Was LeBron James RIGHT About The PLAY-IN Tournament?

All right, man. Peace. So for those of you brothers out there who follow the NBA, you'll know that one of the main controversies that has arisen, especially over the course of the last two months or so, is whether or not the NBA should maintain their new, quote-unquote, playing tournament.

Some of their more celebrated stars and superstars have decided that they're going to strike out against it, mainly Luka Dončić and LeBron James. And what they both have in common is not only their style of play, they're both very narcissistic in how they approach the game. Even though Luka is an overall better team player than LeBron James is, he also, he ingratiates himself to the team, at least for now. Even though I do believe that later on down the line, we're going to see more chaotic elements of Luka's programming start to emerge.

But I did think that it was very, I won't say necessarily ironic or coincidental, just very interesting that the two players who decided to speak out against the planned tournament are so closely aligned in their approach to the game of basketball. That being Luka Dončić and LeBron James.

I myself believe that the planned tournament is a great thing. One of the main topics that everyone seems to bring to the table when it comes to the NBA regular season is that it's overly long, that it gets boring down the stretch, and that the top teams tend to basically top out towards the end of the season, as well as many of the bottom-dwelling teams.

But what the planned tournament has done is added a sense of urgency, not only to the teams that are battling for spots seven and eight, but also for the teams who are in spots nine and ten, eleven and twelve, and also spots four to six. Because if you're a team and you're slated to be or slaughtered to be in the fourth seed, or the fifth seed, or the sixth seed, you're compelled to keep playing hard down the stretch of the season so that you don't fall down into that seventh or eighth spot. And now you have to compete with teams in the nine or ten slot in a one-game tournament just to make the playoffs.

Now, will the NBA continue this playing tournament? Who knows? Because I do think that it kind of blew up in their face that Steph and Curry did not make the playoffs. But, you know, once again, in a one-round playing tournament, when your team is ranked seventh or eighth, what are the chances that a team that is that deeply seated is going to make it to the finals anyway? They're not going to win the final. So you might as well spice it up. I thought that it was great, especially, you know, down the end portion of this past regular season, and I hope that they keep it. They probably won't, because we know that LeBron Ramon James, he seems to have his tentacles directly connected to Adam Silver. So who knows what's going to happen?

And he has a complete small brat. Not to digress, but I think that LeBron James is one of the worst things to happen to American professional sports, particularly in the last five years or so. Really going back 10 years, one of the greatest things that he's ever done was leave Cleveland the first time and show many of you know, not only the top athletes in the NBA, but also all across sports, that you don't owe a team, a franchise, or a city anything just because they drafted you.

I've always supported LeBron and his decision to be mobile, to go from place to place. But you also have to understand that what comes along with that is the collateral damage and how you perceive because you tend to chase after trying to build super teams to improve your legacy. So, as usual, with any decision that we make, there's a good and bad. But once again, I support mobility and a man utilizing his right to be where he wants to be.

But overall, LeBron is a massive narcissist. He's very selfish. No matter how he tries to brand himself as this giving person, he's very conniving as well. And I do think that the main reason why he spoke out against the planned tournament is because the Lakers potentially could have been knocked out before they even got into the playoffs. And I think that looking back, LeBron realizes that they probably would have been better off getting knocked off by the Warriors because it would have given them more time to heal in the off-season.

I think that the Warriors are going to come to understand that it was a great thing that they didn't make the playoffs because it's going to give a lot of the older members of their team, who also happen to be the core of their team, a Steph Curry or a Draymond Green, additional time to rest and heal up for the next season. Because they would have been beaten by the Phoenix Suns, most likely in five or six games. They damn self, playoff basketball is totally different. Phoenix plays a very high level of defense. Their pace is very fast. Most likely, they would have aggressively trapped Steph and Curry, and Golden State does not have enough shooting to compete with a team like the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs.

But who knows? Maybe it would have been a barn burner that would have won six or seven games. Who knows? Because when you have a nuclear weapon like Steph and Curry out there, anything can happen.

