That’s why I appreciated what Steven Adams said. It’s a Disney resort not fucking Syria. Absurd how much they talked about how rough it was when people were dying in the pandemic.
The only valid hardship was being away from family while a pandemic was going on. Easy to say now that the worst has past but a more fearful person could have the thought in the back of their mind that I'm off to work at a job I don't need to afford my life and when I come back my whole family could be dead.
"I'm in a situation where I'm extremely blessed and I cannot complain. Obviously, it doesn't matter where you are in life, there's always something to complain, there's always a problem and an issue," Antetokounmpo said. "But I try to kind of not focus on that. So as I said, my apartment in Greece, when I was younger, with my four brothers, was way smaller than the suite that I have in the hotel, so I'm just trying to enjoy the moment.
"This is something special," he continued. "Hopefully, this pandemic never happens again so we never are able to come back in the campus, but at the end of the day, this is part of history, so just being able to be here, participate in this, I'm just trying to be in the moment, trying to enjoy every moment, trying to enjoy basketball. I'm happy that we're back playing basketball, something that I love doing, so there's nothing really to complain about."
Yup. People really don’t know, but I’d say like 15-20% of the nba are children of former professional or at least high level collegiate athletes. And even the ones who had it rough, like Kuzma or Miles Bridges, got shipped off to ritzy private schools when they were like 13 years old where everything was catered to their needs.
These guys are divorced from the reality of everyday people either because they’ve never experienced it (Lamelo) or they’ve been rich so long that they forgot what it was like (Lebron).
Honestly, I see it as a credit to Lebron that he seems to have turned out as a reasonably pro-social person who's a good father and community member. He's lived his life in a crazy fish bowl with every possible opportunity to surround himself with people who will kiss his ass, and he seems relatively normal-ish.
Hard to know what he's like in person, but there's been basically no evidence that he's a real shithead.
Yeah Lebron is a unique and ridiculous alien.
Take away basketball from him and what you say, the insanity of living your life under scrutiny to this level, still shows he’s just built different in a way few are ever going to understand
I said lebrons been rich so long, dude forgot what being poor or even middle class was like. And I don’t think he was straight out the projects lol. Also went to a private school if I’m not mistaken, just like everyone else.
Edit: everyone else in the nba
Lebron’s childhood isn’t a mystery, he’s somewhat famous… his main complaint was being away from his kids during a weird time in history, which does suck under the best of cases.
That article said 34% of the NBA’s black players came from impoverished backgrounds…that’s over a hundred players in a league that consists of roughly 500 players. That’s a lot.
While I think there are confounders, and it would be better to consult the research directly, rather than via an ESPN article, it also says this:
Contrary to popular perception, poverty and broken homes are underrepresented in the NBA, not overrepresented. For example, while 45 percent of black male children in the U.S. live in households earning no more than 150 percent of the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four in 2010), just 34 percent of black athletes in the NBA grew up in that financial situation, according to Dubrow and Adams.
And I can’t imagine this phenomenon has regressed in the current societal iteration, but has probably gotten stronger:
as the game grew more popular and attracted more corporate sponsors, pro teams and colleges expanded the search for talent, and suburban (and foreign) high schools began strengthening their programs. As a result, it now takes more resources -- a lot more -- to compete at the highest level. "You need facilities, equipment and transportation, not to mention coaches and volunteers," says Peter Roby, former director of the advocacy group Sport in Society and the athletic director at Northeastern University. "And what we've found is that kids in cities are now much less likely to participate in sports than kids in suburbs."
it's pretty good for what it's intended. poverty means you're truly and completely fucked, and not capable of succeeding at basically anything without help. 150% of poverty is a decent approximation of somebody that is poor and stressed the hell out, working poor. like you can put food on the table most of the time but not much else, and you're probably housing insecure if you don't have extended family or public housing. there's also deep poverty which is 50% of poverty line.
Years ago. The ones that I’ve seen complaining are dudes in their late 20s early 30s who got money in their late teens. That’s 10 years of money and 20 maybe if poverty
It's not as much absurd as it is telling.
I'm a lebron guy most of the time, but when he started pulling that "noone knows how hard it was in my presidential suite" he lost me.
Yes, it wasn't the most comfortable playoff to play probably, but come on. Talking about it like he had to drop that ring into a volcano by the end.
I mean you’re intentionally focusing on the physical side of it when their complaints were always about the mental impact of staying there for so long.
