The NBA’s in TROUBLE?… Scottie Barnes can’t miss – Dunk Contest is DEAD
How’s it going pensar basketball fam I am realizing right now as I say this that I forgot to turn on monetization for this video my bad um quite an interesting Allstar Saturday night uh and by interesting I mean completely boring and there wasn’t a lot to enjoy
If you were a casual NBA fan there was some amusement if you’re a raptor fan that was interesting Scotty Barnes gets off to a very shaky start and I tell you I I clinched I was like no please don’t do this H like when you were a rookie it
Was funny and it was cute and you know like you’re a kid at your first All-Star game and you can’t make a layup in your floater and whatever but today to lose the ball like that I was like oh please don’t do this and then he turned it around and he had
Pretty much uh the best uh the best showing that you could have expected for a player of his size uh he made made every single jump shot in the skills challenge then yeah it was interesting like the shooting challenge he he made his shots um he was the only guy in that
Little uh the passing challenge that thought to pick up the ball with two hands after Tyrese halberton did it but no real surprises in the skills challenge uh Tyrese halberton and the Indiana Pacers team bring it home no real surprises in the three-point shooting contest I don’t know who you
Guys had but I was pretty sure that Dame was going to win it and Dame won it and the DK contest was all sorts of cringe and the Sabrina incu versus Steph Curry thing was contentious contentious um best dun contest ever aside from JB getting robbed you got to be kidding me
Jaylen Brown oh my God okay you know what instead of telling you what I think about about this just look at my tweet about it okay like Jaylen Brown shouldn’t have been in the finals I know you’re a Celtics fan my dude but like you got to be kidding me
Like it’s insane like he wasn’t that good bro Jacob toppen should have built it uh why was the Sabrina thing contentious it was contentious because of the commentary around it now Sabrina anesu is one of my favorite WNBA players I love her I I think she
Plays on a team that’s super fun to watch if you watch the Liberty it’s an awesome team and it’s not just about her obviously like love marine and you know it’s just a lot of players on that team that are amazing and I think the the
WNBA has a huge huge huge uh P pipeline or Pathway to grow and they’re and they’re doing way better and there’s an influx of talent coming in so the last thing that you needed at the NBA’s midseason exhibition right was for the commentators to be talking about her
Shooting with the smaller ball shouldn’t you know it I can’t give you an exact rundown of what was wrong but if you heard it you heard it it was just wrong you know I don’t know what else to tell you right in terms of the dunk contest oh my
Goodness like what the what the hell was that zigsaw puzzle saying it was inell energy simple as that well I don’t think that Kenny the J Smith is an inso I don’t want to be throwing around labels I just feel like when it comes to women competing against men there are always
Some people that are going to have a really big problem with it and Steph did not have a problem with it so I don’t understand why anybody else has a problem with it and she’s a hell of a shooter and she did break his record in
Her Sport and her Sport and his sport have a hell of a lot in common so I think um mcclung’s first dunk should have been a 50 yeah yeah it it should have been and they and and I saw 46 on the board I I don’t understand at all um but
Honestly you know even the rising stars challenge yesterday like this has been a flop so far okay uh Mac how does jumping over sha get two different scores well I guess you have to refer back to Nate Robinson jump it over anything when you’re smaller jumping looks better right
You’re getting higher off the ground so jumping over Shaquille O’Neal as a six- foot Guard from the G League should get a 50 and the fact that it did is good I’m glad um I I really think Jacob toin was robbed bro like I mean that dude did
Some really amazing stuff and jayen brown like if you’re a fan of the NBA in the 90s and you watched the dbrown thing live like my dude that wasn’t even close that was a joke what the hell was that right I don’t understand it it’s crazy anyway so Scotty Barn has been soaking
It up right and I mean to those of you who met might have been worried that like hey is the losing getting to him is he really tired he’s obviously moving like a guy who’s very tired he’s kind of like sluggish out there and whatnot he doesn’t seem spry or energetic but it
Seems like he’s really enjoying himself he’s up with his agency he’s up with his trainer he’s up with his family he’s got a whole you know let’s call it like a weeklong refreshment tour going on right now it’s like an entire weekend with friends family his agent his trainer and
It’s great for him it’s it’s a great you know to go to wake up and to not have to deal with the losing that you’re going through with your own team to to have these to have a change of scenery these things help a lot and he’s typically
Been a guy who’s come back energized from the All-Star break he’s been at the All-Star break all three years now and he’s always kind of come back energized especially the first year he really came back like with a renewed Mission and and the again there was a lot to play for in
The first two years you know there was still a hope of making the playoffs and right now you could argue maybe the Raptors don’t have a real hope of making the playoffs and so it feels different for him right um thank you so did I you know and threw
Out and it’s just it’s so sad because you know you do have like I think this brings up a larger point which is the point of this video really and it’s not just that Scotty couldn’t miss a shot I mean he missed tons of shots from half court so that’s
That might be cap but the larger point of this is where is the NBA going right and what might have caused the disruption in ratings because if you look if anybody wants to I implore you to go look at NBA ratings across the board and you will see that
This league has been going downhill for a while now Peak 90s early 2000s stuff like those ratings have never been clipped now you could say it’s because a lot of people cut cable people watch sport a different way obviously ratings are not a meaningful way to measure
Everything when so much of stuff is on social right but the game is still the game and people do have to watch it and the finals are still the finals you cannot rely on people relying on like 10minute highlights but in an age when people have declined attention spans how do you
Convince somebody to care about a two and a half hour game between the Charlotte Hornets and the Indiana Pacers in February how do you get them to commit to that right there’s a lot of stuff that’s been going wrong with the NBA uh I want to say for a while now few things
That I could point to and again there’s a lot of owners that have sold their stake in multi- billion dollar you know and then there’s there’s talks there some very smart people that I talked to last weekend said the number of you know people who are selling right now or rumors to be
Looking to sell makes you think is this why the Raptors are so cautious about potentially tying themselves up super long term do they know something about the next you know the next TV rights deal that maybe we don’t because again it doesn’t matter for the TV right to steal what I’m doing
Here right I don’t contribute to that YouTube content does not contribute to that the truth is that a lot of people are consuming the MBA through forums and through streaming apps and through you know um illegal sites and their cord cutters right but at the end of the day like and
I mean they could be consuming it through YouTube highlights like in 10-minute packages you didn’t have this availability 10-minute highlight packages in 1992 simply did not exist you could not log into the internet and say what happened between the Bulls and the Pacers last night I don’t feel like
Watching a two and a half hour game you know with all the ads and stuff let me just go on nba.com um or let me just go on YouTube and check nba.com or NBA’s thing and let me just watch the 10-minute highlight but people are consuming games in highlight form and through streaming
Apps and which is declining like ultimately the growth of the game you know outside of the United States has been great but these new markets what is the value of growing the game in a market where your advertisers are not interested in really selling right I used to watch rapson 30 on raps
TV sure yeah but still that’s a TV thing right you’re not consuming it via the Internet and it’s different so Brian Monroe saying the LED floor was meant hope to get get an NBA game so much you can do I thought it was a gimmick and and think that this is
Exactly what I want to talk about today so not every major American sport is in trouble I think the NBA is somewhat unique in that sense I don’t think NFL is in trouble you know uh despite all the controversies about concussions and the game not being safe
Or whatever I’m not really sure there’s a lot of other other sports that are necessarily on the same decline in terms of ratings as the NBA a few things about the NBA I think that are worth thinking about number one under Adam Silver we have seen a league that has increasingly embraced
The trends like the Modern Trend right and the truth is that Trends come and go right new ball you know Um midseason T mid-season tournaments a lot of stuff you know play in every year there’s been like some sort of attempt to modernize or adapt something and you got to understand that there’s like always going to be a very L loud contingent of people on the internet who
Are going to be really really excited about new changes but there’s always going to be a growing resentment among people who maybe consider the purity of the game and might see this as a departure from what they grew up watching they might see it as a tainted
Version of the sport right I think LeBron James has been a very polarizing figure you know um I think it’s quite a departure from the popularity of Michael Jordan in terms of just how he’s captured the imaginations of the world so I think when you see how much
The league has put force behind wanyama right Steph Curry I think was a guy who who did something very amazing for the game Kobe Bryant I think when I think about guys who’ve really held the the the title of head honcho in the NBA like the guy who’s the