Back to the Lakers, though. LeBron James is clearly on his last legs. He's not the player that he once was. He's never been a player who's been able to dominate the game off the basketball like Kevin Durant or a Steph and Curry can do. So once he can no longer beat his man one-on-one off the dribble, and that seems to be a problem for him right now. Some people are going to claim that it's the ankle, but I've been seeing it for the last two years, three years or so, that he could not really beat his man off the dribble. He has not been the same player since he left Cleveland. That LeBron James in 2017 to 2018 was his peak as an offensive player, in my view. Overall, I thought that that was his peak. Now, Miami, that was his overall peak. That was him at his most athletic and explosive. But offensively, the best LeBron that I've seen in his whole career was his last two years in Cleveland.

But do I think that the planned tournament is a good thing? No, I think that it's a great thing, and I hope that they keep it. So anyway, they're going to talk about it. I'm going to chime in. Games LeBron returned to the Lakers lineup Friday. They played again last night before leaving the game of star ankle. The Lakers lost their third straight last night and are currently in sixth place in the West. LeBron frustrate. Now, obviously, this was way before the Lakers got knocked out by the Phoenix Suns, but I just wanted to cover this topic because I believe that the NBA will be making a huge mistake if they were to get rid of the planned tournament.

It doesn't matter at the end of the day if I'm not, uh, you know, 100, close to 100 percent of no matter, you know, where we land, you know, so, you know, that's my mindset. And, um, you know, if this happens to, uh, we end up at six or fifth or whatever the case may be, or if we end up in a, you know, the playoff, uh, whatever that thing is, whoever came up that need to be fired. No, I disagree. Whoever came up with the planned tournament needs to be given a raise. I've never seen more exciting basketball amongst the lower seeds in each conference than I've seen this season, with every team trying to compete not only to make the planned tournament, but also to stay out of the planned tournament if you're ranked anywhere from four to six. And that's why LeBron is filled with so much consternation because he knows that in a regular season, he probably would have been able to chill out over the course of the remainder of the year, especially if he would have seen that, you know, say for example, the Lakers had the seventh seed wrapped up and they couldn't move. They possibly could have rested him for two games heading into the playoffs. They can't do that anymore. And that's why these guys are so frustrated.

But at the end of the day, they have to realize the NBA is losing money. They have to find a way to keep the fans interested in the regular season, and the planned tournament has been a great convention to do that. The entire team is kind of in a, you know, something right now. Now, this is a D right here, wearing the, the quote-unquote Mamacita Beltane hoodie, as I call it. And I'll be covering that in an elongated series on my main channel. But you see the combination of black, white, and red for Pan, aka for the Horn God. That's what the release of that sweatsuit line on May first was meant to be an allusion to, to Beltane, which was known as a, a liminal holiday or time period in which there's a close proximity between the spiritual world and the physical world, and a portal is opened for spirits to come through. And of course, I know that Kobe Bryant's daughter, Gianna, was born on May first. But I do believe that that her childbirth, or at least her birthday, was contrived and coordinated so that she could be born on May first, understanding what she was going to represent once she was forced to pass through the fire to Baal or to Moloch. Um, not more so individually, but just collectively on both ends of the ball.

So now, do I believe that Anthony Davis is a witch or a sorcerer per se? No, not necessarily. But I do believe that he's being indoctrinated into that belief system, and eventually it will be revealed to him, you know, what it is that he's a part of, the Laker Witch Coven, per se. When we just look at the insignia on the sweatshirt, we see the intertwining serpent with the M for the quote-unquote Mamba. The M, of course, representing the number 13. And then on the right side of the screen, but on the left side of Anthony Davis's chest right there, above the eye, we see the five-pointed star with the wings for the Mother Goddess. Once again, I'll be covering this in a, you know, most likely a very long series on my main channel. But Kobe Bryant and his daughter, they were forced to pass through the fires from Moloch. Once again, I'll be addressing this topic in a relatively elongated series on my main patron channel. But Kobe and his daughter, they passed through the fires to Moloch or Baal. That's what his, his self-sacrifice was all about. And I believe that they did so in late January. So it was for the feminine manifestation of Baal, because all these so-called gods, they have both a masculine manifestation and a feminine manifestation. That's why the modern-day Luciferians, they worship the concept of the quote-unquote divine hermaphrodite or the divine transgender. Because they know that Zeus and Hera, or Jupiter and Juno, they're just a masculine and a feminine manifestation of the same ideology. Zeus is the horned god. Hera, or Juno, is the mother goddess, or the quote-unquote dub goddess, so on and so forth. It's all basically the same thing.

