By The People
An NBA Podcast where the Truth is Not a Hot Take
Oh God, the lawyers are back! Segments on: Ja Morant and the case of the curiously short suspension James Dolan's MSG surveillance state Ishbia vs. Gilbert: the next great ownership rivalry? the MVP debate and its fraught discourse
It's an episode we never thought we'd produce: an unironic tribute to the Sacramento Kings. The Beam Team is, for the first time in two decades, one of the NBA's most entertaining squads, and we ask resident Kings cult member Eric Lynch...
The haters and losers thought ShotTakes was dead—SAD! After a quick half season of load management, we're here to dish on the 2022-23 NBA season: praise, scorn, predictions, and more. We went all around the league in this episode (taped...
We're back on the air and pleased to welcome a guest host who actually knows what winning basketball feels like: Spurs insider Elliott Soler. Lots of talk about the state of the Spurs, the Dejounte Murray trade, and of course...
The Finals are knotted 1-1 after an intriguing two games in San Francisco. We react to what we've seen so far and meander into broader, more irrelevant conversations as we always do.
The Finals tip off on Thursday night, so it's time for Scott and Jesse to empty their notebooks on the Warriors-Celtics matchup, the NBA's obvious lack of COVID-19 protocols enforcement, "manifesting" vs. "resolutions," and other important subjects. Tune in for...
The FULL four-person ShotTakes lineup is BACK to talk all things 2022 playoffs! It seems like we're hurdling towards a Warriors-Celtics Finals....right? We discuss the Heat's chances to pull out an improbable ECF win and the outlook for the Finals...
Scott and Jesse bring that famous #PlayoffIntensity to talk Suns' collapse, Luka Legend, the playoff genius of Jimmy Butler, replay review (so many replays), and more in a postseason edition of ShotTakes.
The NBA's megastars are the subjects of many debates: GOAT, MVP, Top-10, First Team All-NBA, etc. etc. But there may be more to unpack in the next tier of players, who we're calling the "sub-superstars." Who's knocking on the door...
It's our favorite holiday: the NBA trade deadline. We've got reactions to the Harden-Simmons deal and all the other transactions in this premium episode of ShotTakes.
After a brief discussion about how Andrew Wiggins' All-Star selection threatens NBA (and American) democratic legitimacy, Scott and Eric center the episode on this podcast's founding premise: basketball and the law. Which NBA players would make the best—and worst—prosecutors, litigators,...
Scott and Eric run the two-man game and get literary in tonight's episode. Inspired by the release of Chris Herring's Blood In The Garden, we cover book-worthy teams, the best sports volumes we've read, debate which modern players would fit Pat...
Kyrie Irving: the most skilled point guard of all-time? Klay's return: bigger than Christ's resurrection? The Grizzlies: on their way to a string of NBA titles? All possible if you allow your mind to enter the sacred Hyperbolic Chamber—a level...
Happy 2022! We start off the new year by manifesting some NBA storylines we'd like to see blossom as the calendar turns. And we resolve to record *slightly* more often for the rest of the season! (low bar but the...
Yes, you read this correctly: ShotTakes is BACK, BABY! Notes on the resolution of the 2020-21 season, critiques of the offseason, and observations on the early action since the restart. Enjoy!
Despite LeBron and Mark Cuban's doubts, the play-in tournament rocked. (Shoutout Evan Wasch, who definitely isn't getting fired.) We unpack the dynamics and future of the qualifying round before delving into the opening playoff action—apologies to the Clippers, but hey,...
Eric blows our minds with some previously unimaginable personal news, then after readjusting our views of the world in response, we turn to the NBA's home stretch. While there's no doubt the action has been marred by injuries, tanking, and...
One of the most ridiculous figures in modern American history, Mr. Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez, is set to be the next owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves/Lynx, and we could not be happier about it. Scott and Eric are here with everything...
After some high-level brainstorming about how to get The Big Boat out of the Suez Canal, the gang digs into the action and inaction at this year's trade deadline. We can debate the winners and losers until the cows come...
Catching up after a brief All-Star break of our own (get it, we are "all stars"), the guys recap All-Star Sunday, assess the Hawks decision to replace Lloyd Pierce with top assistant Nate McMillan (to fantastic early returns), and look...
For the first time since the infamous Jimmy Butler + third-stringers practice, Minnesota became the center of the NBA universe this weekend: Anthony Edwards threw down the dunk of the year, and the team raised some eyebrows by firing coach...
If you've been listening to our competition (waste of time, but that's not the point), you've probably heard the same narratives over the past few weeks: "nobody's playing defense," "this team doesn't deserve multiple All-Stars," "that guy's team isn't good enough...
On the one year anniversary of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant, and seven others, we revisit the surreal nature of that day and pay tribute to the victims. Then, we take stock of...
