Springtime in Minnesota is finally here. How I cherish these few weeks of delightful weather sandwiched in between a hellishly long winter and a summer that seems to feel the need to overcompensate for said harsh winter. It’s the perfect time of year to get outside and play pick-up at the park. Park ball is fantastic. Depending on where you go, you might be caught up playing with a group of 13-year-olds or former pros looking for some run. I’ve played with D1 athletes, 50-year-olds who can still hoop, disabled folks — everyone. It’s beautiful. I’ve never played organized basketball at a level above 10U, but my time on the blacktop has taught me that there is one unassailable tenant to the game of basketball: Talk your shit.
Everywhere you go, you run into people who just want to trash talk. I am most definitely one of those people. But the beauty of trash-talking extends far beyond the basketball court. We talk trash because it is fun. We love it in American culture. For years Comedy Central’s roasts were incredibly popular. MTV aired the show Yo Mama, in which contestants competed to tell the best joke about the other contestant’s mother.
No one talks more trash than Patrick Beverley. Recently, Beverley appeared on a few ESPN talk shows and used the opportunity to put a few people on blast. Most notably, he called out Chris Paul. Here’s what Beverly said about Paul on First Take:
“He can’t guard. He literally can’t guard,” said Beverley. “Man, CP can’t guard nobody, man. Everybody in the NBA knows that. What do we call him? Cone. You know when you do cones? Like, in the summertime, you gotta cone. You make a move. What does the cone do?”
Beverley’s statements on ESPN sparked a national discussion and prompted a response from fans and other NBA players. Notably, Danny Green clapped back on his podcast, Inside the Green Room:
“People target you, too, Pat Bev,” Green said. “You ain’t playing no f****** defense out there. You ain’t stopping Luka. It’s time, and time again, I’ve seen Luka call your ass little. He’s too f****** small and went right at you every chance he got. When you play Luka, you’re a cone, too. How would you like that? Is this recording? Put it out there.”
Now, this is fun. What’s better than two pros going at it in a public forum? Major media outlets recognize that, which is why ESPN and TNT have shifted toward bringing on players with big, outrageous personalities like Beverley and Draymond Green.
Beyond the big-name media networks, new forms of media have totally transformed the sports-talk industry. Podcasts, YouTube, and other streaming services have given fans an in-depth, personal, and unfiltered view of players that they’ve never had before. No way Danny Green could have said something like, “You ain’t playing no f****** defense” on ESPN. But there are far fewer rules or regulations on a podcast, a Twitch stream, or a Patreon page. You can say whatever, whenever, often without repercussions beyond some hollow Twitter outrage.
Draymond Green refers to himself as “the new media.” I think he’s onto something. Players are beginning to take the voice of the media and control it in a way they never have before. It seems like a distant past in which the only access to players we had as fans was through locker-room press conferences and one-on-one sitdowns with a reporter. Now we get to be inside their houses while they talk to their friends or play video games.
In the background of this monumental media shift is some rather disappointing playoff basketball, ripe with non-competitive games. As players off the court have more freely entered the lawless wild west of the media world, the on-court product has become widely criticized. The refereeing is under constant scrutiny, star players are missing too many regular-season games, and the league is even looking to add a mid-season tournament to keep fans interested during what has become, for many, a meaningless regular season. It sort of feels like the NBA is losing some control.
Meanwhile, the Dallas Mavericks have been trying to make the most of their deep playoff run by having some fun. Throughout their games, the bench is standing up, loud and raucous. It’s not unlike the Minnesota Timberwolves’ bench for much of the season. When the actual basketball hasn’t been that fun to watch during their blowout wins or losses, the bench has been just the opposite. Theo Pinson, who is on a two-way for the Mavs this season, has been trolling the Golden State Warriors by wearing a white T-shirt that matches the Warriors’.
The NBA has responded to the Mavericks bench unit by fining the organization three times for a total of $175,000. The league’s policing of the behavior of Dallas’ players is a bad look for the NBA. As fans flock toward more authentic and relatable content, it seems counterintuitive for the league to punish teams because their players are having fun.
Jason Kidd responded to the fine by saying:
“The league is worried about the wrong thing. You have millionaires cheering on other millionaires. Doesn’t happen in this society. And the enthusiasm of the game, for a teammate to cheer on another teammate, is special. I think sometimes we’re focused on the wrong thing. And so when you look at people who make a lot of money cheering on their teammates or their employees, that’s what sport is all about. So for us to get fined, that’s cool. It’s going to another good cause, charity. But again, we’re looking at the wrong thing.”
Standing on the sidelines cheering is probably the most relatable thing an NBA player can do. When the league steps in and decides to control the decorum of its players on the bench, it sends a message to the league and the fans that expressing yourself is okay as long as it falls within the bounds of how the NBA feels you should express yourself.
It harkens back to the David Stern years when he cracked down on players’ apparel during press conferences. When they limit the players’ ability to express themselves, they limit the real draw of their product. Fans want to get to know the players that they love. They crave authenticity. Wolves fans didn’t go crazy for Patrick Beverley just because of the way he played basketball. We went crazy for him because he’s real. He doesn’t hold anything back, wears his heart on his sleeve, and clearly cares a lot about the game.
If the NBA wants to continue to grow, they’ve got to embrace the personalities of its players. Players need to be able to talk trash, brag, celebrate too much, or be a little inappropriate in front of a mic. That is what the fans want. They are hungry for it. They are drawn to players’ podcasts and Twitch streams so that they can feel like they are really getting to know their favorite players.
