Share Love Club! DeMar DeRozan is a top all time GROAT no question! DeRozan Code is his way of life!

Share Love Club! DeMar DeRozan is a top all time GROAT no question! DeRozan Code is his way of life!

Good morning, Raptor Freaks. Lexi here. It’s Saturday morning and we’re doing a share the love club. And this morning, Share the Love Club is for one of the Gros, Dear D. Rosen, who had his 36th birthday this week. And I just wanted to throw some more love on Dear as a great Raptors legend, as one of the greatest Raptors of all time, as a career franchise leader for our team. There’s uh you know more than just winning championships. There’s about excellence and longevity and uh dependability. And these are words that go with Demard Rosen’s career. Demard Rosen has had a long successful career. Very, very long. In fact, I want to go look at his basketball reference page right now and just read off some of his uh successful things. He’s a sixtime all-star. He’s a threetime allNBA player. He is the Raptors leader career-wise in uh points for the most points ever scored by a Raptor uh in in the time playing for the Raptors. 52 is his careerhigh ever playing in in the NBA. But yeah, Demard Rosen has accumulated over 25,000 points in the history of his career. That’s amazing. Not a lot of players get the 25,000 points in their whole entire career. That’s a big deal. And it’s put him in the top 25 all-time scores in the NBA’s history, which is pretty amazing. He’s got more points, guys, than people like Larry Bird and Reggie Miller, which is absolutely fantastic and incredible. Seriously, it’s incredible. He is uh actively the sixth highest scorer in the league and o career-wise 28th 28th overall 25th for career in the NBA. So yeah, amazing amazing amazing awards. He’s uh been to uh he’s won uh 15 player of the weeks, four player of the months. He’s been uh uh uh all defensive vote. He got an alldefensive vote in 2013 to 2014. He’s been in a slam dunk competition twice. He’s a McDonald’s All-American. He’s got accolades like crazy, this guy. Cuz you know, if you stick around and you accumulate a lot of stats, well, you become very very very uh very uh successful. Very successful. And the man has almost made $300 million in his career in the NBA. That’s amazing. That is amazing. That is awesome. We love Demar. He’s important part of the Raptors franchise history. And u you know casuals or Johnny come lately who come around on the Raptors when the championship happened. They don’t properly respect Demar because they don’t understand how much he was involved in building us up to getting to that point where we could win in 2019. He was essential for that just like Casey. And uh I don’t want people to forget that. I really don’t want people to forget that. You know, Kyle Lowry is often popularly the greatest raptor of all time, but at times I sometimes flip Dear above Kyle because I think about the sacrifice. I think about the things and the loyalty that Demar Rosen shown. The amazing thing about Deamar is that he absolutely loves Toronto still, even though Toronto did him wrong in some ways. and uh you know he just he’s so understanding of knowing that his place in Toronto’s history is valuable and important and he won’t crap on it and that’s good because if some ways if he was negative about Toronto and stuff like that that would diminish his legacy that would make it tougher but no he’s always been the bigger person even though it destroyed him when he got traded by Messiah to the San Antonio Spurs it destroyed him and he was walking around the streets uh aimlessly in California, not understanding what to do or where to go. Went in the movies and sat in the uh was at the movies when he found out and uh then just walked the streets for the rest of the night after he was just in a whirlwind understanding he wasn’t going to be a raptor anymore, which was something he didn’t want to ever happen. You know, it’s crazy. He’s a real one. Demard Rosen’s a real one. uh this year uh this past year we saw him release a book Above the Noise which uh highlighted his uh his career and his life and uh Above the Noise uh really got delved into issues of mental health and things and and and being proactive about your mental health and trying to do things to be uh okay and uh being removing the stigma about thinking about mental health and you know admitting you may need help at times and Demar’s just awesome for that. I think that that work that he does goes beyond basketball and is humanitarian and is bigger than basketball. It’s something that uh you know he’s giving the world besides his amazing career and and delight in the fans in NBA arenas. He’s given something bigger than sports itself. and he’s been a real leader in that subject in general around sports and I appreciate him for it. Yeah, Dear is just an amazing guy. So, if you guys have love for Demar De Rozan, please let’s share the love for Demar Rosen on his birthday week, turning 36 this week. Of course, we saw the the bromance between him and Kyle on Instagram this week, and it’s just how it is. I know Dear is currently on the Kings, but it could change. In some ways, there were overtures that they were trying to move him or trade him. Who knows? Things could still get shuffled up a little bit before the season starts. So, we’ll have to see what’s gonna end up happening with Demard Rosen by the end uh before the season. All right, let’s see what you guys are saying in the chat. Let’s see right here. Uh Trevor J saying, “Hope this time when you see the signs, you do not ignore them. Hope this time when you see the lack of effort, you do not force it. You pick up and go. Protect your energy, time, and peace. Woo! Words of wisdom from Trevor J. In some ways, it’s like learn from the lessons from before is what he’s saying. It’s like when you see the signs once again, go ahead and learn from the lessons and move on. And wow. Wow. Trevor is just always on point with his words of wisdom. I don’t know how you are so uh clairvoyant is what the word is. Trevor J, thank you for your words of wisdom. You’re awesome. Uh, he’s also saying, uh, LeBron was in New York and the people mocked him. You will never be Kobe or Bryant, Kobe or Michael. And, uh, Michael Jordan is the goat goat. I mean, I’m sure he hears this from time to time, but when he’s out in public and there’s a lot of people and they’re saying stuff like this, I mean, in some ways, I don’t know. You know, LeBron has declared himself as the best player, and in some ways he shouldn’t have done that. If he didn’t do that, it would be easier to like him and say he is. But in some ways, people are going to be like, “Well, you’re saying you are that, you know, Michael never had to do that.” I’ve said this before in the past. Michael Jordan never ever had to tout his greatness or say anything about himself. He was never an egotist like that. He never ever had to prove anything to anybody because he’s he showed it. He showed it on the court and everybody believed it and they saw it. In some ways, he never ever ever had to uh plead his case or make his case for being the goat. He was just the damn goat. It was just that even the people that hated him would say, “Yeah, he’s the goat. It doesn’t matter.” You know, that’s the difference. People that hate LeBron don’t have to say he’s the goat because he’s not. But Michael, people that hated Michael had to say he was the goat because he was that damn good. So yeah, I’m not surprised by this. In some ways, it’s like LeBron James’ career is mired with negative stuff about it along with very great excellence in different places, too. And in some ways, you know, Michael may have had that chapter in Washington, but for the most part, very, very high quality for Michael Jordan otherwise in his career. You know what I’m saying? And the things with LeBron, there’s a cloud of him being the GM and [ __ ] his team up for 10 years in LA, you know, or however long he’s been there. Uh, since, you know, he’s been there for what, six years? Yeah. He’s been like, you know, in some ways he’s always been kind of too pushy with decisions and things with teams. You know, he is on the download behind the scenes. And well, that’s that. Uh James is saying that Carter is his growth. He likes Vince Carter to be the greatest Raptor of all time. You know, I thought about this where I was naming my top five Raptors yesterday and why I put Vince at five. It’s really just because of a dunk contest, you know, and if you really think about it, in some ways, the dunk contest is the transformative uh uh moment that turned on the energy for Vince Carter that made him the most important basketball player in the world at that time, that made him the most popular basketball player in the world at that time. and uh you know he brought notoriety to Toronto and the Raptors and put us on a stage we had never been on before and all that kind of stuff. But you know he never really was that successful on our team as a player. You know he didn’t win a championship. He got to the second round and he didn’t even get past the second round. Demar De Rozan was more successful than him in the playoffs. Dear went to the Eastern Conference Finals. Demar went to the playoffs like five or six times with the Raptors. And well, Vince went to the playoffs with the Raptors twice. And uh I mean there’s all kinds of cases I can make for this. I mean, the dunk contest was important. It had the Air Canada effect and it caused a lot of kids to pick up balls. In some ways, there wouldn’t be no SGA without Vince Carter back in the day. But still, if we’re really susing it out, it depends on the criteria. I used to have the growth uh rankings. I still have it somewhere. Maybe I should pull that sheet up and update it and give you guys the new growth ranking sometime this summer. And uh I’ll look at it and some of the categories had to do with loyalty, longevity, success, championship. Have they talked [ __ ] about our team since? These were all criteria that went in the formula for calculating the greatest Raptors of all time. And in some ways, those categories all mattered. And Vince failed in some of those categories badly up until recently. The loyalty number for him was negative, negative loyalty towards the Raptors. It’s tough. It’s tough. James, every individual fan and person is going to have their own criteria for what they judge on. And to me, you know, yeah, the Air Canada effect is so important to the Raptors history for sure, but I also gotta say like where’s the, you know, I guess he was all stars. I guess he was kind of in the league leaders of scores, uh, when he played for us. You know, there’s stuff like that. There’s some individual accolades that go along with Vince being on the Raptors, but really not team success really. I mean, the little bit of winning their first playoff series ever against the Knicks and uh then an epic series with Allen Iverson where they failed and lost and yeah, I don’t know. It’s tough. Everybody’s got different opinions. Uh James is saying, “Well, liked and respected among his peers at his peak.” Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess that’s true. Put Canada on the map. It doesn’t get better than that. I don’t know. I don’t know if it doesn’t get better than that. I think Kawawaii gave us a championship and in some ways that’s an argument for Kawhi Leonard to be one of the greatest Raptors of all time. But of course longevity and playing for the Raptors one year, can we really make him one of the greatest Raptors of all time if he only came in for one year and a cup of coffee? It’s kind of tough because in some ways Kawhi Leonard in the 2019 championship uh was a very important moment also that put us on the map and gave us respect. But yeah, I mean there’s an importance to Vince Carter, that’s for sure. Jussi saying, “Good morning, y’all. I can confidently say Dear’s mid-range is the most consistent since Kobe.” Yeah, he patterned it on him. I know that Kobe before he retired passed a lot of proprietary knowledge to Demard Rosen because he was a pupil and a a younger player that he he liked and he he respected. You know, he wasn’t gonna give this to anybody. There’s a lot of players he didn’t respect in the NBA. and well he respected Dear so he was willing to tell him some of his secrets and the way he did things. You know there’s a lot of speculation that this league is changing and that the mid-range may come back into uh uh vogue. it may become back as being more of an important facet of NBA scheming and that the metrics against uh the mid-range are going to flip and it may change and players like uh Demar Rosen SGA some of the players that are on our team even Scotty uh may be getting more that I think somebody said this the other day maybe here in the stream uh but yeah I believe this I think the mid-range may be coming back into uh importance at some point in the next five years. I could see it happening. I could see it happening. You know, it’s cyclical. It’s kind of like, you know, the the the game changes. You know, you have a you have a remedy for what the team scheme and you scheme for that and then they have to go to this to get around that and it’s kind of a cyclical thing where it comes back around and then all of a sudden the maybe the mid-range is important at a certain point. That’s right. That’s right. Fiery’s here. Good to see Fiery. I hope Fissy had a fantastic birthday yesterday. I seen on the Discord server that she was at the Montreal Alliance game last night checking out uh the CBL. Fantastic stuff. Uh MJ, good morning, fam, and happy Saturday. Listening to Dear’s story is so touching. A player who really wanted to be here and was genuinely affected by being traded. Yeah, he’s just a loyal guy. He’s just a super loyal guy in some ways. It’s where he’s from. It’s the way of the of the the streets where he’s from. And in some ways, you know, that code that uh loyalty is just part of the D Rozan code. It’s just in the veins. loyalty to his father, loyalty to his mother, loyalty to his children, loyalty to the city of Compton, loyalty to uh USC, loyalty to the Toronto Raptors, loyalty to Papovic and the Spurs, loyalty to the Bill Bulls, loyalty to the Kings right now. You know, he’s just a really loyal guy and he gets the memo and he’s somebody you want in the trenches with you on your side. