Transcript of GOOD FOLLOW: Breaking Down the Alyssa Thomas Situation, Liberty Win The Commissioner’s Cup, & Phee Is Back!

Denk an den 31.

Juli! Wieso?

Last Call für deine Steuer!

Oh no, ich weiß gar nicht, wo ich anfangen soll.

Bei WISO Steuer, das ist wie Steuererklärung, nur ohne Stress.

Ist das einfach?

Klar, macht fast alles automatisch.

Dauert das lange?

Nö, einfach per App.

Na dann.

Hol dir jetzt dein Geld zurück mit WISO Steuer. Bis zum 31. Juli abgeben.

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to Good Follow presented by DraftKings.

I am the Kid Juju Gotti, joined as always by my sister Trista Crick, fresh from Cannes. Bim, bim, bim! She got that Cannes tan on her too. I see it, sis. How was it? Tell me every damn thing you can.

It was, it was everything, Juju. We don't have a lot of time, but it was phenomenal. Yachts and beaches and Saint-Tropez and, you know, glistening skin and good food. Good times, good people. Lots to be said, lots to be done. So yeah, it was, it was a time. All your favorite people's favorite people were there, man.

It was so good seeing my sister in that light. Because when you overseas and you see them pebbles and cobblestone streets, It just has a certain glow about it. And to see my dog on the cobblestones like this, like, what's happening? Yes sir, straight from Portland, man. But let's get right into it because while you was gone, a lot of smoke been happening in this W, man. Beginning— and I know you can guess, if you had to guess one city where smoke is being smokedified at, Indianapolis would probably be the top 3 guesses. And yes, it has been smoky in Indy. Man, A.T. had a pretty flagrant foul on, on CeCe, you dig? And, and it went really unnoticed in my opinion from the referees. They should have jumped in sooner, made the call, made the flagrant call, bada bing bada boom. But they retroactively did it and caused the shitstorm. What did you think of this mess, sis?

You know, I think it will get to a place where the WNBA is on par with other men's leagues, you know, with the men's leagues, when a foul is just a foul, when a flagrant is just a flagrant, when it's not bringing death threats. And, you know, we don't have think pieces written about it. Like, A'Tea's always been the type of player that plays really hard, plays really physical. And to be honest, I don't even know necessarily if you look at— look in on it and zoom in on it on 4K, it didn't really look like she choked her. It didn't look like she punched her. It looked like she was just fell on her neck. And, and yeah, that's probably a flagrant foul, but they probably should have called that. You think she punched you?

Yeah, she tripped and landed and fell on her neck. I, I get it. It's AT. I salute the AT. You know I mess with you, but come on, bro, sometimes we have our moments. She saw Caitlyn down there, gave her a pow. Sorry, ain't nothing happening. Let me see here.

In my opinion, yeah, I mean, ultimately that's just the sports, right? And I think with when it comes to women and how the outside views how women should be treated. You know, they don't treat them like athletes, they treat them like fragile beings. And so anytime there's physicality, it turns into we need to protect this person, or this person's like a villain or whatever. And then the fan base comes in and does wild shit. So like, to me, it just shows you that the WNBA has a long way to go.

The fans of Caitlin Clark, man, that are the good fans, I salute you, man. I have no problem with you at all. You love basketball, you've been, you've been rooting for Indiana your whole life. But these new fans, these new age people who are using Caitlin to get their hate off, you feel me, online— shame on y'all, bro, because y'all the ones who be doing all of this, go death threats to AT. Come on now, you already know. I thought we supposed to be supporting it.

Crazy.

The same way, back, back to what we was talking about, Izzy and Angel beef. Like, bro, I thought it was us over here, not whenever we offend one of our favorite players This is what she had to say, sis. Can you read that?

Yeah. People are sending racial slurs. The league has to do better. We still have yet to hear anything from Kathy Engelbert. No surprise. That's unfortunate when our lives are being threatened. And then though, what's crazy is now like Kathy's like, I did reach out to her. I got the receipts.

Yeah.

And it's just sticky, icky, icky over here. When it comes down to how the league is treating A.T. and how A.T. is talking about Kathy. Really, the whole thing with Kathy is kind of like, exactly, bruh.

They booed her ass straight up and down to damn New York again too. But did you see what Stephanie White had to say? Because she was right to be upset initially seeing this go on call, and since then, these— oh, I get so frustrated thinking about what the fans is responding to her, but she ain't got nothing but positive things to say about every player and trying to keep the peace between them and the refs. But the fans attacked her as well, saying that, oh, of course this and of course that, doxing her and her relationship now. Like, bro, what is going on, W? Like, I liked it when the W was kind of a little bit more exclusive, damn near, because now that we on the big screen, we dealing with all this chaos. I don't even think it's acceptable, bro.

Well, now folks are making $500K to start instead of $40K. Yeah, so I mean, this is a part of what comes with that growth. But like, again, we gotta be better. Like, we cannot be sensationalizing everything that happens in every moment when it comes down to Caitlin. Otherwise you get clowns like Emmanuel Acho talking about Caitlin Clark is better With the WNBA is better without Caitlin Clark in the league, which is just bananas.