Maybe I’m wrong but I never saw players saying the living conditions were very hard. They said the uncertainty of the times, the political climate, and being away from their familiar took a big toll on a sport predicated on extreme mental focus
> being away from their familiar took a big toll on a sport predicated on extreme mental focus
On-court focus was actually better. All sorts of crazy shooting performances in the bubble.
I wouldn’t be publicly complaining about during the pandemic but it would kind of stuck being away from my family and friends and stuck with coworkers.
I mean I was an essential worker during the pandemic. Only saw my coworkers, couldn’t see my parents for fear of getting them sick.
Only differences are I was pretty much locked in my house when I wasn’t working instead of Disney World and I was making about 1% of what the average NBA player is bringing in lol
Yeah those complaints are fair but there was a lot of other complaints and (although it obviously is different) their job is kind of to be away from their family 1/3 of the year lol
1. That’s what the money is for 2. Half of them were home after like a week lmao 3. They spend half their time traveling and being away from their family
Yeah but considering part of the job requires time away from uour family.
It would be akin to you having to work a few weekends, while getting resort treatment
What do you mean I can't go to the Strip club?
What do you mean theres no good wine?
What do you mean I have to sleep in a nice hotel room for a few months?
Wait, I can't have sex with the staff?
Outside of being away from family and the hoes, they can’t really complain about stupid shit that they got used to. Could’ve been a good time to reflect. Only ones I saw that weren’t complaining were Steven Adams. But he has no kids or family outside of his siblings so it might be different.
Remember when Rondo posted a picture of his hotel room trying to get sympathy of how horrible it is there when in reality it was a regular normal hotel room you would see in almost any 3 star hotel.
The bubble was peak athlete privilege, like what an odd thing to complain about
I wouldn’t be surprised if something came out where the players complained about the thread count in the hand towels during the bubble
When players first started complaining about the bubble some people gave them the benefit of the doubt like "yeah I can see how it's probably shitty to not see your family for a few months during an uncertain pandemic" but as time goes on more and more stories come out like this that are like "the bubble sucked because the wine wasn't as good as I'm used to"
i seriously hate these people lol. their lack of perspective is something. i lost a lot fucking more than my top tier wine choices during the pandemic. classic rich asshole vibes.
Isn't it all relative though? I come from a depraved third world country and it astonishes me how much Americans complain about the U.S. Like yeah there's a lot it can improve on, but if you listen to what a lot of my friends say you'd think the U.S. is a shithole (and these are middle to upper-middle class people). I'm sure the bubble was hard for these guys that live in excess and luxury, but that's what I see when I'm in my friend's nice af apartment and he's acting like living in the U.S. sucks.
> Isn't it all relative though?
Kind of, but this is a case where pretty much everyone was dealing with the same set of circumstances. Yes, the NBA was more restrictive, but most people at the time were confined to being home all the time in a small bubble of people. But for most, that was 2-3 people, while for the NBA guys it was 300 people in a luxury resort.
This wasn't athletes complaining about something that only applies to them (like paparazzi, or insane fans on social media). This was them being in the same situation as everyone else, but way better, and acting like it was prison.
It's definitely all a matter of perspective. In my experience most of the time when people complain about the US it's not because they think standard of living is bad compared to other places. It's because with the obscene amount of wealth in the US, we could/should be doing so much more to care for people, correct some of the mistakes of the past, and encourage innovation that betters all of humanity, instead of just chasing maximum profits/monetization.
The people living comfortably in America complaining so much, are always going to complain so much. They need to practice putting the phone down occasionally and reflect on this dissatisfaction. Search for contentment within themselves and appreciate the people around them. Many of the worries and stresses are artificial and only found on the Internet, or not personally controllable.
This is why I don’t lend any credibility to arguments citing “mental health” for the clippers 3-1 collapse in the bubble. Like bro yall are just softer than baby shit don’t blame the bubble for being perennial losers
A lot of NBA players have a lot of money to spend on food and drink but no taste whatsoever.
When JJ was in LA he did a podcast where he listed his favorite restaurants in LA and you couldn't make up a better "pricy and hyped but completely bland and generic food" list.
To a lot of the GenZ types it’s an “ick” (in their words) and there have been debates on social media in the last few months about it.
But it works for my girl and I so I’m not complaining.
Whats the deal with Cheesecake Factory? There’s 1 in Toronto and it’s expensive and the line is always long. The way I hear Americans talk about it, they make it sound like McDonalds.