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. FY saying mental health is important. He is a perfect ambassador. Yeah. He has a a story to tell that he can share and people hopefully can relate and be able to be courageous and ask for help. And that’s that’s beyond basketball right there. That’s beyond basketball. Edmond’s here. Racemo Daily is in the house. Thanks for supporting the channel as a channel member, Edmond. Uh good morning, Lex and crew. Have a great weekend. Hope you do. Also, of course, Edmmond is a very busy guy, often filming uh races and different things with cars and stuff like that. He’s a very, very busy guy, and I’m glad to see him stop in and say hi on the channel this morning. James is saying, “Is Carter the best ingame dunker of all time?” I say this all the time, James, and I believe this is true. You know, I may not say that he’s the greatest Raptor of all time, but I think he’s the greatest dunker of all time in the history of the NBA. You know, Michael would even admit that, guys. If you sat down with Michael Jordan and you asked him who’s the greatest dunker in the history of the NBA, he’d say Vince Carter. He would. Heard him actually say that in an interview before. He said, “No, Vince Carter is just another level of athleticism and uh beauty and uh uh grace in the air.” In some ways, the way Vince used to dunk was very much like he was on figure skates or it it was just really body control and just everything about what he was doing was just so graceful. It’s just the way it looked, you know, that you can talk you can break down the greatest dunkers of all time, which I consider the three greatest dunkers of all time to be Michael Jordan, Vince Carter, and Dr. J. And uh you know, you can break those guys down and uh you know, they’re different styles. And Vince, it was just a little bit really really smooth, like just graceful. That’s the right word. Graceful and controlled. And he make made it look so effortless, but he’s just like he just had springs. I remember seeing Vince at UNCC in live when he played Florida State as a student at Florida State University, and he was insane. He had springs in his legs. He was like one of the craziest jumpers I’d ever seen in my life. It was just like that. So I consider him the greatest dunker of all time. Not even just in game ever. Dunk contest in game whatever you want to call it. James greatest dunker of all time is our Vince Carter. I really do believe that. And Michael would agree with me. He would agree with me. Seriously. FY saying there is a saying, move in silence. MJ’s actions spoke for themselves. He demonstrated it. Yeah, let your actions speak for yourself, not your words. And if you have to tell people, I’m the greatest or I’m the king and you have to self-promote. It’s it comes off cheap in some ways. You don’t do that. You don’t do that because in some ways you’re trying to decree as a king that you’re the king and you’re this and this and this. No. No. The people that are those things don’t need to decree it. They don’t need to decree it. That’s why the idiot who’s in the White House right now, he’s he’s a loser because he declares himself all these different things all the time. And uh that’s just sad and pathetic and he’s off base on almost all of them. Really, really off base. It’s usually the opposite of what he’s saying. Uh let’s see. Um James is saying, “LeBron getting pushed out of Lakers would never happen to Kobe.” That would never happen to Kobe. Yeah. Well, in some ways Kobe Yeah, that’s true. In some ways he’s he would be honored and like uh respected. In some ways this is way you give respect to get respect and in some ways LeBron James has not been respectful of the Lakers in some ways and in some ways that’s part of it. Kobe Bryant respectful legend all the way through and gracefully was allowed to retire as a Laker and do everything the right way with them. And and part of it was because he left at a very high quality. You know, we think about the last game Kobe played, he scored like a a boatload of points. So, it’s it’s a Yeah, it’s an interesting thing. I think that the thing is that they that the whole thing with the Luca trade last year is the reason if they didn’t get Donic, they’d be fine with letting LeBron hang around, but they’re anxious. They want to get past LeBron to start the Luca era. So, they’re trying to push him out. In some ways, that’s disrespectful to LeBron. Not gonna lie, it’s very disrespectful to LeBron that they won’t move on from him just like this because Donuch is there all of a sudden. Well, I don’t see how they can trade a 52 million dollar contract for this year because I don’t know anybody else who makes that money and that that that’s trying to get traded right now. So, yeah, I think they’re stuck with them. It’s going to be extremely toxic and the Lakers are going to be a mess this year and I expect them to fully miss everything as far as the postseason because first of all you got this LeBron half in half out kind of situation which is going to be totally toxic and then you got DeAndre Aton around all of a sudden and there’s other guys that have been showing up for this team this year that I’m not exactly confident that they’re good for chemistry and for the Lakers to be successful. So, it’ll be interesting to see this year how this all goes down. It’ll be very interesting. Trevor J saying, “I like that clip with AJ Lawson saying Canada is coming.” I didn’t see that clip. I don’t know where that was. I didn’t see that clip. I don’t know why I didn’t see that. No saying his uh grow listing is Kyle Pascal, Demar, Kawawaii, and then a tie between Scotty and Vince. So, yeah, he won’t put Fred in there. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. Scotty has got some accolades already and he will move up the list and at some point I want Scotty to be in my top five greatest Raptors of all time. I do. But in some ways the best way to get there is to get a rank Scott. That’s what I’m going say right now. My top four of my top uh well I should say three. Three of my top five all have rings. And that’s what you should in some ways look at is rings because rings is the ultimate success. And if you ring bringing a ring to Toronto, well, you’re going up that greatest Raptors of all time list. That’s right. Uh let’s see. James is saying Carter had the superstar aura. Yeah, he just had the vibes. He just brought the energy. He brought the attention. He brought the world’s attention to our team, to our city, and the Raptors became something more important than what they were for the first five years of their uh existence. This is a monumental time. We’re expansion team and in some ways uh Vince Carter made us change from an expansion team to a playoff team like that and that’s special because you know we could have been an expansion team for like 10 years and like uh trying hard and not getting anywhere but that’s not what happened. We had success within our first five years of the uh franchise and Vince Carter was a big part of it. Big part of it. That’s right. Uh G saying if I’m not mistaken Don Staley was in Toronto and Serena was in Niagara Falls. I feel the Tempo may have some video clips coming out soon. Don Staley came to speak at some events. I don’t think that they were uh uh they were basketball related. Wasn’t she at the tennis event speaking? I think Don Staley came to the the the tennis that just happened here in Canada and was speaking at that event. That’s where she was. Look at N. N has got the new faces out, guys. Nins has helped us with the emoticons because he’s helping with this and he’s put up Brandon and Yakob. So there you go. There’s Yaka Purle. There’s Brandon Ingram. Guys, get your uh Raptor Freak emoticons as members of the channel. You can post them. There you go, Fierce. There’s your Yaka Purle right there. Thank you, Nens, for uh helping me with that and getting those in there. In some ways, he he knows how to do this. I don’t. And I appreciate him coming in to do this. It’s been almost a year since Tom Duke has done it. So, this is good that we got new emoticons and things are changing around again. 36 on the dunk chart for nins uh for helping with the emoticons. Piercy saying at James, yes, I would rank Vince as numero uno in the dunk category. In reference to LeBron, he is being pushed out. The NBA uh YouTube content has recently been 40% on Luca. Yeah, it’s a strong pivot. then it may be league directed. You know, how much do the Lakers actually run their team? Seriously, does NBA and Adam Silver run their team? Because it’s like directing LeBron there in the first place may have been part of running their team and getting the things that happened around while LeBron was there. It was Adam Silver running their team. Maybe too much meddling now that he forced the trade of Luca to the Lakers running their team. Now he’s running LeBron out of the team. And that could very well be right. The marketing of the NBA is a telltale sign of what they want and what they’re trying to promote and who they want to get the shine. And that’s very interesting to notice. Fiercy the pivot from James to Donic as far as the focal point of the Lakers. We found out some of the games for next season and the Lakers will be playing on opening night against the Warriors. And that seems like that happens every [ __ ] year, doesn’t it? Opening night, Warriors and Lakers. It’s like that does seem like that’s happened like every night the last couple years. Adam Silver, maybe you freshen up your plate of the matchups. You think, “Oh, it’s just got to be Lakers versus Warriors.” Lakers versus Warriors. Another thing I noticed, they came out with the Christmas Day games, which, you know, the Raptors aren’t playing on Christmas, and only 10 teams will play on Christmas. That’s a third of the whole league. I noticed that there’s only one Eastern Conference game on Christmas. It’ll be Cleveland versus New York. And then all the rest of the teams playing on Christmas Day are Western Conference teams. Very, very interesting. Including a fantastic matchup between the Spurs and the Thunder for Christmas. I think that’s a fantastic matchup right there. But that’s interesting to me that, you know, there’s no Boston Christmas Day game because they know Boston has Jason out. There’s no Indiana Christmas Day game even though they went to the finals because Tyrese is out. So, the only two Eastern Conference teams are going to be playing on Christmas are Cleveland and New York. And in some ways, that may be good for timing with Christmas Day for families in the NBA because they’re later games for uh West and stuff like that. