure J Mart you're around my age. I'm
sure you have been in a garage where you had

(01:29:14):
to pull it down with a rope? Oh? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean I think about garages. I think about addicts
sometimes as well. Just something. I mean, ropes do exist
to pull down doors like these are things that happened.
There was actually a time when ropes were used in
boy scouts like you mentioned. I mean, I learned to tie,
not so I could get some merit badges before I
realized I didn't want to be a boy scout, so

(01:29:35):
I decided to move on from it. But yeah, I
absolutely remember the old school garage pulls. Alright, So, Bobby,
how would you if you were giving the media a
letter grade so you write about the media a lotted
out kick. If you were giving the sports media a
letter grade for their coverage of the of the NASCAR
alleged noose incident, what letter grade would you give us? Uh?

(01:30:00):
Would go low D D minus because not only or
they irresponsible Monday and Tuesday morning by not asking questions,
you got took conclusions, really pushing things further than they
should have been. Plus what was out there but yesterday,
the first step was admitting you were wrong, and a
very few media members even admitted they were wrong. They

(01:30:21):
were making excuses why they came down with so hard.
I saw a lot of people say, well, I'm still
glad this came out because we all came together and
came down a NASCAR who deserved this. I mean what
they didn't make a sense to me if you're if
you're someone on Monday, and there was a lot of
including I think Jamal will probably before for us. Willie crushed,

(01:30:41):
NASCAR crushed, their fans, crushed everybody calling for major changes,
did not come back Tuesday afternoon when it was found
by the FBI that it was not a news, it
was a role that's been there for a while. It
was not a heinous that did not even admit you
were wrong to say, Okay, I messed up to me.
That's where you can get a family great. So maybe
if they're coverage is like a C minus on Monday,

(01:31:03):
they're they're irresponsibility of not changing their perspective on Tuesday
and defending themselves the past two days. That's where I
bring it down to a low rate. If we go
by college theaters, a D and D minus is failing.
That's right where the media is right now. So NASCAR
says they've looked into this. Uh, they they they are.

(01:31:23):
They said they should have said it was an alleged news.
They put out the picture, everything else. Is this story
over or do you think it will continue to echo
for Bubba Wallace, for NASCAR or come Monday? Is this
basically done? Right, like we're talking about it on Friday,
because it's dominated the entire week's news cycle. Everybody's got
an opinion now the pictures out there, Uh, everybody had

(01:31:46):
an opinion when the FBI investigated it and everything else.
How would you how would you assess this story? Like
what kind of legs if any doesn't have? Well, I mean,
last night it was a big thing about media people
fighting about to Will Kaine's credit, he brought on several
of his colleagues that disagree with his take, and that
really became a discussion in and of itself. Who's right

(01:32:08):
with the people that said the media got it wrong
or the people that are stand buying their takes. I'd
imagine the story isn't dead dead yet. It doesn't have
a lot of legs now, just because we did find
out that it really wasn't anything at all, which is
a good thing. I don't think it's going to be
a major story. But as you know, Clay, there's not
a lot of sports going on right now, really no,
I mean not from a national level. What we've talked

(01:32:29):
about is a couple of uh most golf going on
here and there, but not national topics. So if there
is something to talk about. I think we're going to
continue to now. It just takes one person the media
to say something up third because everybody talking about their takes.
I would not be shocked if on Monday we're still
talking about the story. But maybe it's the third or

(01:32:50):
four topic, not number one, like it's been all week.
All right, So other news that is out there, you,
along with other people at OutKick, have been fighting about
what they're gonna do to replace this show's competition, which
is right now. I believe my Golic and Trey Wingo,
both of those guys are now out. You guys have

(01:33:12):
reported it's gonna be Keyshawn Johnson and Max Kellerman. The
New York Post reported yesterday that Keishawn Johnson is in.
Who do you think ESPN is gonna end up with?
You still think it's gonna be Keyshawn Johnson and uh
and Max Kellerman. So we reported two weeks ago that
ESPN was in beat discussions of Keishan from Morning Radio