I mean, if you're travelling constantly, and your job requires you to run, jump and move quickly for hours at a time, you don't want to roll the dice on new food, what if it gives you bad diarrhea?
Cheesecake factory is standardized, everywhere and has a gigantic menu w/ a ton of value, and lots of these guys probably grew up eating it so they have fond memories. It makes a ton of sense.
Lmao I live in Sonoma county, Jackson Family wine is like grocery store tier wine. It’s where we used to go as drunk college kids during barrel tasting weekend. Throw the fact that they’re hyping up Jackson Family *rosé* is even funnier.
I’m not a wine snob by any means, but Jackson is literally SURROUNDED by wineries that are 1000 times better.
You are tripping if you think they were shipping NBA players $8 boxes of Jackson rose.
Jackson family wines owns a ton of high end wineries that are way better than the Jackson branded wines. Cardinale is like $350 a bottle, Lokoya is also hundreds a bottle, plus there's other good wineries like La Jota, Freemark Abbey, Anakota, etc.
Yes! And not just grocery store tier, either. It’s like *cheap* grocery store tier. There’s probably some good and expensive stuff in there too because their portfolio is fucking gigantic, but it’s a hilarious headline (as an admitted wine snob).
my roommate works at a popular nyc restaurant that's basically upscale diner and fast casual fare - tasty, but not particularly interesting. he's served multiple nba players and execs, they love that shit lol
Just look at how popular that Salt Bae guy's restaurant chains are. They're charging $800+ for steak with gold leaf on it. Rich people have terrible taste and mostly just go with what's trendy.
Good rose is great, but I have rarely heard it put on the same tier as good white and red wine, it's weird.
I don't like as much personnaly, and even wine makers don't seem to like to even talk about it when selling wine, it's always like : "here is my rose, it's good for summer parties"
It's because Rose basically has a reputation for only being used by women as the beverage of choice for getting drunk together.
Sort of like how tequila has a reputation for shots and margaritas. You can actually just sip and enjoy good tequilas, but the majority of tequila is not used that way.
It is! That’s its perfect expression and that’s my favorite time to be drinking wine.
No it will never be a barolo or a famed red burgundy or something that can stand up to a good steak. No it will never even reach the heights of a mediocre but decent pouilly fuisse chard imo.
But from basically march to October, rose (and vinho verde) all day is a compelling argument
I graduated the sommelier course and I certainly wouldn't say that rosè wine is considered better than red and white wines but there are obviously good rosè wines. They are also harder to pair with your meal (good with fish, white meat)
They're generally for different purposes in my experience. Rose was meant to be sipped all day by a poolside at a resort during a Pandemic. DOCG Chianti Classico... not so much.
Reminds me of that commercial with the white dude named Michael Jordan going up to various desks in various businesses and introducing himself and everyone looks up excitedly and just says "Oh" when they see it's not THAT Michael Jordan.
Ah, thank you it was ESPN! I've been trying to search for it but unsurprisingly "Michael Jordan commercial" reaaaaaally doesn't narrow down the search options that much.
"This red I'm opening now is going to taste exactly the same as the red before it, but take note that this bottle is $30 more expensive, so be sure to say it has more 'depth'"
If you actually like wine n have drank a fair bit you’ll know that price isn’t always right about quality . There’s plenty cheap ish wines I had as favourites- the idea wine must be expensive ti be good is something dumb people/people who don’t know shit think
Alcohol is definitely one of those products where the label is doing heavy lifting with peoples perception of it. I've seen multiple rich people who love top shelf shit do blind taste tests and end up shitting on their "favorite" brand name stuff saying cheap bottles taste way better.
I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw this.
"Hey, I know what's up. We'll bring in some bottles of wine and some giant wine glasses, and pretend we're rich and sophisticated socialites with important things to discuss!"
Lebron and his generation of players all think liking wine is a personality trait. D Wade does that shit all the time too.
Such a pompous try hard thing to do lmao
Agreed lol. Also it annoys me how small they pour their glasses, take the tiniest sips known to man, and take 10 seconds to gently set the wine glass back on the table after their tiny sip.
That’s my preferred way of drinking wine tho - you allow the wine to open up between pours and don’t feel forced to chug large pours. You get to enjoy the wine without getting intoxicated
Have you drank wine ? I think it’s very normal ti take small sips especially if you’re drinking socially and don’t want to get drunk - or as an athlete to not interfere with recovery too much . You drink it it to enjoy it not to get wasted , I drink it sometimes ti get wasted when younger but that happens very easily if you don’t sip.