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. But either way, they came out with some of the schedule. That’s the signs. The full schedule’s going to be coming out in the next couple weeks, guys. We’re going to see it. We’re going to see it. That’s right. James is saying, “Plus Vince Carter was clutch, dude. You can trust with the ball in the hands at the final moments. Oh yeah, you can. I mean, sure, there is a lot of highlights of Vince hitting buzzer beers. There’s a highlights of him being clutch at different times, but boy, when he had to be clutch, the most important time he was not. He was not. And we’ll never know if not tiring himself out by going all the way to North Carolina and coming back on a jet for for Larry Tannon uh will ever change that shot or alter that shot in the history of the of the Raptors. That shot. Yeah, that shot against Philly in game seven that could have won the game for us, but he missed it. Yeah, it’s clutch to a degree. Let’s just put it that way. To a degree. Let’s see. NZ has got the starting five up. Look at that. He’s got Emanuel, RJ, Brandon, Scotty, and Yak. I love it. He put the starting five in there. That’s a beautiful thing. There we go. We got our barbecue. Our barbecue with a Yak and BI, the notorious BI3. That’s right. G saying Demar’s mid-range is money. He’s worked on it for so long in his career. He’s just a certain way that he is. He’s strong. So he people can uh contact him, touch him, maybe hold him, foul him, and he can finish through it. It’s really like part of the work that he did on our team. I used to drive me nuts. I would get mad at Demar 10 years ago when he played for the Raptors and uh he would go at the double team, even the triple team, and he would often try and beat three defenders by himself. And to me, it’s bad basketball because it’s like, well, there’s two or three guys on you. There’s somebody to pass it to. But no, he was dogged and determined. And well, in the beginning, he would fail. He wouldn’t be able to score on two or three guys, but over time he did. And now he’s at the point where he can do it to anybody. And you know, that was the hard way. He went the hard route. He went the route that most people don’t go. Most coaches won’t let you go. And that’s the that’s part of the amazingness about his mid-range is that there were a lot of years there where he was probably taking very poor shot selection because he was forcing shots up against two defenders. It drove me nuts as a basketball fundamentals kind of guy. It absolutely drove me nuts when he did that. And I was critical of Demar for being like that at that time. But in the long scheme of things, when I think about that work he put in going at two or three defenders by himself, uh, well, it made him into the unstoppable player he is today. So, it is it was a method to his madness. Even though it drove me nuts, I’m telling you, if you’re a Raptors fan back then and you understand what I’m talking about, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Demar making his life harder on himself when he didn’t have to. That was like that was part of it right there. There you go. Yeah. Uh FY saying, “Yay, Nins, thank you so much.” There’s the yach. She was hoping for the yach emoticon. There you go. It’s a late birthday present day after. Day after. N is saying, “No problem. We got to get Lex some more members so we can get more emoticon spots.” Yeah, that’s part of it is uh you know, if you gift memberships, you can get uh spots for uh more emoticons. Uh that’s what Tom used to do. Tom used to buy them himself and gift them to other people just because he wanted to open them up. I don’t expect anybody to do that though. But if more members do show up and uh or gifted memberships happen, those spots will open up. But yeah, either way, I’m very happy with what you’ve done here as I appreciate the the work you put in, Nins, and putting uh Yakov and Brandon in like that. That’s awesome. I think we had the other ones in there already, but maybe not. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe we’ll have the entire roster as emotes. Maybe. We’ll have to see. We’ll have to see. Cass is here. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Trucker Cass. That’s my cue to go check on the WNBA league. Of course, we have a fantasy league. And Edmond, well, I got to talk to you, man. Uh Edmond, you are losing to JP right now. And uh yeah, you got one win this year, though, Edmond. I don’t know if you knew that, but your WNBA fantasy team did win a week this week this year. So, it’s pretty good. Cass is beating James. I have got a 90point lead about a 90 point lead over Fery right now. Uh, Kareem is beating Mike, logical Raptors fanatic. And Coolcat is behind uh to two-time champion MK in our fantasy WNBA as it currently stands today on Saturday. Two more days of this week’s matchup and then we’ll see who wins tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. That’s right. The referees for today’s two games. And the WNBA LA Sparks are at Golden State Valky’s Match Forge, Jenna Renault and Paul Tumi. And then Chicago at Indiana, Isaac Barnett, Agabazi, and Jason Alabanza are your refs for today. Today. All right. Yeah. Uh Edmond saying, “Vince was bouncy.” Yeah, he was very bouncy. He had an amazing leaping ability. Uh reflecting back to Vincanity, those were amazing and exciting times for NBA fans around the world. Eric Carter took us from our high of highs and low of lows in that era. Yeah. I mean, it sucks. It’s tough because like we organically discovered and got the most electrifying most popular player in the league on our team and the NBA probably wasn’t planning on that. The NBA probably wasn’t like no no Toronto can’t be this popular all of a sudden because of Vince Carter. In some ways they were probably not totally thrilled that Toronto was getting on the map that wave or maybe partly were. I don’t know. It opened up the market better that’s for sure. So maybe they were actually happy about it because it was lucrative. But uh yeah, in some ways it’s like ah man, mismanagement by Richard Petty and MLSSE and Rob Babcock, a horrible coaching carousel turned off Vince at a certain point and uh then there was a lot of confusion, poor communication with the franchise player in the front office where it got to a bad place. It was just really really horrible management by MLSC with Vince Carter at the time. I blame Richard Petty so much for the debacle with Vince Carter leaving at some point. He even said in the dark side of the Raptors last year, aka Raptors delight [ __ ] uh, that we didn’t know what we were doing. We were we were hockey people and we didn’t know basketball. Yeah, you didn’t know what you were [ __ ] doing. And you have the audacity to say Isaiah Thomas didn’t know business or how to run a basketball team. You dumbass. You didn’t know how to run a basketball team. You [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] Richard Petty. [ __ ] you. And [ __ ] Keith P and Ed Rogers the third, too. Yeah. I mean, it sucked because we had the best most electrifying player, most popular player in the league and then boom, for nothing for uh Alonzo Morning with a kidney problem and his his [ __ ] Yeah, it was [ __ ] man. It made me so mad. It really did. No saying he’s going to 10 more. He’s saying Buchet, Yak, Oji, Fred Vanble, Serge, you’re fickle. Okay, in some ways it’s good because you got a lot of champions on that list, but man, I gotta say something like Damon Styomire. Um, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I could say Chris Bosch somehow someway. I don’t know. You got to have the full round range of all the stuff. Uh, Yak seems super loyal and committed after getting traded once, which I respect. He always loved Toronto in some way. This is the thing, man. These players that love Toronto, they love Toronto and I appreciate them. I appreciate them. That’s right. That’s right. BI can get on that Groat list, too. Okay, we’ll have to see. That’s a lot has to happen for that. And that may mean like multiple years of highlevel play, all star, uh maybe even championship, stuff like that. Bi can move up. Yeah. Yeah, he can move up. Uh Edmond saying, “Lex, I’m aiming to be as good as MJ as a GM for my fantasy league.” You know, you’ve been consistent the whole time we’ve been playing fantasy, Edmond. You have been consistent. I have to give you that. J say, “Lex, did you have a Carter jersey back in the day? Everyone was rocking one.” No, I didn’t. And on purpose? No, I didn’t. I had jerseys, though. I bought jerseys during those playoffs. And I bought four jerseys. In fact, I had four jerseys of that era. And the first one I got was Alvin Williams. The second one I got was JYD. The third one I got was Mugsy Bogues. And the fourth one I got was Keon Clark. I never ever bought a Vince Carter jersey. I didn’t own one. I was in Vince Carter’s uh fan club though. The Club 15. I was in his official fan club. I spent money on that and got the fan club stuff in the mail. being in the club 15, Vince Carter’s club 15. But uh no, I didn’t ever buy his jersey. I often do not buy the most popular player on the team’s jersey. Although right now I have Scotty’s jersey, but that was because somebody gifted it to me. And I don’t mind having Scotty’s jersey. I’m glad to have Scotty’s jersey. But in the past, the most important player on the team like Bosch or Carter, I would avoid their jerseys. Uh because everybody else had them. That’s exactly why, James, because everybody else was rocking them and I didn’t feel like it was that interesting. So, I’d rather rock an Alvin Williams jersey or a JYD jersey because not everybody’s wearing those. You know what I’m saying? Not everybody’s wearing those. All right, let’s keep going. Yesterday, guys, there was uh action at the FIA World Cup, America’s pre-qualifier, and it was Jamaica versus Barbados. And some of us watched the game in Discord on the share screen. Uh, Sergeant Wayne Trainer, thank you for joining me and hanging out with me during the game. And also Isaac Campbell came in and hung out with us for part of the game, too. But it was a a route. Uh, Jamaica winning 101 to 79. Norman looked pretty good. Uh, it was interesting. The best player on the Jamaican team, though, was former Raptors 905 center from two years ago, Romano Gil. Romano Gil looked like Shaq out there. He looked huge compared to everybody on Barbados. and he absolutely was dominating in different ways like Sha would with power and size and length of arms and uh he really kind of busted the game open while Norman took his first break. The game started slow. Both teams were kind of having a hard time getting going. Barbados had some athletes. They were actually not bad in some ways, but both teams didn’t look that good. It looked like a a a bad G-League game for a little while. Norman is it’s weird because Norman only ended up with 12 points. The Jamaican team’s going to need to make adjustments. They need to start feeding the ball through Norman to get the value of having him on the team because they ignored him yesterday in some ways. He really was kind of a secondary player on the fringe and he wasn’t getting a central role for Jamaica’s offense, which I thought was a huge mistake. And I think that they need to look at that tape and maybe even run him at point. Seriously, even though he’s not technically a point guard, you might want to run him at point, you might want to have him have the ball in his hand every single possession down the court because I feel like you’re failing if you don’t. And I know some of it is that Norm just started playing with these Jamaican guys and their talent isn’t as high. In some ways, it’s mirroring the same things that are going on with Yaka playing for Austria right now. But in some ways also, you do so much better Jamaica. in some ways. Norman got really bad shots off because he wasn’t able to get open right and the his teammates weren’t finding him when he was getting open. So, it’s just it’s really frustrating and tough. But, you know, as Wayne was saying while we’re watching it, he has a lot of respect for Norman Powell to show up and represent uh team Jamaica and do what he did yesterday because uh you know, it’s got to take a lot of patience. the talent level and the skill level for his teammates is way lower than the NBA teammates he’s had in his NBA career. And it it can be a little frustrating, I’m sure. A lot of times in the game yesterday, you could see Norman counseling and teaching and telling these guys what they should be doing. And after the end of the game, he was the captain telling them kind of the Rico Hines speech at the end of practice. So, it’s tough in some ways. Jamaica, you have a lot more you could do better with. If you would run the ball through Norman every time down the floor, you’re gonna get better stuff. They did a good job denying the ball to him. Also, Barbados had certain things they were doing correctly and really well, and some of it was making some open shots, being aggressive on defense, and kind of trying to stop them from getting the ball to Norm. But Gil really was the best player for Jamaica. He was really dominant as their center. And it was weird. I was watching the beginning of the game and I saw them come out and I was like, “There’s Norman.” I’m like, “Wait, that big man looks familiar. Where do I know that guy?” And I was like, “Oh yeah, he’s from 905. He was on our 905 team a couple years ago.” Romano Gil. It was really interesting to see him again. He’s gotten better since he was on 905, too. He played really well last night. Uh 905. The big problem with him was he was so slow getting up and down the court and he really didn’t have any kind of outside shooting game. But man, he came through last night. Great win by Jamaica in their first game uh in Mexico in their group A of the qual pre-qualifiers. They’re going to play today also, guys. So, if you guys are around and I’m on Discord, maybe we can do another watch along today. They’re going to play um Costa Rica and then tomorrow they’ll play Mexico. So they’re playing a backto backto back three days in a row. No messing around. Jamaica plays yesterday, played today, and they play Sunday right in a row. Three days in a row uh of basketball. So you if you want to watch Norman with me