Exactly, man. And did you see what, uh, Chiney had to say? No, let me see. To me, I'm nowhere.

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Overall, officiating has been a universal issue this year, and that's not the goal of any league, but this is reality. There's been a lack of consistency, and this creates a problem in magnifier matchups. And this is a magnifier matchup when you look back at it. Alyssa Thomas, Caitlin Clark, both dominant players, but Alyssa plays on the edge. I know her. And Caitlin sometimes embellishes at times in certain instances. And so when you have a scrum, like you said, there needs to be a hypervigilance, a vigilance. But also, it— this created a position where the league is now forced to be reactive. And instead of having a control of not just calling fouls, now the league is reacting and doing something that it rarely does on a non-call and instituting a suspension. And to me, that was unique. In that situation, if you're watching it in real time, both players who are known to make their issues known got up and kept going. That's why I have a problem because if you're looking at the reaction even to this day, it breaks my heart because Players even in Alyssa Thomas's caliber, whether you think she did it intentionally or not, she's dealing with a heightened level of vitriol right now based off of what this situation created.

And that doesn't sit well with me. If the league could really handle this better in real time and figuring out how, we want more points, we want more fouls, but how do we keep an eye on these specific matchups so we can avoid the narratives getting out of our control? I hope that happens moving forward in the future.

Look, I agree with sis though. It can be cleaned up on the front end, man. These referees have been goofy and goofier. What's the Goofy Movie with his son in it? That's the referees tonight, bruh. Inconsistency up and down. I'm now training to be a referee my damn self so I can clean some of this stuff up, man. All right, we're gonna be back after these messages.

For sure.

Welcome, welcome back, man. Oh man, oh, it's a couple of months ago if you remember, the New York Knicks won the Commissioner Cup, damn near, aka the— what's the Emirates Cup? Yep, that's going to win the Finals. Breaking news, the New York Liberty has won the Commissioner Cup! Is this a sign of what's to come? Sabrina was looking Sabrina-ish. What you think about them boys over there in New York?

Listen, when I hear people want to sully the names of big-time stars in this WNBA, I think back to how all last year, Juju, we were saying, oh man, the Aces look cooked. Oh man, Chelsea Gray don't look good. Oh man, what's wrong with Jewel Lloyd? Oh man, it's just Asia out there. And then they rattled off 19 games in a row. They won the damn title. So if people want to besmirch Brianna Stewart, y'all can take that. Y'all can hold that. I don't care what her 3-point percentage is right now. What I know is she's a DAWG when it comes to winning time. Same thing with Sabrina Ionescu. Sabrina Ionescu hasn't had good playoffs in the past. When they won the title, she didn't have a good playoffs against the Minnesota Lynx. I don't care, she still hit that big fucking shot, Juju, against the Lynx, and she still hit that shot in the Commissioner's Cup. So listen, you don't want to see the Liberty at full strength because they will look absolutely nasty.

Oh, no pun intended. T clapping, whatever, whatever I got to do. Clock that, drop the mic, damn it. But speaking of being back over in the West Side, a lady by the name of M.V. Fee has been spotted in the practice facility. What do you think about that?

They're a problem. The Minnesota Lynx right now, already without Dorka, without Fee, are a problem. Now they're game-time decisions every damn game. People should be scared. I don't know what the acclimation period is going to look like to have Fee back, to have Dorka back, and what that's going to do to the rotations. But this team looks so good, they look so dangerous that I feel like adding those two back just makes them even more of a problem.

What you think?

Exactly, bro, because Tasha Howard, it's like you get her some help now. She been eating gobbles Scooby Snacks left and right. By her damn self. You put Phi on that side, you put Big Dork on that side to help get some of them tip-backs, man, I don't see how this is going to be anything other than doom for what, the rest of the season? Because our best friend, my point guard of the fucking millennium, Olivia Miles— oh my God, you giving her two more targets Not only two targets, two Connecticut targets went through the Geno system. Come on, man. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be when the hee-hees is supposed to be. Come on, bro. I don't see nothing but Rocket Ships. I'm picking them for the finals this year, damn near.

Same, same, Juju. This is a finals team. It's just up to either the Las Vegas Aces or the New York Liberty to get it together.

Yeah, get it together. I'm talking about all the way, if you can. More than likely though, I gotta give you some props because before we get up out of here, I'm gonna keep it real with you. We had a segment where we said Ariel Atkins, did she deserve to get locked up? And I said some things that may have not been right, and you said a lot of things that may have been 100% true. I'ma keep it there. We go, but we gonna check up out of here, man. That's gonna do it for another week of Good Follow, man. Make sure you subscribe to all the Good Follow's YouTube pages and all of his socials @goodfollowshow, man.

And make sure you catch us every Thursday. I'm in goldfish brain now, Juju. Every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast, YouTube, and we will see you next week.

Yes, sir.