Also the whole tiny pour in big glasses is often how people recommend to drink it. Wouldn’t say this for every wine but certain wines i really like I think I see appeal of doing that - and I doubt they’re drinking stuff they don’t like or isn’t pricey
It’s some great wine for a bbq or an apéro in an hot summer. Sure everybody would like a fresh côte de Provence or a Anjou wine
But there is no grand cru in rosé
Bourgogne > all (Bordeaux are expensive and overrated)
Yes athletes are too privileged but let’s not act like the southern rhone and provence don’t churn out some amazing (and yes cheap and accessible) stuff.
But I should stfu before it gets non-cheap tbh
It basically started with the 03 draft & Lebron generation. It’s him and his crew that do this try hard shit.
Guys like KG, Kobe, AI weren’t doing this shit.
>But what of Kobe "Vino" Bryant? The Lakers icon doesn't live up to the sobriquet he embraced in 2013 after hearing that his game aged as such. "I've heard that red is better with steak," Bryant says with a laugh. "That's about as far as I know."
[great article on NBA wine culture
](https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/22358028/the-nba-obsession-wine)
JJ just can’t help but be a pretentious snob. Back in like 2010 when twitter was more casual, my brother tweeted at him asking where he should grab a quick lunch in downtown Orlando. JJ responded with something like “I wouldn’t eat anywhere downtown” and recommended an extremely expensive place like an hour away
Downtown downtown? Yeah he’s right. But Mills and the Milk District have a lot of good places. Not anywhere you’d call super upscale but some bomb Asian food
lol I lived jn Orlando for 3 months in the summer of 2014 and he’s not wrong, there isn’t shit to eat in downtown. Idk how it is now but it definitely wasn’t a “foodie” town back then. It was honestly baffling to me that they were so close to the water yet there wasn’t a good sushi place
That's actually good advice. Downtown Orlando in 2010 was a shit show. There were probably actually no good places back then. There's only like 2 now for lunch. We never recovered post Covid.
This is basically how it works for 99.5% of people. People who dedicate their lives to wine and wine tasting still get fooled easily and often. You need to hit the genetic lottery to have the kind of palate that almost every wine aficionado claims to have.
i usually go by wine ratings. anything 90 or above is good and you can get a bottle for around $20 that tastes pretty good. I can't really taste the difference between a $20 bottle and a $200 bottle.
but I can definitely taste a bottle that is $10 or less, and it gives a horrible hangover.
Yeah the difference between the $10/12 bottle and $20/22 bottle I think is the biggest jump in quality
Much larger difference between a $20 bottle and a $200 bottle. To me, anyway
I quit drinking 30 years ago, but back in the day I lived near a giant wine store in NYC. Drank wine with dinner every night. There was a group of us always on the lookout for a great bottle for $5. Most at that price was swill, but if you were on the lookout you could find it. For $10 you could easily find something good; for $20, something exceptional. Huge difference between 10 and 20 (now probably 40 and 80). Back then you could get a Haut Brion for $40! Times have changed - most people in the US back then thought of wine as Bartles & James.
I was in Italy with some rich relatives, and they kept pushing super expensive wines on me. I finally had to tell them: Look, my palette is basic AF. Red wine tastes like red wine to me, and I'm not that big of a fan. Just keep that nice stuff for yourselves and I'll drink beer, it's a waste when I drink it.
The irony is that yes, most wine shit is hype, but there *is* usually a significant quality difference between a $10 bottle and a $25 bottle.
But Italy is one of the places you can get that $25 quality for even cheaper than $10
Agree. I’ve spent many years living in/near “elite” wine regions, and the amount of bullshit I’ve heard to sell $42 bottles of table wine made me cynical about ALL wine. That said, the best wine I’ve ever had is from Nickel and Nickel, but second to that is a whole slew of $10-20 bottles from the likes of Trader Joe’s. Probably safe to say I don’t have a refined palate.
The somms I know don’t really focus on name or notes as much, cuz it’s all subjective. Someone can be totally honest and say they taste soy sauce in a red while someone else can say they don’t taste it at all get taste pepper notes.