later, uh I’m I might be watching it at the time when the game’s on. I’m not totally sure. I may not be available at the time. We’ll have to see. We’ll have to see. Uh let’s see what else you guys are saying. Uh, fiercely saying, “People saying Adam Silver pulled diabolical work by having OKC game versus Houston and Durant will watch OKC’s ring ceremony.” That’s cool. I like that. I didn’t know that. That’s what’s happening that they’re going to have an OKC versus Houston game and they’ll give the rings to OKC in front of Kevin. I mean, in some ways, they’re going to just do that anyway. Does it matter that Kevin’s there or not? Maybe because he was OKC before. Maybe because he was a ring chaser and he took off from OKC to ring chase in Golden State. Okay, now I’m starting to get the picture you’re you’re you’re forming for me here. I am starting to get the picture you’re forming for me here. Yeah, it’s a you know, getting back to Norm for a second. You know, Norman going to this to play for Jamaica is a lot of risk. Seriously, you know, a lesser player that isn’t understanding the grind could make a fool of themselves. They could get embarrassed. They could go there and some no-name guy who plays for Barbados could school them and make them look bad. If you’re a clown like Ben Simmons, if you’re a halfass like Zion Williamson, if you’re a showboat like LaMelo Ball, you you could you could actually uh make yourself look real stupid against competition like what’s happening in this FIA stuff that’s going on right now. In some ways, you want to just play solid and not get embarrassed. You know, because Norman, he understands a grind and in some ways he does things right. He does things fundamentally right. So, he’s safeguarded from probably looking like an idiot in this kind of stuff. But there was crazy stuff in this game last night with Jamaica and Barbados where the teams look really bad. like one guy, the guy with the really long dreads on Jamaica. He’s really good active player and runs all over the court, number 23, and he was good at defense and kind of being a disruptor, but horrible, horrible offense. The man uh missed two open layups that were absolutely easy to drop in and he missed them and it was embarrassing. Let’s just put it that way. Let’s just put it that way. That’s James is saying, “I didn’t catch the Jamaica game. How did Norm do?” He was fair. I I thought that he could have done way better. He only got 12 points. He shot some really bad threes, like really bad poor selection where he just elevated and shot it anyway. And he wasn’t even set or like square. He was kind of twisting in the air and like shooting like this. And it’s like like he was chucking. And uh they were long freeze too with defenders on him with a hands in his face. They really covered up on him really close. So he did have a nice dunk. There was a dunk where he looked like he was going to go up with his left, but he switched to his right all of a sudden right before he dunked it. And uh yeah, he did make a three in the corner, but only 12 points for Norm. And uh two other Jamaican players scored more than him. So they’re going to be good. They’re good that they got Norman, but like I said, that coach needs to look at this tape, figure out how they can get more opportunities to feed Norm because he’s wasting away if they don’t. you gonna just treat him like a Grady Dick in the corner and just like we’re gonna feed him the ball in the corner and just shoot threes every once in a while. That’s it. But we’re not going to let him handle the ball very often or stuff like that. I think that’s a mistake. And it could very well be this was a feeling out game, the first game ever for Norman on team Jamaica with his teammates and they just need to get orientated and hopefully the coach will integrate him to be a more focal point on the offense because that’s a lost opportunity is what I’m saying right now. That’s a lost opportunity. All right, let’s keep going in the tabs today. Uh there’s an article that we’re going to talk about tomorrow, but in some ways it’s uh you know very apppropo on ESPN. NBA’s new financial rules threaten dynasties harder choices for top teams. Yeah, that there’s a lot to that. There’s a lot to that and that is true and we’ll talk about this in some ways. In some ways we’ll talk about this soon. Um let’s see. All right, let’s see. Uh Instagram stories real quick. Coach Andrew Jones is back with Ava and they be hooping and yeah, she’s there’s a lot of clips of her going up and down the court. She has a signature layup that she kind of comes around the side and flips it up and into the basket. Yeah, Ava B Hoopin. She’s on team Juju apparently is what it says right here. Juju Watkins, is that what it is? There’s uh Bruno Fernando in the Angola jersey. He’s going to be playing for them in the African qualifiers. So, good luck to Bruno and Angola. There’s uh Jacobe Walter with his MLSC Launchpad press conference. I love that Jacob’s wearing the old school Raptors jacket with the original logo on it. Yeah, basketball’s the easy part. Follow MLSC Launchpad to see how. There you go. And then he’s showing clips from the MLSC Launchpad. Uh I guess that’s what this is. There’s some sort of group kids where kids stole the ball and he threw it up and threw it in. Maybe that’s a kid he knows. He’s wearing 14. That makes sense. Savannah Hamilton’s putting on blast. Uh Canada Hoops three versus three. come watch the nation’s best teams compete live and that is today. So yeah, they’re having a Canadian threeon-ree tournaments right now. So check it out. Uh Savannah is going to be there and she’s all about it. That’s right. The day one is uh today and uh the game started at 10 uh just 15 minutes ago and they’re doing the provinces against each other. It’s like New Brunswick versus Saskatchewan. This is how they started. Alberta is going to play Quebec at 10:25. So they’re tipping off in about nine minutes. Yeah. So, it’s all the provinces against each other. It looks like Ontario, Manitoba, uh, Nova Scotia, uh, Quebec’s, Saskatchewan. Uh, yeah, they’re all there. They’re all there. Pretty cool. Uh, let’s see. There’s Savannah got her hair did summer in the city. She’s got a new hairstyle right now. It looks looks great, Savannah. It looks like she cut it a little bit. And she was out with drinks for friends last night. That’s what’s going on yesterday. Slim Duck has got a interesting pick uh thing. Chris Buchet, we’re still doing his stories for now, even though he’s a Celtic. Here he is uh with The Rock and it’s saying me at the end of my trip wondering if I should go back home or just stay and start a whole new life. That’s interesting because that I could interpret that as being Chris has shown up in Boston. He’s been around Boston people and personnel getting uh or orientated and and he probably finished the stuff where he had to do in Boston and he’s saying do I go back to Toronto and clean up my life or clear out my stuff and get back here or do I just stay here and not care? I think he’s saying you just stay there and start a whole new life or next. I don’t know. It’s weird. Maybe I’m over interpreting that. I don’t know. Uh, here’s a point of view of me laughing at my own jokes with Chris Buchet. It’s Cat Williams. Interesting. There’s a clip of him at the OBO Center working next to Noah. And I love that Chris has been posting a great Montreal band. Chrommo as his music on his Instagram stories. Chromio Fancy Footwork is a classic album. It’s a badass album from that province. Great Canadian artist. Straight goods on Canadian goods. Listen to Chromo. And uh you know Chris has got that plane on there. It’s Montreal and it fits the moves. It’s like if you want to see that fancy footwork, show him that I’m type guy. Yeah, it’s like pretty cool. It fits exactly when he plays Chromio fancy footwork over that. Yeah, he’s got some wrestling clips. May Young was tough as nails showing her getting uh that that that move by Randy Orton done. All kinds of stuff. He’s been posting the Usos a lot. how I wake up every morning knowing God got my back and built me to handle anything in my path. There you go. Chris is feeling pretty good because the uncertainty and everything. He’s got a new horizon, a new place to be. Here’s also Seth Rollins leaving the the arena and he says, “When I’m being the bigger person, but I hear that’s what I thought and he turns around.” Yeah. He comes back. That’s funny. That’s funny. I can see that. Maybe that’s part of you know Chris going to Boston. He’s leaving and then he hears something and he’s like, “Oh, you know.” Anyway, he also yesterday news the Boston Celtics extended the contract or of Joe Missoula the coach and Chris is putting that on blast on his Instagram. He’s got a picture of coach Joe and the news of him signing his new contract. So there you go. Chris is already getting in good with Yeah, there you go. And Chris also has a funny picture at the end saying me drunk as f saying get all right, hit me up to people who don’t have my number. I’ve seen him post that before. All right, we’re gonna do uh where in the world is Sergey Baka first. Sergey Baka has a a fan who has a a Clippers jersey of him and he’s mixing on a mix DJ mixt uh his top five favorite Sergey Baka bangers like his music career and he’s got them listed and he’s uh he’s effortlessly melding the songs together on his DJ boards. Pretty cool. Now, where in the world is Sergea, guys? Well, it looks like he’s on uh he’s on the um gardener. Yeah, he’s he’s in Toronto, guys. That’s where in the world Sergey Ibaka is as of yesterday, 12 hours ago. Serge Baka is landed and he is back in the T dot, baby. Ontario, Canada. He is on the gardener, it looks like. I see the tower. And he has checked in at Toronto. That’s right. This may be a regular segment. Where in the world is Serge Baka? Well, he’s in Toronto, guys. He’s in Toronto right now. Norman Powell and friends are going to be hosting a watch party for one of these Jamaica games at Chubbies Jamaican Kitchen. This is an official event, official by Norman uh August the 15th at 8:00 PM till late in Toronto. It’ll be an intimate celebration of culture, community, and the grind. And they’ll be watching Norman Powell and uh watch watching him play for team Jamaica. So yeah, that’s an official event here in Toronto. Norman Norman’s not doing this in Miami. He’s not doing this in LA. He’s doing this in Toronto, guys, because in some ways, the home base for the fans that love him is here because he’s a champion in this city. So, yeah, Chubbies, a Jamaican restaurant, uh, uh, August the 15th, 800 p.m., Norman Powell and friends. Maybe he’s going to be there himself. I think that might be true. He might be back by then and he’s going to be there himself. I think that’s true. Yeah, there he is with his Jamaica debut on his Instagram stories. Yeah, it could have been something else. It could have been even more, but it’s a nice start. 12 points in his debut in a a Jamaica jersey. Could have could have been something else. I often wondered yesterday, what would this team be like with the Thompson Twins running around at the same time because Norman’s the only one there for the pre-qualifier. It’s the kind of thing where down the road they’ll add more talent to this Jamaican team as they get the higher levels of qualifying that the Thompson Twins will show up and put on the Jamaica jersey also because I heard they’re on the team, right? They’re on the team. At least that’s what I heard, right? Hello, Jack at the M uh the Ontario Basketball Hall of Fame celebrations. Pretty interesting. There’s AJ Lawson. Wait, no, that’s not AJ Lawson. That looks like his dad and his dog and his it’s his it’s squad. His squad. He He’s He’s not talking about Canada basketball right there. No, he’s not. Uh let’s see. Jamal Mclo still got the the hangover from the the Toronto Revelers and Caravana last weekend. He’s showing some of the the the prize-winning outfits and of uh the people are wearing and the dancing and the happiness. So so good. So so so good. Yeah. Jamal’s just a man of the people. He’s out and about with everybody. Of course, they’re doing some big uh thing with the the Scar Bro Shooting Stars last night to benefit the Scar Bro Healthcare Network. That’s awesome. Kelly Linux put Lari Markin in on Blast, his former Jazz teammate. It’s a highlight of Li that he’s got on his Instagram. Scotty Barnes is got a cool clip. There was another soccer clip that came out yesterday. We’ve seen three of the soccer kicks so far. We saw Jacobe kick it wide left. We saw Grady put it in the corner up there in the number one spot up in the corner there in the in the goal. And well, Emanuel Quickley showed his goal off and he did make his goal too. He kicked it down into the right bottom corner past the goalie and then he ran and so did Scott with him and they mimicked what people do in soccer games often after they score a goal. They run and they rip their shirts off and throw them away into the crowd. Yeah. And Scotty and Emanuel did that just for fun. So the chemistry is on a blast. It’s awesome. The