Face of the league right ironically you know Darko saying Scotty barns will be the face of the league when I think about guys were the face of the league magic bird you know definitely you could you could throw that up there Kareem you could say but not really
Right because there is a certain limitation to building a league around a center people cannot necessarily this is the reason why shoe deals are always worse for bigger players of course you had Jordan Golden Age a basketball in my opinion you know you had a lot of competitive teams big
Markets were good the Lakers were good the Knicks were good the Bulls were good everything was good in the NBA right and I want to say like late 90s to 2003 you kind of had this like Iverson Kobe thing you know Iverson Kobe shot Garnett
It was like a okay this is the next wave one of these guys is going to step up and and you could say that guy you know could have been Vince it could have been Kobe it could have been T-Mac it could have been like a lot of
Guys but the truth is that it’s still a reminder of what was right you if you iiz Kobe you still know that you’re watching a watered down version of a better player which was Jordan if you’re watching you know T-Mac or Vince you know that you’re watching a water down
Version of what was effectively a better player they may emulate but they will not ever be that level of I can’t miss this Michael Jordan game I can’t miss it Michael Jordan’s playing oh I cannot miss that who is the star that is like oh I can’t miss that who inspires that level
Of fan interest what is he going to do tonight I need to see that you know you could say Steph Curry got close because he approached the entire thing from a very not Jordan angle shooting the basketball the way that he did is something that we’ve never seen before
You never knew when he was going to launch on a logo or do crazy [ __ ] like that but Giannis joic embid this is probably not the ideal face of the league Trey young Jaylen Brunson Anthony Edwards none of these guys have that Jordan Aura you know neither does Scotty Barnes like you
If you’re talking about growing the game you know you got it’s almost always going to be a wing or a guard almost always and I’m sorry I’m just not seeing that play player in the NBA right now especially like you know you could say the talent is great so that’s one thing
You know you don’t really have a face the league and and trust me LeBron’s not it right like I respect LeBron for everything that he’s done you know the continuity the Championships the finals runs Etc but I think there’s just enough Humanity in Lebron that seeing
Him as as an idol the way you saw it’s harder you know you’ll appreciate him once he retires you’ll talk about him differently once he retires but I don’t think that on a night toight basis again as someone who’s just barely old enough to have seen you know most of Jordan’s Pride I
Just feel like the energy when Michael Jordan came to your city was you’re talking about it for weeks Michael Jordan’s coming next week Michael Jordan’s coming next week and you know I grew up in New York so Michael Jordan came a few times a year you know and and
And come into the garden Jordan’s comeing into the garden it was like the biggest deal and I just don’t feel that way um obviously Vince and I went to go check out wy’s game at Scotia Bank against the Raptors which was depressing as hell to watch and
Maybe Victor wanyama can be you know some variation of that for a short period of time but I promise you that so much of what people are so drawn to with him comes down to the novelty right it comes down to the novelty of I haven’t seen this before
But there’s only like as he becomes as he fills out and he becomes more dominant there’s only so much let’s say like cache or novelty to watching a guy who’s taller and bigger than everybody just dunk on them trust me it doesn’t work they tried it with Shaq they tried
It with ya Ming it’s it’s never as interesting as you want it to be the physics of basketball do not allow it to be as interesting as you want it to be now if he starts pulling from the logo and doing crazy [ __ ] like that okay fine
If he becomes more finessed and more perimeter oriented but blocking shots and dunking on dudes at 7 foot5 has never ever you know captivated the imaginations the way that a guard you know so I think that that’s one thing the second thing is you know I think
Defense is an important thing to make things interesting and competitive right and in an age of 150 versus 160 or 146 versus 142 these types of games just lack interest for me so what was interesting was when watching the rising stars challenge I found that I found those games to be super interesting
Because there was a cap like it was the first team to 25 or the first team to 40 and it made 80 interesting whereas in an average NBA game even 2816 is not interesting because there’s always that well the team that has 16 will have probably 135 points in this game what do
The 16 versus 28 mean right now you know clutch Tatum saying I missed those 9289 games cool man yeah question for you are you in Toronto bro why did I always think you were in um Boston and then I saw you grabbed a couple of tickets to money money money and I was
Shocked so let me know if you’re in Toronto that’s that’s that’s cool um so that’s the F the first thing is the lack the face the second thing is I think defense matters to some people who watch the game and who cherish the game and who enjoy the game I think defense actually
Matters and for some fans it’s just not as interesting to watch teams Rock up 160 points as no one um oh that’s hilarious I had no idea oh my that’s hilarious my bad okay I’m Sor I’m sorry that that’s that’s cold okay so the second thing is of course
Defense um so I think that it would youo the NBA to you know I think it would be wise for the NBA to kind of bring it back to something where defense is at least a part of the game right do something that makes games more physical I think the Ticky tackiness of
Everything and the lack of defense and the you know one-way scoring and you all that stuff it’s not good the third thing uh that I think is impacting the NBA is load management you know this constant you don’t know before you know unless it’s like 10 minutes before the game you
Don’t know who’s not playing right that can really impact you know you can only piss people off so many times you can only burn people so so often there are people that go to a game literally once a year maybe twice a year and they save
For that and the economy is not good and the NBA tickets are very expensive in big cities and so you know when Vince and I we went to um go see wemi I joked with him at the end at the opening wemi wasn’t playing and that I just got a
Notification wemi wasn’t playing and I saw him lose his mind because obviously most people who were there they were either French you know and they came to support wemi or they were just you curious and they came to watch wemi you know uh play against the Raptors and hopefully lose to the
Raptors but imagine if wanyama hadn’t played that game like those people are now like I don’t trust this league right and all of this talk about load management it isn’t even like this player had a last minute injury where fans are like well I guess if he’s hurt
He can’t play it’s just this player is not going to play this game because of load management I think it completely devalues the the time that people spend in watching games so I think like in in both the 42 mention things you know where where guys are kind of like
Trotting up and down the court not playing defense and then also like you have stars and and sometimes teams sitting whole teams like what the Brooklyn Nets did against the Milwaukee Bucks like that was disgraceful it really was to sit there and and play your entire roster against Pistons back
To back and then to sit out against Milwaukee that’s why they lost their season they were doing great CL say imagine paying Courtside just yeah man and I think that’s a really big part of maybe fan sentiment around the league because I feel like consumer’s always right right customer is always right and
It’s something that you can’t piss people off you only have so much leeway with your audience and with your customer base you know like if you say we’re going to honor this discount and you don’t honor the discount you know or I don’t know like you you taint people
There’s so many options for people to spend their time this is not like the 90s the NBA is competing with a million things in an increasingly like distracted world and you’re offering a product that is not quite tailor made for the attention span of the audience
That you’re after right 82 games at two and a half hours a game with ads is a massive time investment it’s a massive time investment so especially in an age where people are used to getting their information in four to five minutes two to one to two
Minutes I made a trailer for pendan was three and a half minutes long someone said no one’s watching a three and a half minute trailer I was like that’s probably true hope [ __ ] that’s probably true I think this this community is cool because you guys actually do watch long
Form content I often make long form content but even I have found that some of my six seven minute videos are the ones to get 100,000 views Plus or 60,000 views it’s these 20 30 50 80 minute videos that are the ones that suffer people don’t have time they have they
Have time they don’t want to they don’t want to spend it on on things so I think that the load management stuff is just it’s tough another thing that I think you know is probably a part of this and it might have just been insult to injury there’s this old saying go woke
Go broke right if you start introducing politics too much into something into a sport that you would ultimately you know piss off a very large large part portion of your consumer base and I think you know operate in the film industry I’m a filmmaker I’m a film
Festival director so I understand this a lot of film festivals are very political and a lot of people don’t like it we not Penance I run is not very political at all it’s not political at all but the one year we had like a conference it was
Like our third year we had a conference where someone got a little political and they started like bringing like a lot of identity politics and a lot of you know stuff into it that necessarily we’re like hey man we’re artist Film Festival we’re not uh we’re not this people