(01:33:34):
in the first choice for his co host was Max Kellerman.
I've said throughout the week here that talks of Keishaan
have advanced, and I'm told as well that those aren't
done now he is locked in from Morning Radio. M
Kellerman is a really complicated situation. While there are people
at ESPN that still want him to do that show,
I think Keishawn wants him to do that. He still

(01:33:54):
does do first take and he has no interest of
leaving first take, So it's gonna be really hard to
do Morning Radio six to ten or six and nine
and then go right to first take on. There's some
doubt now that Keller that deals Keleravan is going to
get done, so that appears less likely as though there
are still people that want to get that done. But yes,
Keyshaws is locked in from morning Radio, so that is

(01:34:16):
one spot fill, but they still have several other shows
that they're trying to work out. UM we report are
earlier this week. Mike Greenberg. He's real close to getting
his deal locked in for some show in the afternoon
weathers one to three, year, twelve to two, somewhere in
that range. So the ESPN radio picture is starting to
clear up. But there's still some questions about how they

(01:34:37):
replaced Will Kine, who was last show is today, because
that three to six spot is still wide open. UM
I could see might goal Junior possibly sliding in there
with the co host. There's still a lot of moving parts,
and as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, Clay,
there's not a lot of options. There are a few
people on that roster right now. They're just waiting that
can do radio at a high level. They're likely going

(01:34:59):
to have to develop people and hope that doesn't go
terribly wrong, because there just is not somebody waiting right
now to say, Okay, I can replace Well or I'm
going to enhance Morning Radio. Um. But it's not Calorman.
I don't see who else are going to be capable
of making that show better than what it is currently
right now with Trey Wingle and Mike Golik. Hay to

(01:35:20):
bragg or draw attention to myself, but this will be
the third change they've made since we started. They have
like twenty years of normalcy, then Mike and Mike broke
up about a year after we started, and then now
my Golik is out, um, And so the entire show
is going to be different. And obviously we've been growing
a lot, that show has not grown, So I'm kind
of curious who they'll put in there. Uh, not that

(01:35:42):
it's going to really change very much about about what
we do. UM last question for you, and I appreciate
you coming on with us. Uh do you buy in?
You had an article up yesterday. I guess it was
Wednesday on out Kick, or maybe it's Tuesday. I can't
even remember all the days I've run together about George RR.
Martin potentially a Game of Thrones fans out there who
read the books about him teasing the sixth volume, I

(01:36:05):
think right of his books? Do you buy in that
it's going to be back? By the way, George R.
Martin huge New York Jets fan, which I would have
never anticipated because I think of him as kind of
this British guy based on the way the books have
been written. But he's a huge NFL guy. Because I'm
so happy you have Jason Martin back during the studio
because I spoke to him the morning after Game of

(01:36:27):
Thrones ended last year and what he told me stuck
in my head. He goes Bobby, the showrunners that he
often white. They kind of figure out how to end
the story and the guy that created it he can
I still agree with Ja Mark. I don't think George R.
Martin has any idea how to finish this story. And
there's no reason to believe that he's going to have
this books finished next year. Like you said, you lost too,

(01:36:49):
he's just saying date now. For a decade. It's been
a decade since his last book. He still has another
one that's probably going to be even longer in the works,
the final one. I don't think we're ever going to
get that. So it's I love that book to come out.
I prere pre order and have it read as fast
as you were able to read it. I just don't
get happening. And part of me, I said this the

(01:37:10):
other day, I don't know if I wanted out because
if it comes out, it's going to be great. I'm
going to be all in back in the characters immersed
in Westcist. Then I'm going to have to wait probably
another decade or fifteen years for the final book, which
I've already said, I don't expect we're ever going to
get good stuff. As always, go read Bobby Barak at
OutKick OutKick dot com. This is Outkicked the coverage with

(01:37:33):
Clay Traffic Welcome in the final segment of the week.
Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. We are
having a good time here in the OutKick studio. Encourage
you to go download the podcast, make sure you don't
miss anything. June is on track to be the best
month in OutKick podcast history. We've had a loaded show.
We had Chris Mannix on an hour to Jason Martin,