vibes are awesome. The aura is awesome with the Raptors. They’re having fun. They’re doing soccer stuff along with the basketball training camp. You know, there’s an idiot that posted something on uh Raptors uh channel on YouTube that uh clickbait trying to make it seem like Scotty’s not happy with the Raptors. Trevor posted it all over the place yesterday in our Discord and our Facebook and it pissed me off because it’s so misleading. It says like something like uh Scotty is uh Hang on, let me find it real quick because I want to I want to read it right. It says basically uh uh the Raptors are turning Scotty Barnes away. Uh this is bad. And it’s it’s totally misleading. Like you think from a art uh a title like that saying the Toronto Raptors are turning Scotty Barnes away. This is bad. And they have a picture of Scotty looking at a phone. He’s mad. An AI picture too. A shitty AI picture. That that should be a prerequisite right there not to follow it or give it any attention is AI and this is from Raptors talk daily some [ __ ] Now you think it’s uh negative uh content but it’s not. You click on it expect you’re going to click on it because you see oh no Scotty’s upset I need to see what it is. It’s totally totally manipulation lying and [ __ ] you content creator that made this video this [ __ ] video Raptors talk daily you [ __ ] You’re [ __ ] gonna cause damage in dumb ways if you put out content like this regularly. Don’t put out [ __ ] that’s saying in the headlines there’s a problem with Scotty and the team because there isn’t. We’ve seen him yesterday in his Instagram stories running around with his shirt off with Emanuel Quickley yelling in the fields. So, you can’t tell me there’s a problem here. Well, he’s not trying to tell me that. You click on it, you watch the thing, and it’s basically going over the tweet that we went over two weeks ago about Scotty saying, “Y’all don’t even watch basketball. We’re gonna prove something to y’all this year here in Toronto and we’re gonna get back in the playoffs. There’s nothing in there that’s bad or negative towards the Raptors. Why would he say this is bad? Why would he say the Raptors are turning Scotty Barnes away? There’s nothing in his content would say that. No, it’s a clip bait headline grab that’s negative to scare Raptors fans into clicking on that. The content creator, [ __ ] you. Shame on you for putting out [ __ ] like that and using that manipulative technique to try and get clicks by putting a picture of Sky saying this is bad and the Raptors are turning Scotty Barnes away. You’re not a Raptors fan. You’re a [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] that’s trying to monetize and make money off disinformation. So [ __ ] you. Raptors talk daily. You [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] is what I’m going to say right now. Because I’m like there’s no place for this kind of misinformation. You gonna post a video about the Raptors, you better advertise it correctly on the outside because then somebody clicks on it and they say, “Oh, this is exactly not what this title said at all. There’s nothing in here that says Scotty’s upset with the Raptors.” There’s nothing in here that says anything that’s bad. It’s just a [ __ ] technique by scam artists to clickbait. And [ __ ] that guy. Raptors talk daily. Once again, I’ll say it again. There you go. Continuing with the the Raptors Instagram stories. Y boy Scotty. It’s an awesome clip and I love seeing the joy of him and Emanuel running with the shirts on. It’s amazing. There’s Emanuel in a Paris, France in the his his Instagram stories. He’s also got the kick and the run with Scott and he’s saying we in Paris, France. He’s got basketball with him and he’s got some shopping bags. That’s right. Young O is putting the cat cat picture up. So, if you love cats, you should go check out Oshai Baji’s cat is up on uh I think it’s his cat. It may not be his cat. It may be somebody else’s. Miss Rita Bean is what the name of the cat is. Uh they’ve got Toronto Tempo’s got uh Victoria and Summer Macintosh on blast. Champions in the north. You like to see that the excellence of the young Canadian women and uh winning in their respective sports. Elijah Martin is want everybody to know that his dog is available for stud. So this man’s advertising this on Instagram stories. He’s got a picture of his dog smiling real big and saying available for stud. That’s a new one. I haven’t had an Instagram story like that before. Yeah, there you go. He’s going to be in South Florida for 10 days. So, there you go. It sounds like their week is over in Spain. They came in, did their fiveday training camp in Spain and well, Elijah sounds like he’s back in South Florida around uh Gainesville and South Florida, the panhandle. So, yeah, he’s back for 10 days. any small or big business interviews, podcasts, etc. trying to work, email Alex Sports Agency. So, Eliza is available to do media to get maybe some endorsements. He’s just putting that on blast right there. Jamal Shed is uh got Who’s that? What is that all about? I don’t know. There’s some guy I don’t know who he is. He’s just showing him uh he’s walking around. He must be a friend of his. I don’t know who that is. A reminder, Raptors 905 is putting on camp 905 August the 18th through the 22nd, 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. if you want your kid to go to Raptors 905 basketball camp this summer. It is coming up in about 9 days. So yeah, get there. It’s going to be in Atobico at uh HRE College Athletic Building. So that’s where it’s going to be. Uh Seakum, let’s see what he’s doing on his Instagrams. He’s uh with the people. Yeah. All right. He’s with the people. All right, everyone in line. There you go. That’s it. That’s it for the Instagram stories. There you go. There it is. Right there. Boom goes the dynamite. Boom goes the dynamite. Hu. Uh James is saying we need Scotty on team Jamaica. No, no, no, no, no. And the reason why is because it’ll screw up him being on team USA. And also, Team Jamaica, I don’t in some ways I don’t want Sky messing with that. Seriously, Norm’s okay. Norm’s later in his career. In some ways, Norman doesn’t have a path to get on Team USA. Uh, so he’s going to get the FIA taste from playing for Jamaica. In some ways, I don’t know. Scotty may not be like the Thompson Twins in some ways. He’s not going to play for Jamaica. I’m going to tell you guys right now, just because he has Jamaican roots and other people are showing up for Jamaica, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Scotty has no aspiration whatsoever to suit up for Jamaica. And it’s not that he he doesn’t care about Jamaica, it’s just that we know he wants to hold out for USA. And in some ways, if you know, some people made the argument, well, if he plays for Jamaica, he has more likely to be on team USA. No, that’s not true. That may make it worse for him to try and make it the team USA because it’s a conflict of interest. So, he he don’t want to throw his hat into the ring with one country when he’s holding out for another one. And that’s it right there. That’s it. Wayne’s here. Morning, Rat Freaks. Okay, James, we saw your comment. There you go. There you go. That’s right. And cool cat saying, “Good morning, Rabbree crew. Will be a hot weekend. Be safe out there.” That’s right. And honestly, there something that uh you know, you may not think about, but you can help the wildlife in your uh yard on really hot days. They actually are laboring out there. I mean, think about it. They got fur coats, a lot of them, and they’re running around. Insects get thirsty. I don’t know if many people know that insects could get thirsty. Birds get thirsty. So, get a bird bath, get a a dish, get something and put it out in your yard. And you might be shocked at just how much stuff jumps in there and starts drinking out of it because they’re thirsty. So, yeah, hydrate yourself. Take care of yourself. Stay cool. Stay inside. Don’t get heatstroke. But, uh, let’s think about the little creatures, too. And maybe put something out in your yard if you can to help them out. And let’s let’s let’s get more connected with life all around us and care about it. be empathetic towards it because that’s the opposite of the the [ __ ] forces out there right now. Let’s get back into uh uh you know uh respecting and caring for life and life forms instead of being so uh like uh half the world part of the world is right now. Part of the world is right now. Blackhawk saying even snakes drink water. That’s right. Even snakes I mean there’s water snakes. The snakes be in the water sometimes. No, all these animals are drinking water. I put one out in my yard, right? And it’s amazing to watch what comes and drinks out of it. Seriously, chipmunks be running up and drinking out of it. Blue jays, uh, cardinals, uh, chickies, uh, I’ve even seen all kinds of squirrels. Uh, yeah, there’s stuff coming to get the water because they’re thirsty. And you’d be surprised, man. You’d be surprised. Big up the Lex. Thank you, James. You know, I’m trying to think about all the creatures of God’s creatures. Little creatures, too. Little creatures, too. You know, bumblebees, pollinators, they need water, too. You know, there’s a special kind of u thing you can make for the insects because they’re dangerous to drown if you make a you got to put little rocks in there and make a shallow part where they can land and kind of drink butterflies and bees and moths and all that kind of stuff because they’re going to need some water, too, because they do get hot. The insects need a drink, too. That’s right. Cool cat saying Demard Rosa matured from a kid to a grown man right here in Toronto. That’s right. And he’ll never forget where he became a man. That’s right. We thank him for his love of Canada. It’s a symbolic relationship. That’s right. That’s right. In some ways, Dear went to a place that was totally alien to him, totally foreign, totally different. And it was important that it was like that because it got him out of his comfort zone and allowed him to kind of see life in a different way. In some ways, Compton can be overwhelming in some ways. There’s so much of a feeling for a lot of people in Compton that never get out. It’s really hard to just get the hell out of the neighborhood. And the fact that he, you know, went to USC after his high school in Compton, uh, he really stayed sheltered around his neighborhood, even in college, which is when a lot of people branch out and go somewhere new when they go to university. But no, Dear stayed home. He lived at home during college even. And it wasn’t until he went to Toronto that he got that feeling that a lot of people get as young people of going away from home for college. Some ways the Raptors were his college because he’s going to another country and because of the the foreignness and the differentness of it, it in some ways it really was a free freedom to him in some ways. It was kind of like I can re imagine myself. I’m an NBA player now and I live in Canada. I’m not in California right now. and a lot of the history and a lot of the things that have scarred me or made me who I am or things that have happened, I can put them behind me for a little while and have a different place environment where this stuff isn’t really right in my face in some way. So, this is a very very fruitful important time in Demard Rosen’s growth becoming a man. Oh yeah, this is this is so essential. Cool cat, you’re you’re exactly right. Fe, I honestly didn’t know about insects needing water. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Bees like to drink water, too. You know, a lot of these birds and insects, some of them get their water from nectar, you know, they may be out pollinating and in the flowers and if there’s a certain amount of liquid nectar, they can get hydration that way. Sure. Sure. I love that you put a whole bunch of insects in there. Fish, you’re getting a dunk. I love your little parade, your managerie of uh insect uh emoticons there. Very, very cool. All right, let’s see. Furiously, maybe I’ll go over them real quick just for fun. Let’s see if Lex interprets the the Modicon parade. All right, first of all, we got a bumblebee. That’s obviously very much a bumblebee. It looks like we got a ladybug, uh, an ant, a cricket, uh, a mosquito. Gross. A fly, a beetle, a cockroach, a spider, and a caterpillar. And I must be good at naming my insects because I went to Cirus Sole OO and they had all these insects uh dancing on the stage for Circus Sole. Yeah, the ladybug was the star of the show. That’s right. Everything that has life drinks water. That’s why Trevor J’s just saying this. It’s just like everything that has life drinks water. I don’t know if that’s totally true. That may not be exactly totally true, but it seems like it should be mostly true. Does everything in this world breathe air? No, not necessarily. Does everything need water? Maybe. Maybe. I’m not totally sure. All right, let’s see. Uh, Raptors Reddit. What are they talking about? Spicy P has gone to Granada and he buys everyone KFC. So, that’s what’s going on. Spicy P went to uh Granada and he’s buying people Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don’t totally understand that. Uh, Raptors Red is putting Patrick Macau on blast. He really was the goat because he had the highest winning percentage in the playoffs when playing 20 plus games, winning 87.5% of the time. Yeah, that wasn’t him, though. He wasn’t winning that. He just happened to be there along for the ride. That’s what it was right there. Yeah. Oh, man. All right. Uh, in some ways, it’s like I don’t really see anything else that’s much new on there. Let’s go ahead and keep moving through the tabs and we’ll see what else we can see. What’s going on? Um, let’s see. Straight goods on Canadian goods, guys. You know, it may be true that most of the shoe apparel companies are foreign from Canada, but there is a shoe company here in Canada that you can support if you want to buy Canadian shoes. 