Revolted a lot of people said we’re not coming back your Festival is supposed to be apolitical and look at you you’re giving a platform to people who are being increasingly political and I was like noted never wanted to be a political thing I’m not a political Channel this is not a political Channel
You never heard me say vote for this guy or vote for that guy or you know none of that but introducing politics and sports and then you know you consider the NFL and how they’ve responded and I’m not talking about the social good I’m talking about the business good please don’t conflate the
Two I’m not saying you know the NFL basically you know blackballing Colin kernick Kaepernick is like the right thing to do what I’m saying however is the NFL you can call it dog whistle whatever showed their custom customers where they stand on this stuff and the NBA in the bubble especially after the
Passing of George Floyd I think they showed the world where they stood in terms of social rights and humanitarian rights and I think that that could have something to do with how many people tuned out on the bubble why the bubble ratings were so low I think for a lot of
People that was frustrating you’re talking about a country you know you could talk about ad rights whatever Global you know advertising and whatever but you know you still operating in the United States you’re talking about a country that like you may not want to admit this but half of that country
Voted for Donald Trump like and those people they pay Michael Jordan was their hero he was their hero you know why because he said Republicans buy sneakers too and you may not agree with that as a as a human being you might think that Michael Jordan should have used his platform
To create greater social change I would argue he made social change in his own way you know um his context was different I think a lot of what LeBron and you know Dame and a lot of these guys are able to do now is because Michael Jordan did what he
Did back then right um but I think that um they might B saying sad that long firm content isn’t isn’t digestible I prefer it yeah I mean you know I listen to one and a half hour podcasts I watch three hour movies like I’m somebody who has
The attention span to do that and I think that attention span is great I think it’s good to have like a long-term you know because I mean anything worth doing in life it takes a while right so anyways for all of these reasons and perhaps more I think the NBA could be in
Trouble when it comes to Fan sentiment uh fan engagement and ultimately their next TV rights deal now again I’m breaking anything here it seems that most people are projecting the cap to go up you know that everything is going up up up but I wonder if two to three years from
Now if the bubble Pop because again if you look at where cap space has gone like like it’s Insanity right like we’re talking about a league in which players like you got to contextualize this you have players making 5060 million a year right and sitting out games with an audience that
Is barely making minimum wage and is living below the poverty line you got to understand the Optics of this is not looking good to some people jealousy whatever I don’t count other people’s money but this this game feels like yeah I think that’s that’s that’s something I think there’s a lot of games
I think the NBA is trying to honor the fact that you know if you go down from 82 games to like 72 games or something more reasonable given the pace of the game and everything and the appetite of people I mean imagine if there were 40
Games in the NBA it would be a much better product it would be a much better product significantly better actually 40 games would mean you know no backto backs it would mean you know probably like four or five days between games so you have like a lot of time to actually
Value them they’re not coming so fast and furious right every game has more stake right uh they’re better games because you actually have time to Scout and prepare right but you would never go to 40 games because you’re thinking to yourself well if we go to 40 games or 50
Games or 60 games or 72 games or whatever if we go down right how do you measure how great somebody is today all your scoring records would be useless you know what I mean like 40 games means like even a hundred years from now all your scoring leaders would be guys who
Played in the 90s and the 2000s cuz no one else would catch up right so like what would you do would you would you change everything would you make two points four points and four you know 3.6 points to make up for the lack of games
Like what do you do right it’s weird but anyways I think a lot of people Mark Cuban’s selling you know a large portion of his share Michael Jordan’s selling his share um you know the Minnesota timberwol are sold and you could say these teams are being sold because the
Owners who bought them are selling them at such a huge profit it but ultimately you know Mark cubin is a guy who’s gone on record many many times prior to this saying that he did not want to sell and he never wanted to sell and there’s a
Lot of crypto you know scams and stuff that he’s been a part of and maybe he’s in financial trouble and I have no idea I don’t know I don’t know what Mark ke’s going through right now but I do think that if that guy sells something it’s
Usually a really really bad sign for me you know um yeah so it’s really um thanks for uh misspelling autistic on purpose I hope I think uh Scotty Barn’s acoustic thing thanks um maybe we should address it as acoustic listen um Scotty obviously had a tough start you know he also threw the
Ball backwards and if you’re a fan of his it’s difficult to not be worried that like this is the fuel that people use to say that he’s not a number one option that he’s not a good player Etc right but I think he’s just having a good time um obviously
Nobody wants to draw dribble the ball off their foot in the skills challenge to open up a lot of people were clowning that um but yeah I gotta say like first of all saying someone who is not autistic is autistic is the low of lows and people
Just keep saying you know he’s never going to beat the allegations he’s never going to beat the allegations and this is just such a recurring thing and I feel like you know to some extent it’s just such bullying uh behavior and such low quality behavior from people uh to
Suggest that someone who has no known um record of autism or any Spectrum Disorder to to be suggesting every single time he dribbles the ball off his foot or he smiles in a way or runs in a way that you don’t find you know great to say he’s autistic is so weird also
What’s offensive in all of this is that the term autistic is being used in a derogatory sense you’re saying he’s like goofy you know you’re you’re you’re making it synonymous with Goofy or you know and it’s just it’s so it’s disgusting actually it’s very disgusting I think the disgusting part
Of it actually is how disabling it is for somebody who is autistic to have to listen to somebody being bullied for not being something that they actually are um so I think it’s frustrating for sure um social media is ruining the world in my opinion information is great but at what
Cost people are always going to find a way to get information whether they’re going to get it from their family whether they’re going to get it from their neighbor whether they’re going to get it from the newspaper Etc social media has just made it easier for people
To get the information that they want in the content the form that they want it so yeah it’s worth worth noting yeah that’s crazy anyway I wanted to take a moment to just uh say that I’m really proud of Scotty Barnes you know obviously like been following the kid
For a long time and it’s really cool to see him living out a dream um it sucks to some extent also that it’s come with so much negativity from the Toronto media obviously caught Orin weld on Raptor Republic still you know talking [ __ ] about Scotty and saying like he
Should have been suspended or that the Raptors did this or the Raptors are treating him with kid gloves and it’s just it’s frustrating because you know you have it kind of coming from all sides me personally um I’m just happy that he gets a weekend away from most of
The [ __ ] the NBA media at large is not nearly as ridiculous as the Toronto media so I think that that’s probably a good thing that’s good um LeBron is I I’ve never heard that word the game is major factor traveling not called dislodging and not getting an offensive
File to constant bitching at the Reps no Texs yeah yeah again you know the game that people grew up with is very different than the game that exists today and I feel like that that is having a a trickle down effect on how engaged people are to watch it um I want
Your opinion on something what do you guys think of this poster so our poster prints just came in for pend Dan hold on let me let me hold it up if you saw this on a um like on a coffee shop or something would you stop would it catch your eye
I’m always curious like I I do a lot for pendant obviously and I’m realizing something that all of the effort that I’ve put into P basketball over the last year and a half has kind of neglected my my child you know and Penance is my child you know like I love this Festival
So much and we put so much heart into it but our social media is um our ticket sales are going really well tickets just came in today kind of cool right got to clip these up um our ticket sales are going well but our social media posts
Are not doing well at all like I was looking at our engagement on Instagram I was like holy [ __ ] we used to have like 400 500 people looking at our stories now we have like 70 to 90 on a good day and we’re like five days away from the festival sucks
Man uh so yeah this is our program guide kind of cool I designed this last night got printed out this morning it’s cool yeah um couple quick things uh um one if you want to I don’t know who you are like I really don’t you know I don’t
Know if you’re somebody who lives in Toronto goes to parties likes filmmakers I don’t know do you promote it with bball IG what does that mean what is aren’t ticket sales more important than views so yes and no so like from from the from the point of view of like
How big does it look how how much how many people across the world does it reach it is important right when you run a film festival it matters that people show up to the event of course it really does it you know it gives a great feeling to the filmmakers they’re