I said, of course, they're together. Um, I guess the lowest we've been, uh, in a while, but not only the only way, you know, is up, you know, we really can't get any lower than this. I just don't think we're connected right now. I think we're, um, unhealthy. And and this clown, Kyle Kuzma, he's an example of an MK asset who's not able to reach fruition. So they're going to be getting rid of him very soon. He's deeply immersed in the craft, this guy. But they're going to be getting rid of him relatively soon. That's one of the main reasons why they've kept him for as long as they have. Not only is he in, I won't say necessarily a secretive relationship with Jeanie Buss, because it's pretty much common knowledge that he's hitting that, allegedly, allegedly. But also he's relatively deeply immersed in the craft. You know, losing six is, is very tough. And we've all had, um, winnable games during that stretch. And, you know, it's a little disappointing. You know, we're just not together as a whole. You know, I'm trying to figure out why you guys are not together. Don't you have the best leader in sports, LeBron Ramon James? Teams, staff, everything. All right, we hear the Lakers woes. Rightfully so. NBA champion Kendrick Perkins here with us. Perfect. Top of the morning. Thank you, sir. Hey, go, Kendrick. Coffee. People. Good morning. Good morning. And I'm going to start with you. I want to focus though on LeBron being salty about the play-in tournament. How does that make the NBA look? Burp. It makes the NBA look like they have a problem controlling their so-called main superstar. They have an issue with communication with him because he's not supposed to get on television saying things like that. When it comes to NBA protocol, honestly, Adam Silver is supposed to fine him for making statements like that on national TV. Because I promise you, that's what David Stern would have done and helped him realize what his role is. They've given LeBron James way too much clout and way too much power. And now it's obvious that he's drunk on that power. And that's what happens a lot of times when you coddle your children, they start to think that their opinion is more important than it actually is. It makes the NBA look good because, guess what? It shows that they ruffled the feathers and they're holding guys accountable. And some guys are going to be mad. LeBron James is not the only guy that that's mad about the play-in tournament. I heard Luka Dončić. Mark Cuban complained about it. But guess what? I actually love it. Me too, sir. Throughout the history of the NBA, towards the end of the season, it started to, it starts to get boring. People don't want to watch it. People are not engaged. But with it, with the play-in, it holds everyone accountable. Absolutely. Yeah. Right before the bubble, when Dane Dollar, Damian Lillard came out and said, I'm not going to the bubble unless I have a chance to compete for a title or a chance to get into the playoffs. He actually embraced the, uh, play-in tournament and actually went out then hounded his business. So I love it. You know, as a former player, you know, throughout the course of the season, certain teams tend to relax and take games for granted. In this case, you can't do that anymore because you'll find yourself in this position. Now, who LeBron should be pissed off at? And y'all know LeBron is my brother. I've been knowing him since the age of 13. Played with him for two years in Cleveland, etc., etc. But who he should be mad at is his teammates because before he got injured, they were a top two seed in the Western Conference. He could be mad. It's a good point for me. Here's my, here's my deal. I don't necessarily disagree with with Perk. Um, I wasn't a fan of the playing game because my attitude is that when you look at some of the teams, particularly, particularly teams that are below 500, I don't even want you to play. If you can't beat 500 during the regular season, I didn't want you. I didn't. Right. But Stephen, they spent. Once again, that's why you're just a talking head on television. You're an opinionist. And the more you speak, the less seriously people are starting to take you because what you say makes no [ __ ] sense. If you don't believe that most of the teams that make the playoffs shouldn't make the playoffs, then really what you're saying is that the NBA has too many teams. If they get rid of teams, they're going to lose more money, sir. That means less games on television, sir. That's what that means. That means that people like you will no longer be as necessary. They're trying to continue to grow the league so that they can be more games played and more money can be made. That's the point of expanding the playoffs. So what you're saying makes no sense and you're not addressing the topic at hand, that