The Late Night Happy Hour with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

He was a member of the '94-'95 national championship team at UCLA and played professionally overseas. Kris Johnson joins the Late Night Happy Hour, and we cover all kinds of ground.

First, it's all about the Lakers, who are a little stuck in the mud about a third of the way through the season, working through fatigue, injury, poor shooting and more, but are still managing to win. Any reason for concern?

Next, Johnson was a star at Crenshaw High in Los Angeles, playing with and around other pros. What was the high school scene like at that point? Why has LA been so good at churning out pros? What skill set does an LA player have, compared to what you see out of New York or Chicago?

We talk UCLA hoops. How thin are the margins for winning? People tend to forget the iconic Tyus Edney end-to-end run to beat Missouri was in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. If that doesn't happen, the entire arc of history around Bruins basketball changes. And Johnson notes the rest of the teams he played on in Westwood were really good... but not championship level. It's a very fine line.

From there, he talks about the hard truths around college sports, and whether it can ever again reach the heights and significance it once had in the American sports landscape.

Finally, he goes through some amazing stories of his time playing overseas, including being caught in a literal war zone as a pro in Lebanon. Also, eating Applebee's in places you wouldn't expect to find it.

The Late Night Happy Hour turns 100 (in episodes, at least, as an independent entity) and as we do with all our historic shows, we turn to Ben Lyons as a guest. He was guest #1 in the original version, then guest #50. He was our first guest on the indie show, and now is our 100th.

On a slow night in the NBA, we get deep into Hollywood, and what might be coming with awards season. This is, without question, the most unusual year for movies in decades, and maybe ever. Very few people have seen any of the films that will be nominated. How does that impact the way people will vote, whether for films or the acting/directing awards that come with them?

Does the genie ever go back in the bottle, when it comes to streaming services getting their due as producers of Oscar/Emmy/etc. winning films?

Ben used to review movies, and took a lot of heat. What's that process like? What approach is the right one for the people in charge of shaping perceptions of a film?

And how about those Knicks!?!?! For the first time in a long time, the Knicks are actually entertaining and interesting, but not in a car crash kind of way. Not necessarily good, but the process of the regular season is a lot more interesting in some ways than what Lakers fans are going through, where so much of it is about just hoping nobody gets hurt.

He does great work as an NBA writer at The Athletic, where he also hosts the recently launched video series The Restricted Area, with Wosny Lambre. But Zach Harper is also a movie guy, hosting the incredibly fun Cinephobe podcast for the Count the Dings network, and that's where we keep things on the Late Night Happy Hour.

We start, as they tend to on Cinephobe, with a deep dive into Nicolas Cage, who might as well be the patron saint of that show, appearing 10 times in 71 total episodes. That's a lot. So how did this guy, who has legit acting chops, end up a cartoon character? Does he deserve all the crap his movies get these days? Can he ever re-legitimize himself, or is he too far gone?

What makes a "good" bad movie? Is Rotten Tomatoes too influential? Why is Deep Blue Sea amazing, while so many movies like it totally suck?

Finally, we cap things off with a hilarious exploration of John Travolta's career via his Rotten Tomatoes score, and it elicits some extreme emotions in Zach.

He's the host of the Locked on Lakers podcast, one of the best ones out there. Anthony Irwin joins the Late Night Happy Hour, talking Lakers, LeBron James, the NBA and more... More in this case being his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers signing Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer. He's excellent at baseball. He's also a well-documented jerk who has harassed women online.

We start, though, with a conversation about what it's like to cover a team that you grew up rooting for as a fan. Where are the boundaries? When can you, ostensibly a journalist trying to provide honest commentary to a group of listeners or readers, use "we" in reference to the team, as "regular" fans might?

LeBron James has made it very, VERY clear he doesn't like the idea of the NBA staging an All Star Game. It's rare for James to be that vocally out of step with the league, so what happens now? For starters, he's given cover for a lot of other players to echo his sentiment. Any shot the league caves, given the amount of revenue the game could generate? Do the league's rank-and-file even want that?

How about the Lakers on Thursday? What did they prove to the rest of the league by stomping the Denver Nuggets as badly as they did over the second half? Was the gear they hit something other teams can match?

From there, we turn to Trevor Bauer. How does a Dodgers fan who wants to take seriously questions of bad behavior, particularly bad behavior towards women, look at the signing? How does this fit into the general trend of compartmentalizing that sports fans have -- or choose -- to do?

CJ Toledano has worked as a comedian, a comedy writer, and a creator/producer of online, socially driven content with Bleacher Report (House of Highlights) and more. Now, he's launched Follow Through, an independent content studio geared towards sports.

The guy knows social media backwards and he joins the Late Night Happy Hour to talk about the tremendous impact social media has had on sports, how its consumed and how leagues and players have reacted. How aware are the big players of this universe of alternatives people engage with?

From there, we turn to comedy. Toledano was born in Iowa and moved to Erie, PA as a kid. Not exactly centers of diversity for a young Asian kid. How that experience laid the foundation for his entry into comedy.

Finally, it's a look at some of the most random sports memorabilia a person can buy... and the person who bought it is CJ Toledano.

Two guests!

We start with Jake Brennan, host of Disgraceland, which enters its seventh season on a new home at Amazon Music. What makes this true crime/music mashup so much fun? Brennan talks about the characters that emerge in rock and roll that tell these stories, and what it's like to bring them to life.

From there, it's onto the gridiron, where the Rams have been very, very busy. We connect with Lindsey Thiry of ESPN to break down the trade of Jared Goff to Detroit for Matthew Stafford, and discuss where the Rams go next.