They’re they’re there for their films and then they see you know hundreds of people in the audience it’s great it’s great for them it’s great for you you know um that’s good but to have the awareness beyond the event like you need like you you need like 50 times more
People than actually that attend your event to find out about your event and then check in on your event after and see how it went and then kind of regret that they missed it like you want people to see pictures of your event and be
Like oh [ __ ] I kind of wish I’d gone to that that that fomo ironically is what drives ticket sales the next year so yeah it’s it’s I’m I’m very thankful that ticket sales are going well um they’re going okay uh but we have a long way to go over the next four
Days the event is for exposure no the event is for films like to you know it’s for stories like you know you you want to create it’s interesting like we’re talking about the decline of the NBA um yeah we we wanted we wanted to create an artist Festival which was not political
Which was not you know it was just about stories like people could from around the world um some of the best films from around the world I don’t know uh stories that had like that resonating power like I don’t know maybe I’m being nostalgic
But I used to turn on a movie in the 90s in the early 2000s and feel like I was watching something that wasn’t a ripoff of every other thing that I had seen I thought like that was really great I like original thoughts that’s just me you know and so
Yeah bro Toronto is small Market Toronto is not a small Market Toronto is AED a big Market it’s just overly saturated there’s like 100 plus film festivals in this city and obviously the really really big one is Tiff um so yeah anyways um so I wanted to invite you
Guys out if uh if we have some people here who want to come out and support the film festival and you know hang out with some pire basketball peeps I know some are some of you are attending it’s at it’s at the Rooftop Bar on February
24th at 10 pm it’s located at College Subway I don’t know again where you guys are um it’s a really cool event there going be a lot of filmmakers there a lot of artists um grab a beer with me um you know hang out shoot the [ __ ] um watch
Some films I don’t know uh if you check out the event before that um one of our alumni did something really cool this morning where he said hey look I’m going to buy 12 tickets for this film go and donate these tickets so um facts they do um so this is the
World’s premiere of this trailer the filmmaker released it to us uh for the specific cause of promoting the film and if you check the link in the description there’s a ticket code for the first 12 people to get a free ticket to this it’s coming next Friday February 23rd at the
Carlton Cinema 7 PM it is an awesome film I’m from New York as though some of you may know this film spoke to me in like a million different ways it’s like New York City is a character in this film it’s so what’s pratfall thank you for asking so here’s the trailer it’s
Fantastic wonderful day in New York yeah beautiful day check it out you know why you’re here in New York alone it’s cuz nobody loves you nobody loves to beond everything is fine Beyond everything’s fine so you didn’t tell me have a girlfriend she’s gone now you know Gone
Gone let’s go find somewh to get some fuel get back on track get back on the right track it’s huge it’s a big place you can get lost in a place like this did you just kiss that thing what is the matter with you come on you’re
Here to have this fun to this enjoyment this thing that like makes your heartbeat it’s not all good things it’s filled with bad things very bad things you know never sleeps it dies right every day there’s motions there’s gears and it can’t stop cuz if it stops it falls
Apart you stop no that’s a bad Idea you look happy you look satisfied look on my face look happy satisfying I don’t know hold on Buddy hold on Buddy hold on Buddy Central Park is so big that if you took every human being alive and ground them all up into a giant meatball it fit just inside C
Fire what yeah yeah it’s a Fact they’re off Cube had a good beginning so to did Red mule red mule to the front amast is there on the outside then it’s Hall St followed by Deft along the rail Bridge To The Future is next to then L Pioneer who six links off the
Lead clear 2 and a half from Power Boss ld’s boy to the inside and Dono is last up the backstretch red Mule the leader 3/4 of a length ahead of death running in second as the field moves for the far turn and then it’s Cuban third 22.97 that first quarter milean is
Fourth on the outside behind that one is Power Boss and then come dicho and lindco they’re coming to the top of the stretch 45 three the half for front running red and theide is going to [ __ ] us chasing red mu hon a long shot makes a
Late no [ __ ] excuse Jose go on o get up oan the hook is that they’re bred to run and they’re bred to lose they were invented to Lose This is the plight of man first you got to sink really low and get in slime and from slime that’s how Man was created um this concept of Toronto being a cleaner New York no it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s
Not um H2 making a film is one of my dreams oh that’s cool well if you’re in Toronto come on down uh there’s uh there’s two workshops that are really really cool that might help you achieve your dream honestly man like making a making a film was actually my big dream and I
Yeah I I guess I can to end off this live tell you like how I even got into this [ __ ] because this was not where my life was going for the longest time um so for the very very longest time I thought that well my pathway was that I wanted to be
A sports writer when I was 18 19 and I was very much on my way and I thought I was pretty good and when my mom passed away it changed the trajectory of my life a lot I had to start thinking back to like how much money the sports
Writers make um just overcome with that right now I have no parents to fall back on right this feeling of having no parents at the age of 21 20 imagine having no parents at 20 it’s it’s it’s tough right so it made me change kind of courses of my life and I
Wanted to get into something that was a little bit more high paying because I just didn’t want to be broke I had been broke like my whole life and I didn’t want to be broke and I wanted to have a family and I didn’t want them to be
Broke and so so it really changed just what I was thinking but it didn’t change where my heart was my heart was ultimately I want to be a writer and at some point when I was 23 24 I started to explore the concept of like getting back
Into writing because I was doing like the hedge fund stuff and I was doing a portfolio management job and a lot of it was money related but I felt like money was kind of sucking my soul dry which is why I really like pratfall because you know again like this concept of like
Feeling like you’re so is being sucked dry you know this feeling is like very poppable to me and very relatable and so yeah so so I ended up like writing like a whole bunch of short scripts and I and I wanted to pitch them out and I
Was like hey like I’ll you know I I’ll give them to somebody to make and I didn’t get any bites on it and then I had a very um terrible experience sorry first it was a very interesting experience with a girl actually and I’m an insomniac like after my mom
Passed away I was an insomniac I mean I would still classify myself as somebody who stays up like way too long as evidenced by the fact that I’m doing a live at 139 right what kind of a normal person does a live at 139 um so this thing that
Happened um when I was 24 it allowed me to sleep and it was such a touching moment that I wanted to write a feature length script about it so I started writing one and I wrote a 96 page well was actually initially 106 page and then I got it
Back to 96 pages and it’s called SS of admission and I was very excited about it and I started pitching it to anyone who would listen and and it actually has like I still stand by that story it’s a good story and nobody wanted to produce it
They wanted to change element of it that I felt were bad and I didn’t want them to change it too much but they felt it wasn’t marketable enough and they wanted to change it to be more marketable and I hated that and I just kept waiting you
Know I kept waiting and then one day uh I was looking after my friend’s dog I don’t know if I ever told a story on this on this channel um I live in a two-bedroom with a salarium to save money I was living in the solarium which
By the way is like 56 Square ft it’s a really tiny space and I was living in there um I had minimized my [ __ ] down to a bare minimum and one night I had this speaker wire like the way that that room is structured it was just like it was
All very um Compact and everything was like very bunched together and there was a lucky bamboo plant that was over my bedside every night and it sat on a Ledge above my bed and it was a heavy vase it was like it looked pretty but it
Was a heavy vase was like at least 20 pounds and there was a speaker wire that went around it because I had surround sound in there too I might be living in a 55 foot thing CU I was renting out the other two rooms but I wanted to live in
Style and have my 5.1 sound so I could watch movies in there and dude I tell you like somehow that’s speaker wire got connected to my foot the dog started playing around with it um when I woke up I pulled it with my foot and it’s behind the plan so I’m
Maybe I’m not doing a great job of explaining it but basically the speaker wire runs from the speaker and enough slack had been put so let me put it this way speakers here right beds here like beds here pillows here speaker there and there so it’s like behind you right the two rear
Speakers there wasn’t a lot of place to put rear speakers so they had to be like literally right right above my bed and that speaker wire ran like around the lucky bamboo back around to the TV so if there was a bit of slack and you pulled it then the way
You would pull it is you would pull the bamboo and that’s exactly what happened I had this gigantic vase fall on my head as I woke up and I thought I was dead legit thought I was dead it was November um 2014 I want to say it was November 2014 super