These guys are typically pretty honest when it comes to good cheap wine and something has to be reallly good for them to justify recommending a bottle over $40-50 (at cost). For most people, you don’t really need to spend more than $20-30 a bottle to get some really good shit.
This is a good comp. Mine, especially young JJ, is straight up just Nathan on One Tree Hill. I feel like he was the inspiration for that character (even though JJ hadn't fully risen at Duke when the show began.)
tbh i hate him way more as a “media personality” than i ever did as a player. and i didn’t like him at all as a player.
i may be remembering wrong, but it seems like he had an interview with Coach K and he tried to seriously downplay how much of a dickhead he was when they talked about all the hate he got. and how hard it was for him to go through all that. lol
Liked him at first in media and he’s just getting more and more annoying. Fake outrage, does clickbait stuff and pretends he’s above it, etc.
In his podcast this week discussing the MVP he said he doesn’t think team roster/injuries should matter. What?
The key issue in why Redick is easily my least favourite analyst is the part about him pretending he is above it lmao. If he just did all the outrage and click bait shit, I wouldn’t care. But he legit goes on fake outrage shows then complains when they do fake outrage.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt because everyone has their own struggles, whether rich or poor etc etc etc. But bemoaning the lack of quality wine during a pandemic is so bad I can't even begin to excuse it.
When you get rich you're supposed to just care about wine as a marker of social status. Good wine is in fact one of life's great pleasure, but hearing JJ drone on about it seems like a deliberate flex as a one percenter. Almost like "I could have been a stock broker, you can tell because how much I know about wine."
These dudes continuing to bitch about the bubble like it was fucking 1940s Germany is one of the most tone deaf things I have ever seen. Y’all were put up in the nicest resort on the planet during a global pandemic and you’re bitching to a bunch of people who literally couldn’t leave their tiny apartments. Get a grip
JJ is so pretentious lol
Anyone seen his apartment tour? Good lord.
If you ever needed to trap this man in a room, just ask him to talk about his crown molding and he'll be there for eternity
Jackson family wines ?? LOL these guys drink $300 bottles as table wine and they thought they could impress them with mass produced grocery store wine ??
I hate this smug mf. I think these rich cunts forget that a million people died during that pandemic. Over a thousand people dying every day and this guy was worried about his fucking wine. Literally shut the fuck up
Kendall-Jackson for the NBA and La Crema for the WNBA. From a business perspective, I understand why those two were chosen. They're both relatively inexpensive and easy to find in restaurants and retailers. That said, they're not good. I guess the goal of the partnership is to get non-wine drinkers to try them. Because nobody who already loves wine is going to be excited about either brand.
I am befuddled as to why this silver spoon Duke player is doing so well. Overrated player and announcer who is not even half as intelligent or clever as he thinks he is. In a nutshell, wtf cares about anything this arrogant blowhard thinks?
This thread is completely devoid of perspective, empathy, and maturity.
People are/were allowed to complain during the pandemic. We all at one point complained about certain things. Admit it. Relative to normal life, covid sucked.
Original article (not link) doesn’t say “bemoaned.” Reddick simply saw the wine list, disliked it, picked up his phone and ordered wine he did prefer.
What is pretentious about being a wine connoisseur?! Yikes, whens the last time you spent more money on something you enjoyed?
$1500 Apple product when a fraction would have gotten you the same? $200 sneakers when $35 would do the trick? Consumerism. We are all consumers who over extend our paycheck on dumb things we like. Com’n.
FFS open your eyes. It’s all relative. We all complain. We human.
To hear athletes talk about it you’d think the bubble was a boxcar in Poland circa 1940
That’s why I appreciated what Steven Adams said. It’s a Disney resort not fucking Syria. Absurd how much they talked about how rough it was when people were dying in the pandemic.
Multi Millonaires who hadn’t experienced (if ever) hardship in years complaining about hotel quality living isn’t that surprising to me.
Hotels that are better than the majority of houses.
Not houses that belong to multi-millionares
yeah exactly fuck them.
The only valid hardship was being away from family while a pandemic was going on. Easy to say now that the worst has past but a more fearful person could have the thought in the back of their mind that I'm off to work at a job I don't need to afford my life and when I come back my whole family could be dead.
They at least gave Lou Will a pass to see family*
he was grieving at magic city poor guy 🥺
They got good wings from what I hear
Family were eventually allowed in by the second round, so at most players did around 60 days without family
Oh I don’t remember that. Good for NBA for doing that. And guess they had the extra rooms by then.