being the viability of the planned tournament. It's not a good thing. It's a great thing because it puts onus on both the lower seeded teams and the mid-seeded teams to continue to play hard until the end of the year. Being in the postseason, if you're, if, if you're not even a 500 team, that's just my personal opinion. But upon further thinking about this, I don't really have a problem with it because I hear where Perk's coming from and where Max has come from in the past, in terms of teams being held accountable and not being able to take those nights off. Here's what I will say that does make LeBron not look so good about this position. You aren't saying this when y'all were a top two seed. That's the point, sir. And that's the thing with LeBron James, he does not like to be held accountable. His statements are always a reflection on his lack of character. He's a small brat who's lived in his own world for the vast majority of his life. That's why he's not supposed to be playing the leadership role in society, not on a team. He can do that because the NBA, you know, pardon the pun, is basically a bubble for most of their superstars who've been considered superstars the vast majority of their lives. Most of them have never lived a real life where they have to be held accountable for their actions. I don't care where they're from. They can come from the most destitute environments. By the age of 12 or 13, most of them have been verified as potential superstars. They get fed, exalted, and treated extremely well in their communities and in their neighborhoods because the incentive is that once this person becomes a star or superstar in the league, they're going to come back and bless me. When has LeBron James ever really been accountable or responsible for anything in a real way in real life? I'm not talking about, you know, how he helps his family or subsidizes his friends or things of that sort. I'm not talking about how hard he works on his craft and on his game. I'm talking about the understanding that what he says is actually going to have real repercussions for him. The ideologies that he espouses, he's going to have to be held accountable for. He just says things and no one is able to call him out, call him to the table to actually have to substantiate and validate things that he says. And that's been the case for the vast majority of his life. He's been a small brat for most of his life. You're saying it now because you find yourself having to compete to avoid bubble play, and that's something that he needs to reflect upon. And like Perk said, you should be happy. You should be upset at your teammates because the Lakers should not be this bad without LeBron James. Yeah, you don't have to be right. But once again, when you run the LeBron James system, it's very similar to what we're seeing today with the Luka Dončić system. Once he's out of the lineup, that team is going to fall apart because they become so dependent upon him. He's the hub of everything. That when he's not there, they don't even know how to get a real shot. But you could at least be a 500 team. They're like, I mean, they're like 8 and 14 in their last 22 games or so. That's unacceptable. The fact that you've fallen off to this degree should say something, particularly when you play with LeBron enough where even though he's the catalyst, Max, and he leads the way, you've been with him enough to know what you're supposed to be doing even when he's not on the floor. And the fact that that doesn't appear to be the case and everything's a bit discombobulated, we got to look at Frank Vogel right now, but we also got to look at the rest of those players because you shouldn't be falling apart at the seams like this. I want to address that before I answer the questions. First of all, I don't agree with that because Stephen A, when you have a chance to get two MVPs on your roster at the same time, you can always do it. And that means some of your other roster is going to be thin. You're not going to have a lot of starting caliber players. That was the Lakers. So they did a great job picking up Andre Drummond after the deadline, right? A buyout. And Dennis Schröder is a starting caliber dude. But when you take, well, Schröder is a mid-level starting caliber point guard. He's not a star-level point guard. But I get your point. All your resources off the team. I thought the team did pretty well to stay afloat, keep their head above water, and basically be 500. Then AD got back, they got to reintegrate him. He's not 100 yet. They started losing games. But I want to say, Perk, I think, as you would say, you are preaching the gospel this morning, brother. I think it's great that LeBron had that reaction. Normally, I would say, boy, if LeBron's going at the league like that, the league's got to examine what