Cold I never seen so much blood in my life I don’t know if that just got this video demonetized I’m sorry if that was too much information I had never seen so much blood in my life and I was just like I’m going going to die like I’m
Straight up going to die because there’s no way I’m recovering from this like it 20 lbs like it was Insanity man and it so I called the cops like I called 911 and they thought the first time I called that it was a woman screaming into the
Phone so the second time I called after I got disconnected they were like where’s the first person who called so they said the ambulance will be there short L please relax and I was like okay I’m going to die in this apartment I’m not dying in
This apartment so I put a paper towel over my head and a towel around my head and I went dripping all down the hallway into the elevator and lay on the front lawn just lay there I laid there for 40 minutes 35 minutes waiting for the ambulance the cops came before they
Thought it was domestic violence they were like oh where uh can we have your keys we need to check on your girlfriend I was like what girlfriend she’s not there they’re like what are you talking about they thought that a woman had done this to me because the first person who
Called them me was screaming so hysterically they thought it was a woman and I was like yikes yeah it was morning it was am traffic man it was like early early morning traffic so unfortunately the ambulance took a while to get there anyways as I lay there for 40 minutes I
Was just like like yo if you somehow do not die like literally when the paramedics got there and I got into the ambulance my first question was am I going to die and the woman’s just like relax foreheads are big bleeders you’re going to be fine I got 39 stitches
Across my head 39 stitches across my head and my entire ambulance ride over all I kept thinking about was I’m never going to get to make my film I’m never going to get to make my film I’m never going to get to make my film because I stupidly waited
Around and so that’s why I did it literally two days later I I put in my twoe notice quit my job I was like I want to do what I love for the rest of my life I got to do what I love for the rest of my life CU life might
Not be as long as I was thinking it was and [ __ ] man I already thought my life was going to be short because my parents died at the average age of 44 and for me to be like you know for me to be like you know sitting there at like you know
What was that 25 26 and and just to have it all like yeah I did so and then two days later I I found a guy on Kajiji selling a camera a film camera a Sony fs100 and I just I went I bought it $3,000 and few months later wrote a
Short script cast it and made my first film um would you guys be interested in watching my very very very first fil it’s terrible um I don’t even know why why I would ever want to show it but anyways so some people say it’s not terrible but like I
Think it’s pretty terrible I could like rip it into a new one there someone reviewed it once and they said it was the the most nonsensical film in the history of the world I promise you the thought behind it was way better than what it actually was um
But maybe I should just show you the trailer of it yeah I show you the trailer of it which is so much better than the actual film anyways it’s about a guy who all of my all of my all of my um first few films were very
Religious is like they had a lot to do with like the devil and God and stuff like that but anyways um the concept of the film is about a guy who wakes up in his apartment and after a car crash anyways I’ll show you the trailer Um a business account could help boost your Tik Tok content meet Anya so You Hello anyone there I’m trapped 911 what’s the address of the emergency there someone there someone here someone in my Parment I need you to stay on the phone with me okay just wait until we get there you’re not listening you’re listening to Me Yeah so anyway that was that was the film that came of that and yeah so it yeah it is it’s more like psychological horror more than anything else this review ripped it into shreds um yeah and I mean like it was a cool concept I think on
Basically it’s about okay so it’s it’s a are the actors your friends no they are not they are not they were professional actors um yeah so so that was that was the thing like so I had this idea uh I was at a I was
At a toy store or was like a Walmart or something and I was watching this woman like buy toys uh for her kid or shop for toys and she was acting very horribly towards her son and I and I and I thought like from my vantage point she looks totally different than she
Probably looks to herself from her vantage point and it got me thinking about just like how we see ourselves right and so I thought about like a concept of hell right and think about it this way imagine you’re a really terrible person let’s say you beat your
Wife let’s say you’re like a drunk and an alcoholic and an abuser and let’s just say you’re a user and an abuser and just a really selfish person who hurts people all the time now what would be your hell well if you’re imagining hell from the you know cartoonish version of
Hell you’re probably thinking fire Brimstone Devils Etc right but here’s a more haunting version of hell as as I understand it imagine if you are that person that you come home right and while you’re home you have to watch yourself do all the horrible things that you
Do like you have to watch yourself beat your wife or you know do use people abuse people right and then you snap out of it like you think it’s all a dream and now you have to watch yourself watch yourself do it and then you you you have horrible things
Happening to you at the time and then you watch yourself watch yourself watch yourself watch yourself and so every single time you take one step removed from who you actually are right like right now I don’t see me the way you see
Me I see me on a screen I guess so in a weird way I am looking myself the way you are but what if there was someone right here and they were seeing me do this they would have a completely different vantage point of me right so it’s all about like perspective and
Vantage point anyways I share this to say that you know Penance pensar basketball pensari films these are really important things to me because they’re a departure from the life that I felt I would be relegated to they’re a risk of course running a film festival is not easy uh running your own podcast
Is not easy I feel like it would have been a lot easier for me to go down a path of just doing what I was already good at which was numbers and figures and math and using you know the skills that I had um running your own business running
Your own Film Festival running your own Production Studio running your own podcast these things they might sound fun you know but they’re a lot of work um there’s nobody really to hold you accountable if you fail you fail by yourself in a lot of ways so I appreciate the support um
69 yes do you have separate channels for your film stuff yeah pensar films pens basketball pens films it’s completely you know it’s a different Channel I think how many subscribers does pens films have 13,000 yeah 13,000 and it’s very very neglected it’s a very neglected Channel at this point um but yeah um
Sorry I’m trying to think here like what what do I have here that I would nothing really um yeah I don’t know so anyways um you would see hints of it being the same person like when I like look at this I have an OG an anobi mixtape that
I uploaded to this channel before I started pensar basketball which is probably when a lot of people are just like what is what is this filmmaker Raptor you know fool doing that was my OG and anobi mix I’m pretty sure I have like a Scotty Barnes video too oh yeah I
Do great people have three things in common which was like a snip snap and then I also tried to upload this yeah again things used to like it was going a lot better um at one point y’all want to see the trailer for my latest short which is on the festival circuit
Let see it here it’s much better a business account help Bo your Tik Tok content here’s how meet Anya so you [Applause] logo change Too well if it wasn’t demonetized before it will be demonetized now absolutely um so the biggest version of penance we ever had was Penance 2020 that was enormous but we were the last Festival to to go live uh before the pandemic yeah um poster commentary maybe focus on the U versus the
Wii stories that move you too good to be missed fill in the U blank hm that’s a really good point let me write that down hold on we love movies more than you love cake you’re right what a stupid slogan now that I think about
It why did I do that this is sleep deprivation in a nutshell you know like thankfully I didn’t put that on the main poster it’s only on 30 so if we only put it on whatever one of uh one of the festivals that I attended the gasp Barilla Film
Festival they they had a discover movies before they’re famous that should be a really good pitch for Penance too uh in Penance 2019 we had these two Fe two short films uh K and bag head both were adapted into huge features um and a few years later they
Were both like two of the best features of the year one went to S Sundance um and yeah if you were one of those I don’t know 120 people who had come to penance 2019 you would have seen them before everybody else so yeah discover movies before they’re famous
Um that’s a good point yeah um I remember having a conversation with a let’s say a celebrity Idol you know someone that I look up to a lot one of the biggest actors in Hollywood I remember having a conversation with him about how annoying film festivals are
For him and so I when I told him about Penance I told him I want to create the type of event that you can come to and we won’t tell anybody and he said that sounds great it’s kind of hard because he’s 6’4 but that’s what I’ve always wanted to do um
Every year we have like some beess celebrity or whatever who says oh we would love to come to your Festival if you would just Compass some Hotel tickets and some Gallow passes and this and that and I think like a lot of festivals are able to Garner an audience based on who’s
Coming you know Michael B Jordan is coming you know with Tiff it’s like a 100,000 people coming right G Toro is coming and people just want to meet famous people take pictures with famous people and I hate this I really do and so every single time we’ve had an