He's an NBA champion, beloved in Los Angeles and just about everywhere else, and Monday he joined the Late Night Happy Hour with the Kamenetzky Brothers. Metta World Peace has launched a new basketball app, called X vs. X Sports (@xvsxsports), which is designed to bring basketball players together to find games at a common skill level, from rec players to pro prospects.

After a quick recap of the Lakers road trip and rotation changes before Metta joins (at about the 25 minute mark), we talk about what motivated him to develop the app, and what he hopes it becomes. It reflects something fundamental about pickup hoops culture, and why it matters so much to the sport. What's unique about growing up playing ball in the parks of New York vs. LA vs. Chicago? How does it form a player's game? How can XvsX help keep players in the game who might otherwise fall through the cracks?

In that way, his newest venture is an extension of the mental health and community work Metta has engaged in over his career, and after. What helped him speak out so openly about mental health at a time when the stigma, particularly for athletes and men more generally, was still very intense? How does it feel now to see players so much more comfortable talking about mental health?

It's just past the 10 year anniversary of his legendary post-Game 7 press conference, after the Lakers beat the Celtics. We cue it up, and watch it with him. Some of his commentary was surprising (including a desire to be traded early in his first Lakers season that was, at least to us, news). And the stories he told after about the night that followed? Fun, to say the least.

In between, Metta reveals where he'd like to coach, and why that school may not want to hire him, and a lot more. So much fun, with a fantastic human being.

Make sure to check out xvsxsports...

The Late Night Happy Hour welcomes Nekias Duncan (BasketballNews.com, The Dunker Spot podcast) to the show, and he's bringing all kinds of insight.

We start with the Lakers. They've lost two straight - not a big deal - but every team has weaknesses, however relative. Has Nekias seen anything in these games that worry him? (Spoiler... no, not really.) In fact, he wonders if the Lakers haven't been playing with measured effort, meaning they have a lot of upside left to explore. We dive into Dennis Schroder and Montrezl Harrell. What do they need from each guy? Does it really matter if Harrell can't be a force in the playoffs?

Meanwhile, the Clippers are winning games and shooting the lights out behind Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Is it sustainable? Have they solved their point guard problem? What about Lou Williams, who has not performed well this season. Could he be a candidate for trading later in the season?

From there, we look at Anthony Davis, and whether fatigue from a short offseason might be impacting him more than expected, and use that as a jumping off point to explore Nekias' great feature story on the growth of Miami's Bam Adebayo. Is AD a good template for Bam, in terms of potential growth and upside, working with a varied (though admittedly different) skill set? How realistic is it that Adebayo becomes a top 10 player in the league? Could he go higher?

Joel Embiid appears to have made a leap this year. Does that make Philly a legit contender in the Eastern Conference? Is anyone in the West going to challenge the LA teams, when push comes to shove.

Great info, great insight from one of the best young basketball writers out there.

The Late Night Happy Hour welcomes Andy Liu and Sam Esfandiari of the Light Years podcast to the show. Is Steve Kerr's ego holding this year's Warriors back? Certainly these guys are unimpressed with the work he's done to this point of the season. But how good are they supposed to be, anyway? What would they give up in a potential trade for Washington's Bradley Beal? The answer depends a lot on a) how good you think Beal actually is, and b) how much shelf life Steph Curry and Draymond Green still have, and that's before you get to Klay Thompson's health.

One big obstacle? The Lakers and LeBron James, who seems wholly uninterested in any type of decline. That makes big decisions for teams like the Warriors a lot more complex. You can get real good, but still not get over the hill James currently occupies.

So alternatively, how good might James Wiseman become? What about that pick they have from Minnesota? Do they have the player development chops in house to make sure these young players pan out? Is there any chance they'd let Curry go in free agency after next season, and go full rebuild?

If any of these problems sound familiar to Lakers fans, it's because it seems like everything the Warriors have experienced over the last few seasons mirrors some aspect of where the Lakers have been. Excellent for a stretch, then awful (though for far less time in GSW than in LA) and then in a weird spot where there are significant questions about the future. No wonder the fan bases often seem to sound alike.

From there, we talk GameStop, Hilaria Baldwin and Jimmy G's 49ers. It was a VERY packed show, and tons of fun.

On the Late Night Happy Hour, Andy and Brian welcome "You're The Worst" creator Stephen Falk and star Chris Geere to talk about TV, pushing boundaries with comedy, Hollywood in (and after) the COVID era, and YTW's cast reuniting for a Zoom script read to benefit Feeding America.

We open talking about the benefit, and how excited the cast is to get back together. (And we'd encourage everyone to buy tickets!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sunday-funday-a-youre-the-worst-reunion-tickets-135245712567

The five seasons of "You're the Worst" on FX were among the best in TV comedy we've seen in a very, very long time. So what made it that way? We talked about it with Falk and Geere. Talent obviously matters, and the cast had plenty of it, but they also mention some incredible chemistry and personalities that blended well - and quickly - off camera. It was helpful given the horrible things characters often did to each other on-screen.

What are the challenges in pushing barriers in comedy? In creating characters that are watchable and funny, even when they're pretty awful humans? Is it easier to make a show for networks or cable? How might these characters have behaved during the pandemic. Would they be mask wearers? Virus deniers?

What will happen to TV and production when the pandemic ends? How might content change? Will people's appetite for dark or cynical material go down in the wake of 2020?

Finally, what would they want people to take away from the series?