they're doing. In this case, he's making the NBA look great because what it shows you is even the best player in the world is biting his fingernails. Right. Absolutely. LeBron was frightened. He was scared to death that he would not even make the playoffs. He knows how that would affect his legacy to be in year 18 and not even make the playoffs because you have to square up against a Steph Curry, a thermonuclear weapon. And of course, we know the Lakers went on to defeat the Warriors in that, that one-game playing tournament brawl for it all type of situational scenario. But LeBron was very fearful because he knows what can happen whenever you face an opponent like that who pretty much is unstoppable. Even like four or five years ago, when that reporter asked LeBron, how do you stop a Steph Curry? And LeBron got upset. He said, you don't. He's like me. You can't stop him. Because LeBron knows, as I've been saying for the last four or five years on YouTube and Patreon, there are only four real superstars in the NBA. Everybody else is a bubble superstar. And these guys, they know the difference between a superstar-level player and a bubble superstar level player. LeBron does not view James Harden in the same way that he views Steph Curry. The average layman might. The average fan might. They might say, well, no, James Harden is just as good as, if not better than, Steph Curry. But LeBron does not view him that way. LeBron would view a James Harden as someone who he could stop in the playoffs, who would fall short, who would choke in a big moment. He doesn't view Steph Curry in that way. He doesn't view Kevin Durant in that way. And he doesn't view Kawhi in that way. There are other players who are great, who approximate greatness, but there's a sliver of difference there. The edge of it. He's thinking, this league got me under pressure right now. Damn, I'm actually going to have to come back and care about part of the regular season. Well, there's a chance when some team gets hot, beats us in the game, and then what's going to happen? I'm not exactly. That's a disaster, right? So they got him under some pressure. What are the two biggest problems with the NBA, which is, I think, the best league and the best game and all that? I grew up a baseball fan. NFL is king. But like the envy and basketball is a perfect sport. The NBA is as good as it gets. But one of the reasons you love it is because the best team always wins the best of seven. That's the same reason. Nothing's perfect, right? You take a little something away. Since it's more predictable than the NFL or baseball, that takes a little something away from the regular season. Yeah, I already. Now, all of a sudden, you can't take the regular season for granted. The best team in the league has a few injuries, and now all of a sudden, they could be facing a play-in game. And absolutely, Max Kellerman, you're on point with this one. Every once in a while, you go to hell off, especially with your Marxist [ __ ] but right here, you're on point. And there are literally no drawbacks to the planned tournament. So I hope that the NBA is not kowtowing to, uh, LeBron. Zhao Ming. Hey, there's a little randomness injected. You know, one and done in the tournament makes March mad. This great, the NFL. Oh, lesser team could beat a great team on any given Sunday. It makes the playoffs great. Baseball's random. It makes the playoffs great. The NBA, especially early. Well, baseball is relatively random. If a quote-unquote lesser team has a dynamic pitcher and you can get him to throw three games in a seven-game series, they can defeat a better team. But that's very rare. He's going to win. The eight's not going to beat the one, right? But all of a sudden, the team that might have been the one is slipping because of injury, and they can get knocked out. It's great. LeBron's reaction makes the NBA look great. Just thinking about this right, right now is the less than 10 games left in the season. And to me, the playoffs has already started. So we're keeping an eye on the team like the Washington Wizards, who, who are at the tenth spot. I agree with that. I consider the playing tournament the playoffs already starting. It's also great for the higher seeds because it gives them a week off in between the end of their NBA regular season and the start of the playoffs. I mean, literally nobody's losing. And also, what the NBA ensures, basically, what the NBA ensures is that they give the higher seeds, particularly seeds one and two, a leg up at the start of the NBA playoffs because the teams that end up with the seventh and the eighth spot are going to be relatively exhausted playing in the playing tournament. The NBA, they want that one and two seed to advance. They don't want these upsets in the first round because they know nine times