Sustainability is one of the most important abilities—it's even a U.S. government value again! Scott and Eric join on the first full day of the Biden Administration to weigh in on which early season outliers—good and bad—are built to last....
James Harden pushes the Houston Rockets to a breaking point, and the team ships him to Brooklyn in a four-team blockbuster that sends Caris LeVert to Indiana, Jarrett Allen to Cleveland, Victor Oladipo and a boatload of draft picks to Houston,...
We've got two weeks of regular season basketball to recap (after a brief pizza debate, of course). Who looks good, who looks bad, what we like, what we hate, you know the drill.
They're baaaaaack! Warriors-Nets was a dud but the rest of the NBA's opening week slate holds many tantalizing matchups both on Christmas Day and beyond—let's be honest, we're all elated just to have basketball back regardless of who's playing. Plus,...
The irreversible tide of cannabis legalization is sweeping across America and the National Basketball Association as the U.S. House of Representatives votes to OK pot at the federal level and Adam Silver suspends random marijuana testing for at least this...
The small lineup is here to kick off the fourth season preview of the ShotTakes Era with a look at this year's Eastern Conference. Can the Heat back up their remarkable showing in the Bubble by defending the conference crown?...
We're used to dramatic offseason developments in the NBA, though not necessarily during November nor condensed into an action-packed week that saw the draft, free agency, trades, failed trades (plus investigations?), and even an audience with Pope Francis for a...
The NBA offseason is in full swing: the draft has been completed, trades are flying left and right, and free agency is set to begin in less than 24 hours. We've got reactions, analysis, and speculation on all of the...
We want Joe Biden—NEED JOE BIDEN! Also it's about time ShotTakes mentions the 2020 NBA Finals and the outlook for a very unorthodox 2020-21 season. Thanks for hanging with us—it's great to be back!
The NBA's Orlando bubble has been a smashing success, and now it's time for an unlikely Finals in more ways than one: an October showdown between LeBron & AD's Lakers and the ascendent Miami Heat enable cast. We recap how...
We've got lots of game action to discuss and preview, but first, a conversation about the games that weren't played on schedule: the Bucks' refusal to take the floor in protest of the Jacob Blake police killing sparked a wildcat...
Black Lives Matter.
The 2020 NBA playoffs are finally underway and they are spicy—at least in the Western Conference. We empty our notebooks on Luka's scintillating playoff debut, the sluggish Clippers, a tight Rockets-Thunder matchup, Donovan Mitchell's torching of Denver (NOTE: recorded prior...
Playoff basketball is underway and we are HYPE to dive into each of the first-round matchups....okay, maybe not Bucks-Magic or Raptors-Nets. Definitely all the other ones though! But first, we pay tribute to the Suns' remarkable 8-0 bubble performance and...
After many not-so-coy allusions to betting lines and over/unders in prior episodes, ShotTakes finally steers into the skid of degeneracy and dedicates the entirety of the program to gambling talk. We've got Brother of the Pod, longtime podcast financier, and...
Following the soap opera of The Bubble's initial weeks was entertaining, but now we get the real show: actual, regular season, NBA basketball games! The league returned to official action last Thursday, and we jump on the air to offer...
ShotTakes often shouts out the WNBA in passing but, candidly, we've been negligent when it comes to giving the league its proper due over the years. So in this episode, it's all women's basketball all the time—and we have just...
We're just over a week from the NBA's return, and while each of the 22 teams only has eight regular season contests on their slate, there's still plenty left to be decided in those games. We ran through the teams,...
The NBA is hunkering down in Walt Disney World ahead of the league's scheduled July 30 return to play, and we are BACK on the airwaves to talk all things bubble. But first: we are very pleased to announce that...
ESPN's 10-part series on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dynasty has reached its conclusion, and we don't know what to do with ourselves now. Tune in for our thoughts on how the series wrapped up.
What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than dedicating two more hours to studying the greatness of Michael Jeffrey Jordan and the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s? We've got takes on Jordan's first retirement, his sojourn into professional baseball, MJ's...
Much like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were fueled by their contempt for Bulls GM Jerry Krause, ShotTakes feasts on the near-daily scorn we receive from our #1 critic: the Enemy of the Podcast, Mr. Hassan Halim. To maximize the...
The squad is back to break down parts 3 and 4 of ESPN's The Last Dance. (Spoiler: Dennis Rodman did some crazy shit.)
ESPN dropped the first two episodes of The Last Dance on Sunday night. We have thoughts about it. You don't have anything better to do. So tune in. Thank you.
With the 2019-20 NBA regular season virtually over, it's as good a time as any to hand out our awards for this strange, truncated year. The MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year honors were predictable...