Opportunity you know like to bring a main actor or a director uh to the event we’ve always made it clear like we’re not that type of event we’re not going to be the type of event that’s going to sell on your celebrity you know I don’t know maybe that’s not
Possible in today’s world maybe it’s not possible to just tell people hey there’s really [ __ ] great films you’re going to love them come check them out maybe it’s easier to say Lady Gaga is coming but that’s a [ __ ] up world and I don’t want to be a part of that world
So um I don’t feel comfortable saying but they’re definitely faces you would recognize and I mean they faces you can put on a poster and say come meet this person you know or take an autograph with this person what does that have to do with film home that’s a celebrity
Festival you know that’s not that doesn’t feel right to me is what I’m saying every small Festival can get like one Bist celebrity every major Festival can get like a 100 A-list celebrities but at the end of the day that should be a part of it it shouldn’t
Be the whole thing and there are festivals in Europe that they’re not about the celebrities and I really admire them for that they’re not about like the special guest you know but people go to them they go to them in hoodies you would be so surprised
Sometimes you’ll go to a go to a festival like Carlo viari uh or like some Hungarian festival or Finnish festival and you’ll see someone like Will Smith and it hasn’t been majorly publicized that he’s there but he just happened to be shooting shooting a film like a few countries over and he just
Hopped over celebrities are people too athletes are people too my grander vision for Penance is that I want this thing to grow grow next year especially we’re going to put a lot of focus into this I want this thing to grow to the point where you know someone like Scotty
Barnes could come and check out movies without us like being like Scotty Barnes is coming to penance come meet him like you just want to or like not just Scotty like anybody you know like it could be anybody but you want to make an event like that
Where even people who are famous just feel comfortable being able to put on a hoodie and just come you know what I mean I think that would be great exactly so again trying to be someone with Integrity in a world um where I feel like we’re trying to
Leverage whatever we can and I’m not for it so anyway long enough about that to close off I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night um the big slows take away is not fair the whole idea is to get them noticed celebrity thing is no different than the NBA watering down content
Rather than growing the original game the focus is every this very video staying true to yourself is your superpower yeah exactly because it’s like I see it as don’t lose the plot you know like it’s really easy and and I I’ve lost the plot before by the way many times so I I
I’m not this like I’m above this I’ve definitely lost the plot like a 100 times you know where I want to make a film that’s true to me but then I’ll be sad that I didn’t get into certain Film Festival it’s like yo you made the film
That was true to you relax you know or maybe I’ll make make a video that I’m really proud of one of the videos that I’m really really proud of because of my voice acting work was my Toronto Raptor’s honest trailer do y’all remember that video I’m just
Curious I love that video it did not do that well you know what I mean oh that’s awesome because of your generosity I’m coming to see money money oh that’s awesome yes you will definitely see me there I will be there the director will be there Jake Remington will be there that’s super
Cool um I hope you enjoy it I really do um yeah so anyways like we’re just trying to make a difference but you do lose the plot from time to time you do you know sometimes you’re you’re invested in making money but then I don’t know it’s it’s a it’s a quote like
I’m very lucky I had some good guidance early in my life Grandparents were Super Wise and awesome one of my uncles who’s passed away rest in pece was also really um great and sometimes these Pearls of Wisdom and guidance come in like really small doses and they come at
The most random times and maybe it’s after you just lost a basketball game or a tennis match or you had a really bad day and they this person just says this one sentence and it just wires into your brain you know um and it was something that my uncle
Said to me he said getting what you want is important getting it how you want it is more important you know so you know making money is great you know you want to make money you want to be successful fine you know getting a house taking care of your family is
Great but have you had to compromise your morals to do it did you have to did you have to lose people to do it did you have to you know Screw over your family and um oh it’s my pleasure it’s my pleasure I’m I’m really happy for the
Filmmakers um you know our past sales are going so well thank you to a lot of you uh in this community who’ve really helped with that like I I saw so many passes go off like last month um I’m Blown Away by the support from this
Community thank you so much if you want to help in any way possible obviously attending is great um you know come check out some amazing films come with a plus one it it helps it helps because film festivals um even Tiff doesn’t sell all their tickets just an
FYI just so you know this Tiff does not sell all its tickets so what Tiff does is it sells passes and it sells sponsorships and so they have like thousands of Community Partners that they gift away these little tickets to so Tiff is not selling like a thousand
You know or like 500 tickets to a random short block on Tuesday night no they’re giving you know a 100 tickets to TD Bank and TD Bank is giving away those 100 tickets to their employees so when you’re a smaller Film Festival you simply lack the resources to reach the
Number of people that you need to which means you have to work a hundred times harder to find these little Community Partners through which you can do certain giveaways for tickets because let’s be honest we’re not screening The Avengers and people are not used to paying $20 to see pratfall they’re just
Not you know and it doesn’t mean that pratfall is not worth $20 $30 $50 it’s worth every penny it’s an awesome film the point is what is a consumer who spends $10 a month for Netflix are they willing to pay $20 for a film they’ve never heard and that you
Have to be realistic about that and just not be pretentious and a douche about it it’s really great that certain people have absolutely supported this Festival um financially it’s great but we are good at this point from that perspective you don’t necessarily need to uh buy a ticket to
Support this Festival the two ways that you can help support penz film festival and me specifically and pensar basketball is as follows number one attend come come to some of these screenings you know um I think the filmmakers would appreciate it it’s not a charity case obviously we are just
Really late because I guess I can share this with you guys I went through something very terrible at the end of January um it was the middle of January to the end of January where I was supposed to be doing a lot of work for
Penance and I just did not have those 14 days and I’m behind I’m massively behind um one of these I can’t I can’t share with you guys I think I hinted at it in a previous live it was bad like it was really bad and it was something that
Shook my world um for like a four five day period right um so that was tough and then also like watching my dog you know basically lose balance and falling apart and thinking that I would have to bury my dog right before Penance was also really
Tough and thankfully he has made a full recovery now after a ton of vet bills but all of these things were very much taxing and so yeah we’re a little bit behind on Penance but because of the generosity of not only this community but other communities artist community and coming
Together we have made our quota on past sales I mean hopefully we’ll get more that’d be great but everything here at this point is just going back to the filmmakers what is most important is two things number one is attending these films come tell people about it bring
Some friends I promise they’re worth it it’s not a waste of time and look there’s comp tickets down below if you can’t afford it it’s free for you so no excuse there on the money side come get some popcorn you know whatever but independent cinema and independent
Theater houses in Toronto got rocked by Co rocked so many of my favorite theaters shut down so this is important if you care about the fact that something other than coplex can exist in this world it’s it’s important to Care number one number two the best way you
Can support it is we all know somebody who loves films in our life I’m a filmmaker so maybe I know more than you but you definely have somebody in your life that loves films tell them about it gift them tickets if you if you can I will make so many tickets available for
This community if you guys can help with this but if you can be an extension arm of the promo word of mouth is literally the best thing I can run thousands of dollars of Facebook ads I promise you people just scroll past them because it’s like who cares Film Festival Film
Festival whatever right we’re not Tiff but we are string up fast and I don’t want to be my dream is that this Festival is sold out that’s my dream I want it to sell out there’s plenty of tickets sold there’s plenty of passes sold we’re going to have a great event I
Want to sell this out because there are a lot of filmmakers who are coming in so if you want to help that’s the best way to help take the trailer um or take you know the website uh or whatever the link it’s pen festival .c and literally you know share it share
The poster share whatever share the social go to penance Film Festival on YouTube and like the trailers our so like our YouTube channel on Penance Film Festival because we upload [ __ ] like once a year is so dead YouTube algorithm hates that channel like the average trailer used to get like thousands of
Views we had a trailer get like 30,000 views once like four years ago but because of the pandemic and how much it hurt film festivals sometimes our trailers get like a 100 views now so yeah she wolf is Right trying to leverage this audience which is very dissimilar from a typical Film Festival