out of ten, the seventh or the eighth seed is going to lose in the second round anyway. For the vast majority of, you know, the NBA's history, the number one and the number two seeds were actually the best teams in the conference. You don't want a Dallas Mavericks losing to a Golden State Warriors quote-unquote believe team in 2007 because they're just going to lose in the next round to Utah. You actually want that storyline of Dirk getting back to the finals and seeing if he can redeem himself after they lost the previous year to the Miami Heat. Like, oh, one time today out of 12. Russell Westbrook. Bills must see TV. Are we looking down the line? We're looking at the Boston Celtics battle with the Atlanta Hawks to see if they go get in the playoff position. We're looking at the New York Knicks right now, who just hit the West Coast swing. That's right. Who just did the West Coast? Who just went West Coast for a couple of games to see if they're going to stay in the playoff race. So I love it because it brings out that competitive spirit. It shows who really so. Right. But Kendrick Perkins, listen to what you're saying. You said you love it because it brings out that competitive spirit. LeBron James hates it. So what does that say about his competitive spirit? When Charles Barkley made the statement that he made a while ago, maybe a couple of years ago, about how LeBron James wants everybody good because he doesn't want to compete. And LeBron got inflamed and started talking about Charles's his betting debts out there in Vegas and throwing people through plate glass windows and all the other [ __ ] why did LeBron get so upset? He got that matted truck because deep down, he knows that he's not a real competitor. He'll quote-unquote compete, but he won't literally compete. Real competitors are going to keep coming at you even if they know that the end is near. There's like this samurai code of ethics that Michael Jordan had. You know, so many people get upset with the infatuation that people have with Jordan. Kobe tried to mimic the Jordan level of competitiveness to a certain degree, but even he didn't have it because Kobe would quit too often times if you saw that the series was over. Quiet as kept, nobody likes to talk about that, but it's the truth. Kobe would quit. You can get him to quit. Jordan never quit. He just kept coming and coming and coming and coming. In 1989, in the conference finals against, when it was obvious down the stretch of the fourth quarter that the Bulls were going to lose, Doug Collins had to pull Jordan out of the game because he was still going 100 miles an hour. LeBron James, and you know, one kid say that maybe it's a negative impact or negative effect of his basketball analytical brain, which is extremely high level. He's able to compute what chances his team has to defeat a team. And once he comes to his conclusion, that's going to determine how hard he continues to play. Once LeBron has come to the conclusion that my team has no chance to win, he's going to shut it down, period. Jordan's brain does not work that way. Even if his team is overmatched, he's still saying to himself, where there's a will, there's a way. That's the difference between the two players. Yeah, and I am too, right now. But I will tell you one, uh, one, one, one note of caution. And made, and I'm not in true, I don't want to say definitively that folks would do this, but if you're not interested in being a participant in the playing game, right? You may play like it. And if you play like it, that's a very bad look. Yeah, sometimes, I mean, people play like I'm just saying, people expose themselves. You hear me, Big Perk? You know exactly where I'm going with this. You know, you have people who will play, you know, like again, they don't, they don't want you to call them out. They don't want to be too flagrant with it, but it's easy to spot cats that don't believe in what they have and just don't want to be there. And what's up? Well, just even's point, I think we kind of saw that with the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference play-in. So, I mean, there's also that. But I just think that there are too many positives to worry about a negative factor like that. But that is something that is relevant because we saw that with the Pacers in the Eastern Conference. They obviously did not want to be there. It was very clear that they hated their coach and that they wanted out. Yeah, the bad luck that you don't want as a league as well. I don't think that's the Lakers. It better not be. Big sticking around one week. But anyway, that's basically it on that, brothers. We'll see where things go with the NBA's playing tournament. I think that is one of the great innovations that they've had in the last few years, and hopefully they keep it. So peace.