100% Canadian goods, Canadian shoes. Yeah, Actton. Actton is the name brand. If you see the word Actton, that is a Canadian-owned and manufactured footwear company based out of Quebec. They use locally sourced materials whenever possible. So if you’re looking for shoes that are Canadian, you don’t want to get Nike, you don’t want to get Converse, you don’t want to get all the big brands, you just want something simple and practical and you want to support the Canadian economy. Actton AC is a shoe company that’s 100% Canadian and you be supporting Canadian uh uh company and economy and job market. There you go. Apparently, I’m hearing that the tariffs are going horribly for the United States. The aluminum industry is getting hit hard. And supposedly, the aluminum industry was one of the industries who’s going to benefit from the tariffs that Trump built. And apparently, I’m hearing that Canada is weathering the tariffs pretty damn good is what I’m hearing. Economic news that is real and unfiltered from fascist uh uh denial. That is not true. You’re fired. The economy is tanking. You’re fired. Oh, that’s not what I wanted to hear. You’re fired. You know, they’re erasing large portions of the EPA’s uh data on climate change and they’re trying to change the narrative and say, “Oh, this isn’t real.” And all this stuff. You know what, [ __ ] You can cover your ears up, but the noise is still being made. You can do that, Donald Trump. You can act like climate change isn’t real and deny it, but it’s not going to change it from happening, you dumb asses. So, you go ahead and cover up your ears and act like, “Oh, no, there’s no climate change. There’s no climate change. That’s why we’re going to roll back everything and we’re going to let big businesses pollute the hell out of our planet and just accelerate the issues that we’re going through, the multitudes of billionaire billion uh billion dollar disasters that we’re getting. Yeah, you go ahead idiot. You’re one of the biggest failures ever in the history of the world and it’s getting worse and worse and it’s going to be interesting to see just how much this car crash called MAGA America is going to wreck into the wall finally at the end because it’s coming. It’s coming. more and more people understand just how full of [ __ ] he is, including his own people. And uh in some ways, the whole populace of the United States needs to rise up against MAGA ICE and their [ __ ] as soon as possible. And they will at some point, trust me, push comes to shove at a certain point. They’ll [ __ ] up the status quo and they’ll go too far. People will hurt too much. And there will be uh a movement of the people. There will be a movement of the people. I could see that. I could see that. That’s right. Trevor’s saying, “Yes, Lex. Everything God created on this planet has to have water to survive. I’m trying to think there’s something out there. I’m trying to think that there’s something out there. Some ways I’m like, you know what? Let’s Google this [ __ ] Maybe I don’t want to ask AI. [ __ ] AI. [ __ ] AI. We’re not going to ask AI, but I’m going to get on here. It may ask AI for me just because it’s the way it works these days. It’s like, all right, let me see. Does every living thing need water? All right, there we go. Let’s see. Wow, it’s saying that Trevor’s right. Yes, all known living creatures on Earth require water to survive. Water is essential for various biological processes in all life forms from the smallest microbes to the largest whales. That’s very interesting. So, Trevor’s exactly right. It here’s why. It’s solvent. It means it can dissolve many substances, its chemical reactions, its temperature regulation, structural support, and adaptations. organisms may need water to adapt in certain ways. Okay, so he’s exactly right. I’m gonna give Trevor a dump. And I don’t know why I thought out there there may be some animal that’s just special like a platypus does what it does. There’s some sort of weird animal out there that’s like we don’t need water. You know, there are all right. There are animals that do not drink water to get their hydration. They sometimes just get their hydration from the food they eat, but they it is technically they need the liquid in the food to do it. But I know there’s uh animals out there that do not technically drink water, but they get the liquid and hydration from what they need from what they eat. If that makes sense. I have heard that. I do watch nature documentaries, but Trevor’s right. 129. All living things need water because God created them that way. That’s what he said. It’s been confirmed uh by checking it. That’s right. Kareem Thomas is here. It’s funny how a lot of people are now redirecting their stance on the Raptors. They were all complaining about the cap Barrett’s fit and Scotty not being him. Now they slowly coming around. You know, in some ways the noise of the summer is just uh noise filling the silence. In some ways it’s just bored people not watching basketball, making up [ __ ] because they’re bored. You know, a lot of this stuff has been horse crap this whole entire summit. The things you’re listing right there, it’s just absolute horse crap. It’s people need to go and get out there and touch grass. Enjoy your summer. Get on lake. Go start a new hobby. Maybe get a garden. I don’t know. There’s all kinds of things you do better with your life than starting rumors and [ __ ] and disruptions and all kinds of [ __ ] on social media about raptor subjects. And that’s the thing, man. They coming around. The Raptor Nation has finally come around. Enough people watching people like me on the Raptor streak channel and saying, “Oh, wait. Maybe they’re right. Brandon Ingram is a really good player. Maybe they’re right. Their core is so young. I seen that most of them are under 25, you know.” Yeah. They start piecing together. Okay. Brian Winders. Raptors may be good. I don’t know. Probably. Let’s see. Dan Rosario saying, uh, Powell and Jamaica beat Barbados 101 to 79. Yeah, it was a it was a route. It was close in the first half, but uh, Jamaica was kind of winning the whole game and then they they kind of just got some distance from them in the second half. They really did. Norman Pal 12 points, two rebounds, two assists, and former Raptors, 905 center Romano Romaro Gil had 19 points and 11 rebounds. Yeah, he was he was dominant. He was very, very dominant. And, uh, it was funny. We’re talking to Wayne in the chat uh during the game on Discord and Wayne’s saying half these teams in these America Cup pre-qualifiers don’t have a player over 6’7. And me and Isaac were like, “Okay.” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah.” He said, “No, we don’t have these these heights.” I’m like, “Oh, come on, man. There’s got to be some guy on the Mexican team that’s 6 foot nine.” And there were their two centers are six foot nine. But yeah, he and then we watched a little bit of um uh Chile versus uh what was the Ecuador and uh they had very short teams. It looked like their tallest player may have been around 67 6’8 or something like that. But Romant Maro Gill, he’s going to look like a giant against some of these teams because he looks like the biggest player in this uh FIA America Cup pre-qualifier. It’s crazy. The quality of play was bad because look, I’m watching Yakob with Austria. I’m watching Norman with Jamaica. These are teams that have not been in a preeminent kind of spot in the FIA world of rankings. Teams on the outside of looking up at the teams that are established and have done more things. Austria ain’t done jack [ __ ] in FIA to be up there. Jamaica has not been up there in the basketball rankings overall. In fact, it’s teams like USA, Canada, Mexico, uh, Dominican, Puerto Rico. They’re getting the spots from the America Cup and going to the Olympics and stuff like that. So, you know, in some ways it’s interesting because if we’re going to have more players playing for the island nations like uh Andre Aton for Bahamas, uh, Cat for Dominican, Norman Pal for Jamaica, someone’s going to have to give because there’s only a certain amount of spots that come from the Americas that go to the Olympics. And we know USA and Canada are pencled in for two of those spots. So it could be very very competitive in the next tier of America’s teams where Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, these teams may be in trouble. Argentina, Brazil, there are teams that normally historically have done very well and gotten through there. If Cat is going to be playing for Dominican, if the Jamaican teams going to be more stacked, they may be coming to take some of those spots from established basketball countries like Argentina and Brazil and Puerto Rico. So, it’s very interesting. We’re gonna have to see how the America’s group ships. We know Canada’s in there. We know United States is in there, but who the [ __ ] is gonna be in there for the Americas going forward in the future? Is Jamaica coming up to get a spot from the Dominican or from Puerto Rico or from Brazil or from Argentina? [Music] Good comp competition right there. Good competition. That’s right. Yeah, they play tonight Costa Rica at 700 p.m. If y’all are available and around, I’ll probably be on Discord watching it live. And I you know what? I do a live playbyplay. We live react during the game. If that’s fun to you, join the channel as a member. you get access to the Discord server and you can come in and watch uh Jamaica and Norman Pal play tonight live with with me. I should be in there. I should be in there most likely. We’ll see. We’ll see. Mike is here. Logical Raptors fanatic. Hello. Good morning to you, sir. I dropped the clip in the Discord of me defending Demar to a King’s radio guy. Laugh out loud. Okay. Okay. Let me see. Let me go look at that real quick. Where’d you put that? You just put that in there today. Let’s see. Let’s see where he did it. Okay. Okay. This is Mike went on the Allen Styles show, Sack Town Sports, and uh there he’s talking about Demar Rosen with them, defending him. Awesome. Awesome. Mike, I’ll have to watch that afterwards. I’ll have to watch that afterwards because in some ways the audio won’t go through the computer and I want to take a a sec to I’ll watch it for sure. I’m gonna watch it. Uh people really don’t know that Dear was a big part of the culture we built, I guess. I mean, Sacramento people don’t know that. Other people don’t know that. I mean, in some ways, well, I mean, if you’re a good fan of your team, like I am of my team, you do the research, you find out all about David Rody, you find out all about Sandro Mamu when they come to your team. So, Sacramento fan, Demar Rosen is a pretty preeminent kind of important NBA player in his era. The fact that you have an oversight on understanding who he is and his career, well, that just makes your credibility look shitty is what it seems like to me, Mike. That makes it makes it seem like uh Buddy from Sack Town Sports may need to uh do more research. This is the bad influence of lazy ass ESPN writer uh writers and uh uh personalities not doing their job and doing the research. Then people like me don’t do their research and they think that they know what they’re talking about when they haven’t done their their research. They haven’t done their homework. And that’s important. That is important. Your homework is important so you can actually know what you’re [ __ ] talking about. You know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying? Happy birthday to Jimmy King, original Raptor. He was the second pick in the second round of the Raptors after Damon Statmire. Damon Statmire first pick in the draft uh for the Raptors. And uh Jimmy King came in the second round of the Fab Fab Five out of Michigan with Chris Weber, Jawan Howard, and Jaylen Rose. Jimmy Kane was one of those guys. And it is Jimmy King’s 52nd birthday today. So, happy 52nd birthday, Jimmy King, original raptor. That’s right. It’s his birthday. All right, let me see what else we got. Um, you know what? We’ll make it a quick one today. I don’t need to go a super long shift today. If we’re done by an hour and a half, that’s perfectly fine with me. Uh, Kareem St. Lex, I admire your stance on