(01:37:56):
old out Kick producer has been sitting in with me
and he'll be sitting in with me on Monday as well,
and then he's in to host the show as I'm
going back down to Florida for the week with my
family for the fourth so I'll be out Tuesday to
Friday of next week. All that just means you don't
want to miss anything. This has been a crazy week,
as many of the weeks have been, but even even

(01:38:16):
for craziness in the world of sports, the way everything
started off with the bubble Wallace News NASCAR releasing the
photo yesterday. It's been a week long story that has
received a awful lot of attention and we were just
talking about that with Bobby Barack. We bring in now
Ryan glass Peagle, but first again, encourage you to go

(01:38:36):
out there and search out out Kick. My name Clay Travis.
Go subscribe yesterday Danny G read a bunch of reviews
five star reviews. If you get a five star review
read and it gets read on the air, you reach
out to Danny G Boom, I'll sign a book for
you and you will get a free copy of my
latest book autographed that's a five star review at out

(01:38:56):
kick or by searching my name, Uh Clay Travis on iTunes.
All right, let's bring in Ryan Glasbigel here. Ryan, it's
been a wild week, and a big part of that
wild week has been sort of the insane sports culture,
cancel culture that's been going on. But I want to start.
We were just talking with Bobby Barack and you've written
about this with Bobby. Um, there now appears to be

(01:39:19):
official confirmation of what you guys reported a couple of
weeks ago, which is Mike Golic and Trey Wingo are
out as ESPNS morning radio host and in replacing them
is Keyshawn Johnson. Uh. We're not sure who the other
person will be. UM, but this is an interesting story.
And again, as I said with Bobby, I don't want

(01:39:41):
to brag or draw attention to myself, but uh, the
reality is this is now the third move they have
made since we started doing morning radio without kicks. So
I'm gonna take some credit for the collapse of their
morning shows. But Keyshawn Johnson in, Mike Golic and Trey
Wingo out, who goes in with Key? I assume Bobby

(01:40:03):
probably said that it's I'd say, if you're a betting man,
and you and I both are, we would bet on
Max Kellerman being his co host. Um, they like they're
making Keyshan move across the country, and I don't think
that he would be doing that and giving up a
place in l A where he has roots and a

(01:40:25):
lot of creative freedom in his morning show there to
do a national one if he wasn't very sure that
he was going to be confident in the co house.
Now they have a lot of details to iron out
with Max, which is will he still be on First Take? Um?
Could he be involved in the prep if he does

(01:40:45):
this morning show? Maybe they cut the morning show from
right now it goes six to ten. If you do
Keyshan and Kellerman from six until nine am, then Kellerman
can jump into an hour of prep and into first take.
That's a very a long day. But if he doesn't
want to, we first take and they want to keep
him there, and they badly want him on the morning

(01:41:07):
show that might be with their best option is I
don't know what they're going to do if they don't
get him to do it, though, Clay, Um, should I
be nervous or you think I'll still keep kicking their ass? Well?
I need it just depends in regions. I'm not gonna
say that I might. Uh kidding, I'm kidding, I don't.

(01:41:28):
I don't need you to anne it. I'm not. I'm
not nervous. Just a spoiler alert. Um, I think we're
still gonna keep kicking their ass. But but I am.
I do think it's intriguing that they've made the third
different move in the four and a half years that
we've been been in this spot. Um. So uh, let's
go to this cancel culture which is taken over everywhere

(01:41:48):
and it's really started to infiltrate sports media as well.
And so I am curious in general as you break
this down, um and uh and and I being on
with us here, and you can go read Ryan's work
at OutKick dot com, which a lot of people are doing. Um,
when you look at at Bill Simmons, guy built a

(01:42:10):
brand for himself as basically in every Man as a
fan perspective writer, he stopped writing, but when he left
grant Land, He's now built a pretty successful business at
the Ringer that sold for two hundred plus million dollars.
When you look at what he has built, are you
surprised that many of the people that he has hired

