JJ Redick (And Greenie) Live In LaLa Land Telling Us The NBA Doesn't Have A Problem, And We Can Now Add Charles Barkley To The List of People Calling Them Crazy

Barkley:"He said something about we're the reason people ain't watching this crappy product we got," Barkley said. "Yeah, us. Like we out there jacking up a hundred threes a night. JJ ... I don't know Jason Monroe, I don't know who that is, but JJ, you come for the king, you better not miss. 'Cause I can get you brother. 'Cause remember I got your Lakers' games. You can't hide them flaws they got. You just a dead man walking. They got rid of Frank Vogel who did a good job. They got rid of Darvin Ham who did a good job. If you came out there thinking you were going to change things with that same ugly girl you went on the date with—the Lakers stink...

Ernie Johnson, growing increasingly frantic as highlights continue to roll: ”64-51 was your halftime score as we get back to the highlights. Rudy Gobert!”

Barkley, ignoring him to continue: ”He (Redick) came in there thinking ‘I can make this thing work.’ The hell you can! You can put some makeup on that pig!

Shaq: *dying of laughter*

Barkley, continued: “The Lakers stink, man. Come on man.”

I have to give Greenie credit here. The best defense is a good offense. Carrying the amount of water that Greenie does for the association, I doubt the word defense even exists in Greenie's lexicon, but this was a slick move nonetheless. 

I watched this game tonight because the Ol' Miss Duke game was snooze city. (Sidebar- today feels like the least Thursday Thursday of all time). And in the first quarter I instantly regretted it. 

Tatum was leading Boston short handed tonight, (Brown sat out), so Derrick White stepped up per usual. Minnesota is a great defensive team, Rudy Goebert is the reigning Defensive Player of The Year. Walker and McDaniels should be decent match ups for Tatum. Except they aren't. Neither is Goebert. They all looked completely helpless tonight. 

But that's not the point of this blog. The point of ths blog is that while I sat there watching both teams hoist up a combined 31 three-point attemps in the first quarter alone, I knew we were in for another all-star game caliber competition disguised as a regular season NBA contest. 

We're talking 43 total attempted shots from the field in the first quarter, and 31 of them were 3s. 

Minnesota was unconscious, shooting 60% in the quarter and it was still the most boring display of basketball you've ever seen.

I thought to myself, "If this keeps up, this is going to be the easiest blog of all time to write post game". 

And of course, it did keep up. 

But I thought that before even hearing Barkley cook JJ Redick's ass during the postgame show. 

But when I logged into the archaic BarstoolSports.com backend to blog about it, that little shit Greenie had already beaten me to it. 

A move that Sun Tzu himself would have respected. Hat tip Greenie.

But one thing Greenie didn't expect I'm sure, was to call him on his bullshit. I'm not here to just carelessly bash the NBA. I legit love basketball and just want to see it played at its full potential. Is that too much to ask? Like that annoying teacher you had growing up who never let you settle for anything less than 110%. 

And I think that's the point that little pussy JJ Redick is missing. Shaq and Barkley want the same. Help us, to help you NBA.

Greenie pre-emptively blogging this story before anybody else can, trying to control the narrative doesn't change the fact that Barkley was dead-on with his points. (Also- the reason he "hasn't really said much since Redick's comments" was because that happened during Christmas, and this was the NBA on TNT's first double header since then. So you know Barkley has been foaming at the mouth, just waiting for the chance to bring this up. And boy oh boy did tonight's game deliver.)

(By the way, what a total bitch move by Redick to blame Shaq, Barkley, and the rest of the media for calling out how shit the NBA is right now and saying that's why ratings are down. That's like the politicians scapegoating the media for reporting what inept scumbags they all are, and blaming them for low voter turnout.)

The Celtics finished the game 22-for-57, from deep (38.6 percent) which according to Greenie is "pretty good if you ask him". 

Minnesota hit 21 of their 39 3-point attempts (53.8 percent) which is great if we were watching a 3-point skills competition. But we weren't. We are watching a game. Not an exhibition game, a regulation game. And that the fucking point that the Shaq's, and Barkley's, and everybody with a functioning brain who isn't hopelessly biased are making. 

We're not saying the players aren't talented. If we're being honest, I don't think there's ever been more physically gifted athletes on the face of the Earth than what exists in the NBA right now.

We aren't saying the game itself is boring. Far from it. Last year's playoffs (with the exception of Boston skull-fucking Dallas in The Finals) were fucking fantastic. Every series it felt like was competitive, entertaining as hell, and worth watching every night. Guys were playing their asses off, and the refs seemed to be letting them actually play without whistling every single little thing.

What we're saying is stop fucking pissing on our heads and trying to tell us its raining. 

This current state of NBA basketball is not fun to watch. 

If you're an analytics nerd possibly. 

But for anybody who grew up watching and falling in love with the NBA in the 90s, sticking with it when it transitioned during the 2000s, and genuinely want to see it do well and be fun today, it's just like Shaq said- "unwatchable". 

For the same exact reasons nobody gives a flying fuck about the All-Star game anymore. 

The players don't care. They give next to zero effort. They play between the two free throw lines all game. Even the 7 foot guys don't go anywhere near the paint. Nobody rebounds. Nobody plays defense. If somebody actually attempts to they're sent to Guantanamo Bay. It's a dogshit product. 

Very similar to if (and when), the NFL tries to force us to watch its stars play flag-football.

I tweeted this out, and originally had this blog titled this, but I'm dead serious. I need to fly to Boston and hit TD Garden for a game with Greenie. Or better yet, I need to get him out to Chicago to watch the Bulls play a team that isn't a wagon like Boston. So he can watch how atrocious 90% of basketball games are this season and try to explain his way out of it to me. 

The real scary thing is Greenie is far from alone. 

He tweeted this is out knocking Kenny Smith for begging and pleading from somebody (Tatum in this particular case) to drive to the rim. 

And look at the kinds of responses he got.

Laugh out loud. Maybe those of us checking out on the NBA and no longer tuning in really are just old? Maybe the game did just "pass us by"? 

If that's the case, I'll never feel bad for dying on the hill that this brand of basketball is and always will be 10 billion times more entertaining to watch. 

p.s. - Jason "Monroe" could be FS1's Jason McIntyre, who was critical of Barkley and Inside the NBA on The Herd with Colin Cowherd a couple days before Redick made his comments.