politics. I agree 100% on all your views. You’re good and uh uh able to articulate your point. One day we should just talk politics and get it out of our system. I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of my system because the it’s ongoing and there’s new uh events and new things happening and in some ways uh it’s part of why we got this place is like we haven’t been vigilant about our freedom and democracy in certain ways. We haven’t been vigilant about safeguarding democracy from kleptocrats and billionaires and the 1% buying uh uh our governments and uh basically running them as they want to and not listening to the people because uh you know environmental regulations what the people actually want don’t [ __ ] matter. Thurma spa is not what the people want. But it doesn’t matter. The corporation of the wants the spa. So Doug Ford kisses their ass and I’m sure he gets a favor for it and doing what he’s doing. he gets some sort of payoff in favor for something because it’s all one hand washes the other. It’s all corrupt. They call it a swamp, but the worst swamp ever is in the White House at this point. They are absolutely criminals. Crypto cry uh kleptocrapsy. That’s the word. Yesterday Wayne said at the end this the stream, they’re not fascists. They’re criminals. No, that’s the same. They can be the same thing. It can be a fascist clipy. You know what a fascism is? Fascists are they’re dictators. That fascism is the government of a dictator and that is somebody who makes all the rules and is above all everybody and makes all the power and the people have no say. That is fascism. That is the the definition of it. And this is what the United States is doing right now is fascism. There’s always been underlying fascist elements in politics, but it’s really coming out of the woodworks uh and in the light of day at this point. But that’s fascism. A klepto crapsy. Cra is a well klepto. What’s a klepto? A klepto is somebody you come to your house, you watch them while they walk around your house like they’re gonna pocket something. A klepto is somebody who may go into a grocery store and take a bunch of groceries and stuff them down their their pants. That’s what kleptocrapsy is. Well, what do you think it is? The fox is in the head house. Donald Trump is a criminal and he’s stealing money from the taxpayers and all kinds of convoluted crazy ass schemes and they’re right in front of us. And uh well that’s what it is. We’re living in a kleptocratic which is criminal uh fascism is what they’re living in down in the United States. And the crazy thing is people can understand exactly what Trump’s doing because he tells on himself all the time. I’ve said this before on this channel a couple years now. Donald Trump blames everybody else in deflection for his own crimes. The whole last four years. What do you call sleepy Joe and his crime the Biden crime family? No. No. No. one finger pointed at Joe Biden saying he’s sleepy Joe and the Biden crime family, those other fingers will point back at you. There’s a Trump crime family that Eric and Don Jr. and Trump himself are criminals. So, and it’s often whatever Trump is accusing other people of doing, you want to be a dictator. You want to run everybody’s lives, Joe Biden, by making a vaccine mandate. He’s telling on himself he wants to be the dictator. Whenever he accuses anybody else of something else, he is bl b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b bas basically deflecting in some ways. His offense to defend himself is to go on the of offense and blame everybody for his own crimes. Like, oh no, Bill Clinton went to Epstein’s island. He was the one who went. He was the one who went. Every single time he blames somebody else for something tell is a tell. He’s telling on himself that he’s doing that [ __ ] It is exactly it’s never fails. Every single thing he could accuse Joe Biden and other people of doing, he was doing him damn self. It’s a deflection and it’s an offense. It’s a defense for him that hides him. He’s like he can confuse it. They say, “No, Bill Clinton was at Epstein’s island, not me. It was Bill Clinton.” Every time he blames somebody else, it’s he’s telling on himself that he’s doing that [ __ ] that he’s blaming other people for. I’m telling you, if you watch him and think about it that way and everything he says, it’s clear as day exactly how much of a [ __ ] criminal he is and you’ll find out. You can see it. You can look right through it right there. Uh Mike saying Scott Perry was just hired and has been talking about building a culture of pro-accountability. Who is Scott Perry? Who? Where in Sacramento? Is that you still talking about SC Sacramento? Uh Wayne saying Discord is cool. We yap without it sounding toxic compared to writing when it can go sideways easy. No nuance in writing unless you you’re gifted literally. Yeah. I I can’t read y’all’s comments in some ways if they’re sarcastic or jokey or half like not serious. I have to read them for what they are sometimes. Sometimes I can tell you’re joking, but in some ways nuance is lost in text. And when you can hear the person’s inflection when they’re talking to you like Wayne and I were last night, it’s a lot more easier to sus it all out and understand it. I like that. Wayne, I once again I had a blast watching the Jamaica game with you last night. A lot of fun and well, maybe we’ll do it again today. 7 o’clock Costa Rica, let’s go. Let’s go. Yeah, Wayne’s exactly right on this one. Wayne’s exactly right on this one. It’s tough. Sometimes I have people come in here and they’re new and I don’t know who they are. I show Speed comes in here, he starts talking about LeBron, this Raptors, this Raptors need to get LeBron and I’m like, I don’t know if this guy’s being serious. Is he joking? Is he being sarcastic? Is he just being a a troll? I don’t know. In some ways, my way of dealing with this on this channel is just to take everybody at face value. If you present yourself as Vince McMahon or Darko Rayakovich, well, I’m just going to have to talk to you like you are because I don’t know otherwise anyways. That’s right. That’s right. Uh Mike saying he’s the Kings GM. Yeah, everyone wants a culture now like we built and have now. You know, some of it was Darko with the Grizzlies. It’s interesting because you can see the night and day of the Grizzlies without Darko in the the culture. Dylan Brooks, different people about the Grizzlies culture was off the charts a couple years ago, wasn’t it? The Grizzlies had the endy of the league for aura and culture and Darko was a huge part of facilitating that and fostering it and nurturing it. Well, he came to Toronto and became the head coach of the Raptors two years ago and that all went to us after that. Dylan Brooks left, too. And what are the Grizzlies now? a collection of guys. I don’t even know who the [ __ ] is on their team. And do they even have any uh a collective identity at this point? No. They’re just like a collection of individuals and it’s not anything like the Grizzlies were a couple years ago. That aura matters. That aura matters. That’s one of the things that I’ll probably talk about tomorrow on the Sunday special report. How the league is evolving and changing. And you’re right, Mike. In some ways there’s copycat stuff, but this isn’t copycat necessarily from us. It’s just in general the history of the NBA, the teams that get along the best and have like good chemistry and really do kind of vibe off each other. It shows on the court. It shows on the court. And that’s why having you guys all for one and one for all like the Raptors are is a huge huge advantage because there’s a lot of teams out there that they’re teammates. Sure, they get along on face level. They’re professionals, but there’s still underlying [ __ ] that isn’t dealt with, maybe not talked about. I know Darko has a philosophy of if there’s an issue, we’re talking about it. We’re getting out. And he’s like about confrontation. It’s not about like stewing and simmering and leaving things to status quo and just not going and uh being avoidant. Uh you know, not not wanting to talk about conflict. No, Darko’s all about going right into it and getting it out of the way and and not letting anything fester. I’m going tell you right now, the Knicks are going to be a huge problem this year with their chemistry. They’re going to have huge problems this year. I’m tell you right now, you’re hearing le saying this right now. It’s going to happen. I already see the signs that that team’s fractured and this new coach situation is not going to help the situation either. So, you’re gonna see the Knicks have extreme dysfunction and maybe even the opposite of like the good chemistry that we’re describing right now. They may have the very opposite of it right now. That’s right. OKC Indie habit. That’s right. That’s exactly true. And that’s part of what I’m going to talk about tomorrow. That’s right. Isaac said, “I’m gonna go to work on my Demar Midi.” Never too old. That’s right. Uh Isaac was on the court yesterday putting up shots, putting in that time. He loves shooting hoops. It clears his mind. this great physical activity and uh yeah, it’s just a fantastic thing to do. I salute Isaac Campbell for continuing to get out on the court and put shots up at our age. Mike’s saying, “Damar was a huge part of us changing the image here and it was from the culture built.” Yeah, these guys were all in conjunction with each other. Kyle, do Dwayane, Messiah, and Demar. These are four of the most important people in making we the North become a thing and us be uh respected and a real serious franchise in the NBA that you know is not a joke. You know we we we could have been a joke right up until Demar showed up. I mean Chris left and went to South Beach with LeBron Chris Bosch and uh then Dear said, “Don’t worry, Toronto. I got us.” And he had no reason to say that. He had no indication that he was going to grow as a player to be like that. He probably wanted it and but there was no guarantee. He had not averaged double digits in the league yet. He just said, “Don’t worry, Toronto. I got us.” That was a lofty promise, but he came through with it. And he really did have us. And he really did establish the Toronto Raptor as a respected name and team in the NBA. I give all the credit in the world to those four men during that time. A lot and the other guys around too. Terrence Ross, Patrick Patterson, Jonas Vunis, Greas Vasquez, uh Chuck Hayes, uh Emir Johnson, uh yeah, the name the list of guys around there. Corey Joseph, Deari Carroll. There’s so many guys that came around that team and were a part of those years that was building the respect and that was uh perennial playoff appearances every year. Excellent regular season records and uh just a demand that like yeah, no, you guys can poo poo us. You can say that we’re this and this. We’re the Canadian team. We’re expansion team. We’re a joke. No, we’re not. We’re gonna force you guys to respect us. and Kyle Lowry and and and uh Demar Rosen, big huge engine for that. Big huge engine for that. Big huge engine. James St. Lex, do you still play ball, shoot around? I can. I’m in good shape. I can get out there and uh still play. Uh but I don’t very often. I don’t very often. I don’t have access to a court easily some ways uh right now, especially where I’m at now. But uh you know it’s weird because there is a court at the camp near me and uh I can go play there when the camp is not open but it’s summertime and the best time to go play is in the summer, right? But I can’t go on uh there when the camp is in session. So and it’s weird because basically I can go to that basketball court that’s not far from me uh only when the NBA season’s in effect. If the NBA season is not going on, I can’t go there because the camp is there and they’re using it and it’s all the kids and you’re not allowed on the camp property when the kids are in session. So, when the NBA season starts in September or October, I can actually go back out there and play. But, of course, it’s going to be winter and the snow’s going to cover the court and stuff like that. So, it is what it is. It is what it is. Wayne’s saying, “The way uh that I saw Carrie himself uh Norman carry himself yesterday. I’m rooting for him in Miami. Our two ex’s are that are in the same conference. I just love that they’re humble and their behavior amongst ordinary people. You talk about him and Pascal. I mean, there’s a lot of different guys from the championship team that are still around the league and on other teams. I mean, we could talk about Lowry also. He’s in the East. Uh, but yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about. Yeah, Norman’s awesome. Like Wayne kept saying that when we’re watching it. He’s like, “I have so much respect for Norman for showing up and being there for this.” And I was, you know, he’s right because this pre-qualifier Jamaica uh could have not had him there and they might have still won and that he didn’t need to necessarily be there. And it’s also I wonder about the other NBA guys that committed to Jamaica, why they weren’t there, but