Audience into that audience is weird and maybe not normal and maybe if this was a film review Channel it would make more sense and maybe this is annoying for some people but I will tell you this this Channel and that brand have a thousand times more in common than you
Could ever imagine um number one it’s me like the same sensibilities through which I see basketball is the same sensibilities through which I see film it’s there’s a lot of overlaps in terms of the stories that we program it’s not like it’s the grittiness it’s the
Realness it’s the truth you know so if you enjoy p uh if you enjoy P pens basketball it’s very hard for me to imagine that you would not love pend Dan so that’s my pitch um I’ll see you guys after Scotty’s game tomorrow my biggest regret is that my
Favorite player is making his All-Star debut and I am crazy busy um but obviously I watched the entire Allstar you know weekend um this Saturday night with my girlfriend she offered to pick up the prints so that I would have the two two hours to work while I would have been picking up
Prints and stuff so yeah um I hope Scotty gets 15 minutes tomorrow uh clut Tatum yes sir you can you can you can you can add some people bro like um one of my one of my boys Richard I let him know I was like dude
We’re doing good for tickets we need to fill up some of these seats like arat for whatever reason so the the opening night screening Thursday arat amazing film [ __ ] awesome problem is this film has the same title as a really famous Canadian film about um a very
Very touchy subject it’s not the same film that film is from 2002 and this film is from 2023 and they’re not the same film but when people see that name they’re just like already watched that thing are there tickets at the door yes there are yeah tickets at the
Door maybe the common hooks between your two different audiences are Integrity original content thinking and passion this is interesting yeah that that that actually is it yeah for sure it is it good luck with all the work thank you appreciate it man we went um we lost 50
60 people along the way through all this film talk but we’ve been talking about film for like 40 minutes um and life and all that stuff but yeah uh it’s funny Scotty was made fun of yet no one batter than I when Maxi and bank went in the wrong
Direction can you imagine if Scotty had gone in the wrong direction you know what I mean um have you ever seen like a thousand like birds like a thousand chickens right and then there’s like one that’s a different color right everyone [ __ ] thinks that
It’s such a famous film no it is not a rescreening of rat it’s a completely different film it’s not political it’s not about Armenia it’s not about T it’s not about turkey or Armenia or any War or political conflict it’s not a political film Penance does not program
Political [ __ ] we’re not a political Film Festival we are apolitical and it pisses people off and honestly people always said you’re not going to be able to run an a political film festival in Toronto it’s such a political city that you know this city is all about identity
Politics and I’m just like bro I just want to screen a festival with great films why is this such a radical idea but I’ve found that a lot of sponsors think it’s a really radical idea you know um say maybe one day I’ll find out that
I was wrong but I I got to go with my heart on this one you know sometimes you just got to go with your heart and just say I would rather run this thing into the ground doing it based on what I believe in than compromise what I believe in and yeah
His IG followers went up by 5K tonight good stuff it’s all love Scotty gained a lot of fans tonight here’s the thing so as I was saying earlier Scotty gets picked on because he’s different he’s just really different like he’s a different dude you know and and different is great
Different is a good thing uh I don’t understand why but it’s always been this way Barnes Scotty saying 5K or not that man is well on his way to superstardom yes sir I hope to see it I hope to see it and of course I believe in him and
I’ve always believed in him and I hope that he’ll continue to have a great weekend he deserves it he deserves it regardless of what has gone wrong with this team regardless of the Toronto media making light of him being selected how he was selected he’s an injury replacement I don’t remember this being
Said about Pascal seum who was an injury replacement last year FYI you know it is interesting to observe the double standard um especially coming from certain media members and I’m not going to talk about it anymore because I feel like the more I talk about on this
Platform the more it kind of gives Credence to that platform and they’re certainly not talking about me on their platforms not by name anyway they’ll talk about me like as you know some idiot on Twitter but they they won’t they they’ll address it as the idiots on
Twitter but they won’t say the name which I find to be weird but yeah of course everyone knows that except most Raptor fans Allstar Weekend made me forget about all the games this year for real yeah he’s a he’s a happy funloving family loving kid you know there was a really really funny
Um lowkey surprised me hitting all his threes yeah and I mean like again if Tyrese Maxi airballs a three it’s no big deal if Scotty Barnes had air balled one of his threes like you would literally for years be hearing Jaylen Suggs fans Evan moley fans Kate Cunningham fans
Pascal yakum fans allegedly Raptor fans you know just trolling the kid mercilessly and making clips of him airballing a three you if he’d gone the wrong way I mean literally this guy can’t do anything without people nitpicking it to death and personally I don’t know why this energy exists around him it’s certainly
Not the only other player that I feel this energy exists around ironically is LeBron LeBron is the guy who is like microscop to death like he is one guy where he can carry a team of absolutely like role players to the NBA finals and still be chastised for losing in the finals
But Derk nitzki could do the exact same thing and he would be heralded as being like the greatest shooter of all time do you know what I mean like we do not extend Kevin Durant as well Kevin Durant and LeBron James to me are like two of
Those guys that remind me most of Scotty’s coverage because again LeBron gets bounced in the first round as a Laker the year after winning a championship nobody talks about the injury to ad no one talks about the lack of help nobody talks about anything if LeBron wants a teammate gone we don’t
Talk about it the way that Giannis wanting a teammate gone or Joel embiid wanting a teammate gone I don’t understand why the animosity exists towards LeBron and KD the way it did James Harden is another guy Russell Westbrook might be another guy basically when we’re talking about the greatest players in the game
All of them have intense haters right intense haters and that’s just always been the case and as much as we like to gloss over it now Michael Jordan had some intense haters too uh Kobe had some intense haters right really very very difficult to think of a guy who was at the very
Very peak of the NBA who just didn’t have like a great deal of haters maybe Steph Curry is one guy who just didn’t have a lot of haters right people just liked him a lot who’s another guy Steve Nash maybe I don’t think Steve
Nash had a lot of haters you know he was an MVP two times MVP um putting Steve Nash in Steph Curry in the same conversation is ludicrous to me obviously Steph is like on a different planet uh as a as a as a player yeah so I think it’s just
Yeah it’s it’s smaller Pockets but like you don’t see like a widespread like hate Brigade across fan bases for Steph Curry right it’s mainly for KD Russ you know again kawhai doesn’t have like a ton of haters I mean people talk about load management they might clown load management but generally speaking like
The the league respects the guy right um does Luca have a lot of haters I don’t think so does y have a lot of haters I mean joic has like haters in the media to some extent but I think overall he’s very like Jimmy Butler is very liked you
Know um so yeah I think it’s just I think it’s LeBron and I think it’s because we we have a tendency to judge people by expectations right and the bar is so high for Scotty Barnes right where like you got to consider man the guy became an All-Star
At the age of 22 and we’re still talking [ __ ] right we are not obviously but like people are still like clowning the guy they’re not giving him his flowers right Jaylen Brunson makes the allstar for the first time the same time Scotty’s making the allar For the First Time same time
Tyrese is making the allar For the First Time same time Paulo is making the allar For the First Time same time Maxi is making the allar five times there’s like five first- time allars in the East right or did jayen Brunson make it last year I forget
So no I think this is his first year I mean you just looking at like the talent in the league right and it’s just first time for buson that’s what I thought yeah that might be it I guess it’s just like anytime you are talked about in conversations with great greats like
When someone says that’s the next Magic Johnson that’s the next Michael Jordan you’re always going to have some contingency of some some segment of the fan base that’s just going to be like no you know yo this is awesome bro you’re awesome yes it was it was inspired by Silent
Hill for the room ironically I ended up using my apartment as the setting for that and yeah I mean that that is a good eye man yes Silent Hill for the room is one of the spookiest film uh spookiest games I’ve ever played on um on PS2 I
Remember w i remember playing that game and I turned out the lights and I crawled through that [ __ ] tunnel and I was just like oh this game is legit scary you know so I was uh yes I was very deeply inspired by Silent Hill thanks for that question that’s awesome Yes
Um yeah anyways uh I’m off we’ll do we’ll do a post uh thanks a lot yeah back when games are good yeah man my my girlfriend got me a PS5 and I said I wouldn’t open it until after Penance was done if Penance is successful I
Don’t know what the hell it is in me you know I realize now like I may not have had like the most ideal upbringing because I have this notion of like I need to deserve things and I can’t do things until I deserve them so I can’t
Take a vacation just because I want to take a vacation I have to like deserve it yeah for sure we we’ll do an All-Star postgame tomorrow I I have a lot of work to do right now I’m probably just procastinating at this point talking talking um into a camera