(01:42:33):
to help build his brand and his Ringer network are
now firing away at him. Is there validity to the criticism?
Is there any way to negotiate with the woke universe?
What's happening to Bill Simmons. It's it's such a tricky
spot because I actually, I mean I can identify with

(01:42:53):
individuals who are there and see the publishing world collapsing
around them and say to themselves, you know, I do
have a really good gig right now, but I don't
really have any protection if like there's a tidal wave
that topples the Ringer. He could just like they're all
at Will employees. You get rid of them by snapping

(01:43:15):
his fingers, and you're it's like, I've worked for you,
and I've worked for Jason McIntyre. So when you work
for a site where the founder is like a big
guiding voice of it. You have to balance kind of
what you might be interested in yourself with what you
know the founder and the distributor of the site is

(01:43:38):
interested in. So there could be people at the Ringer
who have like different ideas than both Simmons. They explore
them that he doesn't share them, and they feel like
their work is invisible and so but like I think
what really happened, This might be a little bit too
deep in the weeds. But he opened a New York

(01:43:58):
office he's based it. I'll lay and there's this office
in New York of people who aren't getting as much
really attention. And they're also in a region where all
the other sites like Box, Sports Illustrated, the old Gawker sites, BuzzFeed,
on and on down the list are unionizing and they're
out socially with these people. And then the union comes

(01:44:21):
in and there an instant thorn in Simmons's size. And
one of the things that I wrote is that the
union can be more effective against Bill Simmons than they
could be at like Sports Illustrated or those old Gawker sites,
because the people who run those sites just couldn't care
less about their individual reputation, whereas Simmons cared deeply about

(01:44:42):
his so the union kind of got together with a
labor reporter at the New York Times. I think this
labor reporter is sympathetic to unions and Simmons just it's
somebody who's very proud. And he did not want to
let the Times, which he has had a strange relationship
with for years, because they broke the news that he

(01:45:05):
was getting fired from ESPM before he even had heard
about it, and then all of a sudden, everyone who
works at Grantland is finding that out on Twitter, and
he didn't want to let that paper and his union
corner him into a statement that he would pledge to
do better at diversity higher And yeah, there's no doubt

(01:45:28):
at all about all of this being a huge mess
for Bill Simmons. Is this is this a lasting story
or does it basically go away now? And how fortunate
I guess is he that he already sold the Spotify
because in the end, he may not be happy about
what people are saying about him, but he's also got
a couple of hundred million dollars in the bank. Yeah,

(01:45:49):
I mean, okay, so it's going to extend because he's
not going to write crow on his hands and knees
and give the un in everything that they ask for.
And I do want to separate just general union bargaining
with the fact that they're asking for The Wringer to
be more diverse. Um, But he's not just going to

(01:46:14):
like say, okay, you've got me in the New York Times,
I'm going to capitulate and give you everything you ask for.
So that's not going to happen. But he is going to,
at some point, I think, maybe as soon as today,
on a typical Siday podcast, give um some type of
apology where he explains this comment that he made about

(01:46:36):
how this isn't open mic Knight in regards for the
fact that he hasn't given more people of color the
podcasting platform at the Wringer. But he can't really be
canceled Clay, because like Spotify, they're building themselves as a brand.
And Serious has done this for years. I Heart, which

(01:46:57):
you're on, has done this for years. Those are the
brands where they say, we're not going to cave to
the pressure of advertising. We're going to give our content
creators license to say what they want, and maybe we're
not going to be able to shell like an advertisement
to Tide or Snickers or some like blue chip brand

(01:47:20):
that wants to appeal to everybody. But we want to
appeal to fans who like Gout the most. And if
you look at the I can drinking on podcasts, which
you've been climbing up um very fast, so I know
if you're looking at it all the time, Simmons, it's
still probably usually the second top sports podcast behind Part
of My Cake. So he's got a lot of reach,