Norman was. You know, that shows a a dedication beyond the Thompson twins at least. Beyond them at least. Yeah. All right, let’s do the classic card and we’ll we’ll wrap up soon, guys. We’ll wrap up soon. All right, let’s see. Oh, man. This classic card box is getting more empty. I’m going to have to put more cards back in it very very soon. All right, we’ll do this one. This is not so classic, but here we go. Here’s the card of the day. Full name answer. Please do not halfass it. Put the man’s name at both of the names, the first and the last, and you can get this classic card. This is a pretty easy card if you ask me. I think this is like the only player in the league that looks like this right now. So, yeah, this should be an easy card. So, go ahead and give me the full name answer of the classic card of the day. You know who that is. Come on now, guys. He was on this team for a while, but he’s not there anymore, is he? Oh, where is he? Oh, I know where he is now. I remember where he is now. He was on this team a while back and then he went to another team that we’ve been talking about today and then he’s on another team today. That’s right. Uh yeah, you really Mike, that’s crazy how you spelled his last name, but it’s it’s okay. It’s fine. You didn’t spell it exactly right. Uh Kevin Herder is his name. Yeah. Hu Huer. Huer. You made him sound like the Napoleon Dynamite guy. Uh what’s his name? Kevin Herder. Yeah, Herder. It’s not herder like a hurting sheep. It’s hurtter. Hurtter. Hurt. H Urer. Uh, it’s Mike Slugzy. Uh, thank you for being here and being on the channel, but I’m gonna give it to Mike even though he spelled it really bad, but it’s fine. It’s Mike’s. It’s Mike’s today. Mike, you can get a 50 points for Kevin Herder. Classic card of the day. Yeah, Mike Logical Raptors fanatic getting the classic card. Very cool. And it’s 50. These are these have been 50 cards lately because they’re been very easy. Very, very easy. All right, let’s wrap it up, guys. Anything else to share the love for Demar Rosen? Do it while you can right now. Yeah, Fiery wasn’t on live. You got to make sure you hit that live button. And if you’re not live watching me during the day and you’re watching me later on the afternoon, put it at times and a half uh one and a half speed and the stream will go by really fast and you can uh watch the show, multitask, and uh feel like you timeraveled and you got a lot done really fast. That’s right. That’s right. Uh let’s see. Uh Mike is saying five players in the East. Powell, OG, Siakum, Lowry, and now Bush. That’s right. Those guys are all former champions from our team that are playing in the Eastern Conference at this point. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Uh Wayne, Pascal, of course, and Norman. OG is always cool, but Norman and Pascal exudes a certain attitude that’s just real. Yeah. Seakam’s just he’s like Demar. In fact, he learned that love for Toronto, probably from Demar. In some ways, we can thank the passion uh loyalty and dedication to Toronto from uh Pascal Siakum and Yaka Purle and even Fred to Dear because this is the thing and this is why this is so important what Demar did. You know, Chris Bosch showed ultimate disrespect to the Toronto Raptors team by cutting and running at for championships in South Beach with LeBron James. In some ways, he still turned his back on the Raptors franchise to this day. He doesn’t even really want to have anything to do with us, which is sad in some ways. That’s hurting himself, honestly. But, uh, you know, he went from that baton passed from Chris Bosch to Demard Rose and he was the exact opposite. He established the respect and the loyalty and the idea of like, you know what, take it seriously about playing for the Raptors. You know, have a real respect for it and, you know, really honor it. And in some ways, him being like that helped co uh Kyle come around with his attitude and become a better player himself. Him being like that was a great influence on young players that came in later like Fred, Pascal, uh Norman, uh uh Yakob that the loyalty that those guys was taught from Demar. Like think about that. Would would Seakum be so loyal to Toronto and say I love Toronto. Toronto this without the role model of Demar being like that before. It’s like Dear was the anti- Vince, anti- Chris Bosch and he brought a loyalty and a respect to our team as a player that is still echoing through other players to this day that were around him. Demar was around YaKob as a rookie and is it a coincidence that YaKob has an immense respect and love for the city of Toronto and the Raptors? I’m just saying in some ways just like racism can be taught through generations a respect and a loyalty can be taught throughout a franchise and sports and in some ways the the loyalty and love for our team that Demar showed it spawned the loyalty and love for our team from those other guys since and in some ways it begets the begets the Kyle Lowry leaves and Scotty Barnes comes in but Scotty Barnes gets to play with Pascal he gets to play with Fred he gets to play with OG and he gets to feel a little bit of like what they’re saying and then the loyalty to the city and the way they feel about it. It Scotty feels it too. So it perpetuates and that’s important. That’s something the Raptors needed. We didn’t have much loyalty from our franchise players until Demard Rosen showed up because there was no loyalty from Damon. There was no loyalty from Vince. There was no loyalty from Tracy. There was no loyalty from Chris Bosch. The first person that showed loyalty to the Toronto Raptors and we even burned him for it was Demar Rosie. And that’s part of the reason why we got to share the love and give him proper due respect Raptors fan nation is that that man set the culture of being loyal and loving the Raptors and respecting the Raptors as a team player and being real one for it. That’s what I’m saying right there. That’s a real one right there. That’s a real one right there. That’s right. Uh Fiery saying, “We love you, Debo.” That’s right. We do. We very much do. if he comes in and watches this somehow somewhere or at one of his people, that’s the message we got for him right there. Kareem saying, “Just a quick reminder that the Denver Broncos play tonight at 7 on NFL Network.” Okay. Okay. Uh or watch it at uh.5 speed and really take it all in. That’s an interesting idea, Isaac. And it’s so weird that you’re going to get a dunk. I’m not often suggested watch my stream at 0.5 speed so that I am talking like this. Who put that on the fast speed and it’ll sound like regular speed. 45. You got the 45 bus. Delo B. Look at that Rexdale bus for Isaac on the dunk charts right now. He’s 45. Mike is saying, “I told Allen Styles that Demar mentored four lower picks in his starters, OG, Pal, Seakkum, Bambble Vleet, and Allen said that does nothing for him.” What an idiot. Seriously, what an idiot. He’s telling him straight up. It’s like, “You know who Fred Van Vleet is? Do you know who Pascal Seakum is? Do you understand that Demar was their vets when they came into the league? You don’t understand that, Sacramento guy?” Okay, once again, you’re not doing your homework. You’re not educated enough to have opinions on basketball. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just like Scotty said, y’all don’t know ball. You don’t know ball. Allan styles, your styles are not very stylistic to knowing ball. That’s what I say right there. That’s right. Mike’s saying, people don’t get it. They just don’t know ball. Like Scotty’s saying, they just want to stank and get a star instead of building a culture first, then bring in those stars so they become winners and really pros. The process showed us the issue of stanking and hoping for a bead. Oh yeah, you’re using that word because of Yeah. Yeah. People don’t get it. They just want to tank and get a star instead of building a culture first and then bring in those stars so that they become winners and really pros. The process showed us the issue of tanking and hoping for an Embiid. No. Once again, the draft is unreliable. You cannot pick where you get picked. Everybody trying to tank. You can’t get what you want if you tank. There’s a lot of teams that tank last year and didn’t get anything what they wanted. and Dallas won the draft anyway with some con convoluted [ __ ] So, listen, it’s not about like getting a high draft pick necessarily. It’s about using your draft picks effectively so that they’re not busts. It’s about, you know, using what you’re where you’re at. If you’re in the 12th pick, uh, get, uh, you know, Grady Dick. If you’re in the ninth pick, get Colin Boils. Get, you know, you got to draft players at your spots and hope that they hit. Do your research and get the right players. And in some ways, relying on losing to get a high draft pick is stupid. It’s a failure. They’ve done things to stop that being effective. And everybody who thinks tank culture works is wrong. In some ways, you can direct your team to the lower part of the standing, sure, but you can’t fine-tune it and you can’t decide exactly where the ping-pong ball is going to land. So, it’s like, all right, is this what’s the risk there? We’ve gone over this many times. The tank risk is that you’re tanking your team and uh getting bad habits of losing uh just for the prospect of maybe something that won’t happen at all. Well, you could be like the Sixers all of a sudden and uh you know be really bad and get a VJ Edgecom. But what is the damage they’re doing to their chemistry and some of the things we just talked about five minutes ago about aura and connection? That’s another team that is not connected in the least. In fact, Yabuselli has been very public since leaving Philadelphia and getting signed with the Knicks that it was weird on the Sixers last year. Nobody liked each other and nobody was connecting in any kind of way. He very openly publicly said this. And I you can see it from the outside that that team had no chemistry and no connection. And they didn’t even have James Harden still. They just didn’t. I felt bad for Tyrese Maxi. That’s right. That’s right. All right, y’all. Let’s get out of here. Thanks for watching the Raptor Freak stream today. Saturday, share the love club for Demard Rosen. We just needed to elaborate a little bit more to Raptors fan nation, the importance of Debo, to our history, and why we are who we are. This guy is so important to Raptors history. Some people look at him and they say, “Oh, he got traded for our championship.” Dear uh Kawhi Leonard, you’ve got to understand this guy is in some ways we need to thank him so much for that Larry O’Brien over there on the counter. He is a big big part of why we won the championship and he didn’t get any of the spoils or the victory and in some ways I respect that so much and in fact I give him extra points for that because in some ways I feel like he deserved to be a champion in the NBA and maybe he’ll still get a chance to be at some point but uh there’s no guarantees. This league is tough. This league is hard and it seems like the position he’s in right now is not one that’s going to get him a ring before he’s done. But we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll have to see. Uh, cool cat saying, “Thanks, Lex. Have a great day, everyone.” Yeah, enjoy your Saturday. Get out there, touch grass, and just have a great day. That’s right. Wayne saying FIFA games yesterday. Lex, they really don’t play defense, the position, but it’s just basic stance later. Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s just the skill level, the talent level is just not NBA level. And well, there’s going to be ugly ass basketball. Let’s just put it that way. There’s gonna be ugly ass basketball. Isaac saying, “Thanks for the culture, Dear. Best person ever.” I won’t disagree with him. He’s one of the greatest persons ever to put on a Raptors jersey. That’s for sure. All right, y’all. I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Sunday special report on the everchanging culture, the everchanging landscape of parody in the NBA. We’re going to talk about Rick Carile’s statements this week. We’re going to talk about the reality of the NBA and what it takes to win at this point and just how, you know, how much should we expect the Oklahoma City Thunder to repeat this year? Is that likely? Could it be happening? I don’t know. We’re going to talk about that kind of stuff. Sunday special report 9:30 tomorrow I’ll be back. That’s right. Mike saying he helped in building half the championship rotation. Yeah. Yeah. Him and Casey, they don’t get the reward in the end, but they’ve helped build it up. They were definitely part of the group project. All right, y’all. I appreciate everybody. Thanks for watching. Please like, comment, subscribe, share, and join the channel if you want to. You get access to our Discord server and other things like the phone number for our call-in show on Thursday. So, definitely consider joining the channel as a member. I appreciate it if you will. All right, let’s go Raptors.

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