Um but yeah uh it’ll be fun I’m rooting for Scotty I hope he has a great showing the allstar game as these things typically go firsttime Allstars who are not traditionally like super scorers not playing in their home City probably don’t expect like too much from Scotty
I’m hoping like for one big dunk a couple of Threes And maybe like a couple of flashy passes it’d be great um but overall I expect Scotty to get the Kyle Lowry treatment when he goes to All-Star games right so yeah wait till they announce PS3 they
Have 11 exclusives on PS5 Sony has been awful this Gen um I hope he does that’s his signature right now I hope he comes out and like dominates you know like I hope he I hope he takes it seriously like I hope like here’s here’s what I hope for Scotty I hope Scotty Barnes is himself tomorrow I
Hope he’s someone who actually takes it seriously I hope he defends in the first quarter and everyone just like learns to respect him for that because back when the game like my day I want to say my day I feel like an old person saying that in the
90s when you watch an All-Star game it was a relief because typically the games were you know one thing that I didn’t mention in my in the decline of the NBA there is no there aren’t any like real rivalries in the NBA everyone’s so buddy buddy you know Nicks Pacers Nicks Bulls Lakers
Celtics like these kind of like oh those two hate each other that feeling isn’t there anymore and I think it shows in how how how the players play right so I just feel like if a star if a oh this is my unsolicited totally unsolicited advice to the stars of
Tomorrow if any of I mean if if any of the 2,000 people who watch this video at some point are NBA players here’s my here’s my um unsolicited advice um bring it back bring that back bring back the I’ll guard You full court I’ll talk [ __ ] like be Patrick Beverly but
Not the scrub version you know what I mean like be an antagonizer be the guy who’s just like I’m not [ __ ] with those guys I don’t I don’t want to go you know like like Josh Hart coming coming out today saying like I don’t step foot in Indianapolis unless
I’m playing the Indiana Pacers he’s going to get booed the next time he goes to Indiana that’s a good thing that’s a great thing we’re just too Kum by ey as a society you know what I mean like we need a little bit of flavor a little bit
Of spice you know what I mean Also may I just say it’s very weird and ironic that the Indiana Pacers who have spicy pee PE skills as he’s called did not have Pascal yakum in the skills competition I feel like he would have done a better job than bathroom
Okay yes you know what I mean you need like there’s a reason why people are like literally posting Kobe quotes every single day Kobe Bryant right now three four years after he’s passed away granted four years after he’s passed away is more popular than any current NBA player I’m almost convinced
Today why because he had that personality I feel like if Scotty really wants to he can be that guy in the NBA he’s already off to a great start uh he’s already pissed off a lot of fan bases if he wants to relish this villain
Tag of the NBA where 29 fan bases hate him and his own fan base supports him unfortunately right now his own fan base is kind of split on him but if he wants to be that guy I think he is wired with the old school mentality to actually be
That guy he’s a guy who you know like I feel like he needs I don’t know this is like free branding advice I actually know some of the people that that run his um branding and stuff maybe I should hit him up with a message be like hey man
It’s just unfortunate Scotty’s always going to be Scotty’s you’re not going to be able to construct anything around you’re not going to be like hey Scotty go out and be controversial today I think he’s just controversial by nature to some people because he’s just so different but again I would love for
Scotty Barnes to talk some [ __ ] to people tomorrow at the All-Star game I think it would be great for him to bring some of that energy to the allstar game and while he’s doing that I feel like he will get back a lot of the fan base that
Is just sick of the Buddy Buddy NBA culture today um right exactly um notice a lot of gold unies this year Drake’s colors Belle’s laying off people and Larry’s leaving wonder if Drake still wants to invest and that’s part of the incoming changes don’t know maybe I think the gold gold gold
Unis are fire though um I’m not sure he’s stepping down but he has um slowly been selling off certain um bits of aist I don’t know Larry tanon bom has obviously been like a very big supporter of Messi jury Messi jur is a big supporter of Scotty Barnes um so we
Shall see see we shall see what all of this leads to it would suck though it would suck to see Larry hon go he’s gen genuinely one of the better guys in the in the uh organization in terms of what I’ve noticed I’ve never met him but like
Just in terms of what I’ve heard from him he seems like a really great dude so yeah um yeah that’s probably true too rebuild fast Raptors they can’t fire you obviously you know here’s the thing I I made it clear last year that as I was leading my little you know propaganda
Campaign against Fred Van B they can’t do something that’s so deeply unpopular right if they can’t spin it in any way it’s hard to do right so again like always pushing against this notion of you know Fred vanet being like a $40 million player pushing against the
Notion of Pascal seak and being worth the supermax the reason this channel has always pushed against those is not because I hate those two players at all it’s always been with this mindset of if you can get enough people to wake up to the real reality of what these players
Are worth around the NBA then this media space and ultimately even this franchise cannot um pull a wool over our eyes and pull a fast one you know what I mean um H yeah Messi has been oddly absent from a lot of things um lately so I don’t
Know it would be it would suck to lose that level of stability but yeah um I don’t really think he’s an NBA player bro but looking at this draft holy [ __ ] like maybe they’re looking at bronny James in case he doesn’t get drafted I don’t know what’s his draft
Stock like right now I can’t wait like a part of me is like so excited for Penance to come there’s another part of me like a very real part of me um that just wants to sleep for like two days straight after Penance like I’m just I’m
Going to be so tired and I’m just G to be like oh thank God and then slowly start to like rebuild my brain back up because right now it just does not feel like my brain’s working at all like I’m stammering I’m stumbling my thoughts are disjointed I’m forgetting things
I’m literally like watching something and then 3 minutes later I’m just like I don’t know what I watch like my brain is so scrambled right now so again completely lost train of thought bronny James so what I can’t wait to do is go into draft analysis I
Think that’s going to be a really really really big Focus for me obviously if the Raptors keep their six pick that would be very interesting um but yeah like with their two picks in the middle of the first round and end at the beginning of the second round I think they’ll
Hopefully get somebody I don’t think LeBron James is one of those players so that’s just my initial take um but yeah I mean I wonder if LeBron will make good on his promise um we didn’t talk about you know like LeBron allegedly being open to being moved or the Lakers being
Open to moving LeBron that is interesting too that that should play out really well when this video goes live in two minutes let me know where you would want LeBron to play out his final years of his career that’ll be interesting personally I would like him to play them out In San Antonio have a good night guys
Scottie Barnes got off to a very shaky start but finished very strong in his second-go-around with the skills challenge, once again paired with Tyrese Maxey (and Trae Young).
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The 3-point-shootout proved to be the highlight of the night, capped with a special showdown between Steph Curry and Sabrina Ianescu which brought about a random diatribe about women competing against men, and the dunk contest featured Jacob Topin, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Jaylen Brown and Mac Mclung, a real who’s not of NBA dunking talent. Leave it to the judges to steal the show in one of the most bizarre, anti-climactic finishes in contest history with McLung getting the rightfully deserved prize and proceeding to apologize for basically not upping his rousing performance from last year.
But the broader talk around the NBA right now is inescapable. Is the product we once loved stale? And might the pending decline of revenue, ratings and overall interest in the NBA be a reason so many billionaires have sold their stake? It’s worth thinking about. Where is the NBA going right now?
#Raptors #NBA #AllStarWeekend
4 Comments
Rob, i'm one of those "old school purists". I grew up watching the NBA from the 60's to this very day. I remember when teams actually played defense, when you couldn't carry the ball and literally run with it, when travels were called on the stars. I can remember watching guys in the 60's like Willis Reed, Clyde Frazier, Earl "the Pearl" Monroe et al. The great Chicago Bulls backcourt of Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier. I truly believe in my not always so humble opinion that Adam Silver and LeBron James, have done a great disservice to the game. It has become like the WWE. Cheers.
Am I tripping or was Larry Tanenbaum at the skills competition. He’s in the foreground on raptors ig in the pic of scottie shooting a 3 in the obstacle course. Or is that a random dude 😭
No one cares that scottie left the game early except Toronto media and casual raptors fans 🤣🤣🤣
They need to get creative with the dunk contest. Maybe pick dunks and everyone has to do the same dunk etc. at this point there’s really not much left that we haven’t seen already. It’s stale
As far as making the game more watchable, I don’t think all the player movement helps either. There’s so much change it doesn’t feel like you really get to watch cores grow. Players either leave before it turns around, or team up. It ruins it a bit for me knowing that certain teams can go from the basement to contender with a couple free agent decisions, and even with a salary cap there’s still certain markets who have a lopsided advantage.