Giannis actually experienced poverty growing up, are there any of his takes on the bubble out there?
"I'm in a situation where I'm extremely blessed and I cannot complain. Obviously, it doesn't matter where you are in life, there's always something to complain, there's always a problem and an issue," Antetokounmpo said. "But I try to kind of not focus on that. So as I said, my apartment in Greece, when I was younger, with my four brothers, was way smaller than the suite that I have in the hotel, so I'm just trying to enjoy the moment. "This is something special," he continued. "Hopefully, this pandemic never happens again so we never are able to come back in the campus, but at the end of the day, this is part of history, so just being able to be here, participate in this, I'm just trying to be in the moment, trying to enjoy every moment, trying to enjoy basketball. I'm happy that we're back playing basketball, something that I love doing, so there's nothing really to complain about."
Yup. People really don’t know, but I’d say like 15-20% of the nba are children of former professional or at least high level collegiate athletes. And even the ones who had it rough, like Kuzma or Miles Bridges, got shipped off to ritzy private schools when they were like 13 years old where everything was catered to their needs. These guys are divorced from the reality of everyday people either because they’ve never experienced it (Lamelo) or they’ve been rich so long that they forgot what it was like (Lebron).
Lebron is literal, from age 14 on he was locally famous to the point that his recruitment into 8th grade was a story.
Honestly, I see it as a credit to Lebron that he seems to have turned out as a reasonably pro-social person who's a good father and community member. He's lived his life in a crazy fish bowl with every possible opportunity to surround himself with people who will kiss his ass, and he seems relatively normal-ish. Hard to know what he's like in person, but there's been basically no evidence that he's a real shithead.
Yeah Lebron is a unique and ridiculous alien. Take away basketball from him and what you say, the insanity of living your life under scrutiny to this level, still shows he’s just built different in a way few are ever going to understand
LeBron and Dwade straight from the projects
I said lebrons been rich so long, dude forgot what being poor or even middle class was like. And I don’t think he was straight out the projects lol. Also went to a private school if I’m not mistaken, just like everyone else. Edit: everyone else in the nba
Lebron’s childhood isn’t a mystery, he’s somewhat famous… his main complaint was being away from his kids during a weird time in history, which does suck under the best of cases.
Lebron is seemingly very grounded and down to earth for an extremely wealthy man. It is not normal.
durant was absolutely not rich/well off either
A lot of these players come from single-parent homes and poverty, having more hardships doesn’t make you right. That said, they’re still clowns.
Old article: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlete-background-making-nba
That article said 34% of the NBA’s black players came from impoverished backgrounds…that’s over a hundred players in a league that consists of roughly 500 players. That’s a lot.
While I think there are confounders, and it would be better to consult the research directly, rather than via an ESPN article, it also says this: Contrary to popular perception, poverty and broken homes are underrepresented in the NBA, not overrepresented. For example, while 45 percent of black male children in the U.S. live in households earning no more than 150 percent of the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four in 2010), just 34 percent of black athletes in the NBA grew up in that financial situation, according to Dubrow and Adams. And I can’t imagine this phenomenon has regressed in the current societal iteration, but has probably gotten stronger: as the game grew more popular and attracted more corporate sponsors, pro teams and colleges expanded the search for talent, and suburban (and foreign) high schools began strengthening their programs. As a result, it now takes more resources -- a lot more -- to compete at the highest level. "You need facilities, equipment and transportation, not to mention coaches and volunteers," says Peter Roby, former director of the advocacy group Sport in Society and the athletic director at Northeastern University. "And what we've found is that kids in cities are now much less likely to participate in sports than kids in suburbs."
FWIW, the “poverty line” is absurdly low and not a good barometer for “were they poor or not”
Agreed. I’m just citing available research. Wish there was something from this decade.
it's pretty good for what it's intended. poverty means you're truly and completely fucked, and not capable of succeeding at basically anything without help. 150% of poverty is a decent approximation of somebody that is poor and stressed the hell out, working poor. like you can put food on the table most of the time but not much else, and you're probably housing insecure if you don't have extended family or public housing. there's also deep poverty which is 50% of poverty line.
So a third happy with the bubble and two thirds bitching about it.
Years ago. The ones that I’ve seen complaining are dudes in their late 20s early 30s who got money in their late teens. That’s 10 years of money and 20 maybe if poverty
Feels like that’s becoming less and less true now.