(01:47:43):
and he's been in issues like this before and his
listeners haven't stopped listening to him. So I don't think
that he is somebody who could really beat cancel. But
to your point, I do think that it's fortunate that
he's sold to Spotify and that this didn't come out
for it, because it would have just added another hurdle

(01:48:03):
in the sale. Pross Catch. I don't pay any attention
to the rankings at all for podcasts, but we're number
nine right now in the country. I would you know.
I don't draw much attention to it or anything else,
but again, we're number nine in the country and you
should go subscribe. My name is Clay Travis and Olkick.
But it is interesting what you point out, And we
have great bosses at at Premier and as a part
of Fox Sports Radio. And like, I'm not controversial at

(01:48:27):
all compared to Russia, Limball, you know, like I am like,
you know, the most children. Yeah, I'm controversial. It's already
decided that we're going to talk to people who have
audiences and we'll deal with any of the commercial pressures

(01:48:47):
that come from that later. Yeah. But uh, you know,
people describe me as controversial, but I don't think I'm
that controversial. But if I am controversial, I'm controversial for sports.
I'm not controversial for like what is other topics in
radio that people talk about on a day to day
basis beyond a beyond the shadow of a doubt. So, um,

(01:49:09):
as we're finishing up here for the week and uh,
and we roll into the weekend, this is gonna come
as sad news. And I hate to I hate to
leave people with a negative story here, but Chuck e
Cheese is shutting down and uh and and how how
many Chucky Cheeses are going to survive? I know you
wrote about this yesterday on the site, but Chucky Cheese
has filed for bankruptcy. Yeah, I don't know if I've

(01:49:30):
many here going to Like, there's this kind of perception
amongst the public that when a company declares bankruptcy it
needs they're going to be dead forever. And sometimes that's true.
Sometimes they just don't have any assets that somebody wants
to salvage. But what's probably more likely in the case
of Chuck E Cheese, I don't even know how many
franchises they have left. They're going to close a given

(01:49:52):
amount of them. But I was I wrote on How
Kicked that I'm gonna be devastated, Clay if this is
game over for Chuck E Cheese, because I love going
there when I was a kid, But once you turn
twelve or thirteen, you are pretty creepy if you go
to Chuck E Cheese. But now I've got a daughter,
she's a year and a half old, and we're about
one or two years away from what I could make

(01:50:13):
my triumphant re entrant into their venue. But I'm just
very much looking forward to that and seeing what it
looks like one or whatever, And so I'm hoping that
at least like one or two of them in the
Chicago area survived. Uh. Good stuff, As always, Ryan glass Bagel.
I appreciate you. I love going to Chuck E Cheese

(01:50:34):
with my own kids. I hope that they survive as
well because they are a lot of fun to go to.
I appreciate my man. Go check out where Ryan writes
at OutKick dot com. I hope all of you are
going to have a fantastic Friday. Encourage you again. Not
that I pay attention to the rankings, but keep us
in the top ten of the podcast rankings. Over the weekend.
Go search out out Kick, Go search out Clay Travis.
Lots of good stuff you'll find there and throughout the weekend.

(01:50:57):
Go ahead and bookmark out kick dot com. We'll be
back on Monday. I'll be in and then I am
headed down to the beach to have a good weekend
along weekend surrounding July four. But it's been a crazy week.
I want to let you know we did have a
lot of positivity even if it got snowed under. Major
League Baseball coming back the NBA. It seems like everything

(01:51:18):
working towards a return there. The MLS. We're gonna have
a loaded July, and next week we hit July and
it is gonna be by the end of the month
and absolutely packed sports calendar. I cannot wait for it
is gonna be a lot of fun. I appreciate all
of you. Thank you for hanging out with us all
week long. Make sure that you don't miss anything. Always

(01:51:39):
download the podcast, give me a five star review and
Danny G, who I hate to say, I think it
may be possible to bribe Danny G because I'm questioning
some of his decisions that he's making with the five
star reviews. But you too can be a big winner
on out kick. Appreciate all of you. Download the podcast.
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