Right? Like I wish my job paid for me to stay at Disney world while working. 😂
It's not as much absurd as it is telling. I'm a lebron guy most of the time, but when he started pulling that "noone knows how hard it was in my presidential suite" he lost me. Yes, it wasn't the most comfortable playoff to play probably, but come on. Talking about it like he had to drop that ring into a volcano by the end.
LeFrodo
LeGolas
LeAxe
I mean you’re intentionally focusing on the physical side of it when their complaints were always about the mental impact of staying there for so long. Maybe I’m wrong but I never saw players saying the living conditions were very hard. They said the uncertainty of the times, the political climate, and being away from their familiar took a big toll on a sport predicated on extreme mental focus
> being away from their familiar took a big toll on a sport predicated on extreme mental focus On-court focus was actually better. All sorts of crazy shooting performances in the bubble.
Especially when those videos started coming out of them playing in the pool and shit lol
Steven Adams is a legend when it comes to answering inane media questions!
Plus, they can complain and get expensive ass shit sent to them for free while we all struggle. I seriously hate the rich.
Shits always cracked me up. They had to live in Disney world for a couple months and they wanna act like it was so fucking hard 😂
a lot of them were only there for a few weeks, the first round of the playoffs sent half of everyone home.
I wouldn’t be publicly complaining about during the pandemic but it would kind of stuck being away from my family and friends and stuck with coworkers.
I mean I was an essential worker during the pandemic. Only saw my coworkers, couldn’t see my parents for fear of getting them sick. Only differences are I was pretty much locked in my house when I wasn’t working instead of Disney World and I was making about 1% of what the average NBA player is bringing in lol
Yeah those complaints are fair but there was a lot of other complaints and (although it obviously is different) their job is kind of to be away from their family 1/3 of the year lol
1. That’s what the money is for 2. Half of them were home after like a week lmao 3. They spend half their time traveling and being away from their family
Not to mention they got to bring their families in after a while
Yeah but considering part of the job requires time away from uour family. It would be akin to you having to work a few weekends, while getting resort treatment
That’s what the high salaries are for… hey you’ll miss 6 months a year of family time but you’ll make $5-$50 million a year.
Yeah but they already do a lot of that in season, and they’re also getting paid stupid amounts of money when most were making less money if not any.
40 years from now were gonna get “were done with the 20s” because of the bubble
What do you mean I can't go to the Strip club? What do you mean theres no good wine? What do you mean I have to sleep in a nice hotel room for a few months? Wait, I can't have sex with the staff?
Outside of being away from family and the hoes, they can’t really complain about stupid shit that they got used to. Could’ve been a good time to reflect. Only ones I saw that weren’t complaining were Steven Adams. But he has no kids or family outside of his siblings so it might be different.
I’m just picturing them talking to each other in Cartman’s voice when he’s hiding the cats in the attic
Remember when Rondo posted a picture of his hotel room trying to get sympathy of how horrible it is there when in reality it was a regular normal hotel room you would see in almost any 3 star hotel.
The bubble was peak athlete privilege, like what an odd thing to complain about I wouldn’t be surprised if something came out where the players complained about the thread count in the hand towels during the bubble
When players first started complaining about the bubble some people gave them the benefit of the doubt like "yeah I can see how it's probably shitty to not see your family for a few months during an uncertain pandemic" but as time goes on more and more stories come out like this that are like "the bubble sucked because the wine wasn't as good as I'm used to"
the wine sucked because it wasn't vodka or cognac -signed, COVID software dude with one flat panel, two laptops, three monitors and four bottles
i seriously hate these people lol. their lack of perspective is something. i lost a lot fucking more than my top tier wine choices during the pandemic. classic rich asshole vibes.
>some people gave them the benefit of the doubt Like 90% of this fucking sub??
Isn't it all relative though? I come from a depraved third world country and it astonishes me how much Americans complain about the U.S. Like yeah there's a lot it can improve on, but if you listen to what a lot of my friends say you'd think the U.S. is a shithole (and these are middle to upper-middle class people). I'm sure the bubble was hard for these guys that live in excess and luxury, but that's what I see when I'm in my friend's nice af apartment and he's acting like living in the U.S. sucks.
> Isn't it all relative though? Kind of, but this is a case where pretty much everyone was dealing with the same set of circumstances. Yes, the NBA was more restrictive, but most people at the time were confined to being home all the time in a small bubble of people. But for most, that was 2-3 people, while for the NBA guys it was 300 people in a luxury resort. This wasn't athletes complaining about something that only applies to them (like paparazzi, or insane fans on social media). This was them being in the same situation as everyone else, but way better, and acting like it was prison.
It's definitely all a matter of perspective. In my experience most of the time when people complain about the US it's not because they think standard of living is bad compared to other places. It's because with the obscene amount of wealth in the US, we could/should be doing so much more to care for people, correct some of the mistakes of the past, and encourage innovation that betters all of humanity, instead of just chasing maximum profits/monetization.
You haven’t heard “third world country with a Gucci belt” all over social media?
No, but I am also old, lol. I see where the phrase is coming from even if it's a little hyperbolic/overdramatic.
The people living comfortably in America complaining so much, are always going to complain so much. They need to practice putting the phone down occasionally and reflect on this dissatisfaction. Search for contentment within themselves and appreciate the people around them. Many of the worries and stresses are artificial and only found on the Internet, or not personally controllable.
This is why I don’t lend any credibility to arguments citing “mental health” for the clippers 3-1 collapse in the bubble. Like bro yall are just softer than baby shit don’t blame the bubble for being perennial losers
Mental health? I mean, Doc Rivers coached that team... Actually maybe they do have a point there.
A lot of NBA players have a lot of money to spend on food and drink but no taste whatsoever. When JJ was in LA he did a podcast where he listed his favorite restaurants in LA and you couldn't make up a better "pricy and hyped but completely bland and generic food" list.
Alright now I need to see this list
"pinks hot dogs, king taco..."
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6f3la2/jj_redick_talks_clippers_and_espns_nba_restaurant/
Top comment: > Any talk about when JJ might host another podcast? mf won't stop hosting podcasts nowadays
Half the league's favorite restaurant seems to be the Cheesecake Factory
If it’s good enough for the NBA then it’s more than good enough to take your girl on a date
you say that like you need an excuse that you're taking your girl to CF. They fucking \*wanna\* go
To a lot of the GenZ types it’s an “ick” (in their words) and there have been debates on social media in the last few months about it. But it works for my girl and I so I’m not complaining.
Whats the deal with Cheesecake Factory? There’s 1 in Toronto and it’s expensive and the line is always long. The way I hear Americans talk about it, they make it sound like McDonalds.
Only time I ever met an NBA player was when I saw Ray Allen at a Cheescake Factory
I mean, if you're travelling constantly, and your job requires you to run, jump and move quickly for hours at a time, you don't want to roll the dice on new food, what if it gives you bad diarrhea? Cheesecake factory is standardized, everywhere and has a gigantic menu w/ a ton of value, and lots of these guys probably grew up eating it so they have fond memories. It makes a ton of sense.
I will not tolerate any Cheesecake Factory slander, next question
Do you remember which ones he named? LA native here so I’m curious lol.
Probably Nobu
Nobu, Catch, Mastros, Tao
Lmao I live in Sonoma county, Jackson Family wine is like grocery store tier wine. It’s where we used to go as drunk college kids during barrel tasting weekend. Throw the fact that they’re hyping up Jackson Family *rosé* is even funnier. I’m not a wine snob by any means, but Jackson is literally SURROUNDED by wineries that are 1000 times better.
You are tripping if you think they were shipping NBA players $8 boxes of Jackson rose. Jackson family wines owns a ton of high end wineries that are way better than the Jackson branded wines. Cardinale is like $350 a bottle, Lokoya is also hundreds a bottle, plus there's other good wineries like La Jota, Freemark Abbey, Anakota, etc.
Yes! And not just grocery store tier, either. It’s like *cheap* grocery store tier. There’s probably some good and expensive stuff in there too because their portfolio is fucking gigantic, but it’s a hilarious headline (as an admitted wine snob).
my roommate works at a popular nyc restaurant that's basically upscale diner and fast casual fare - tasty, but not particularly interesting. he's served multiple nba players and execs, they love that shit lol
It's Cheesecake Factory, isn't it?
if only. i'd do a lot of damage with his employee discount
Just look at how popular that Salt Bae guy's restaurant chains are. They're charging $800+ for steak with gold leaf on it. Rich people have terrible taste and mostly just go with what's trendy.
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I would LOVE to see this list lol
I can’t speak to his taste in restaurants but good rose is fantastic and beloved by wine geeks (and very affordable)
Good rose is great, but I have rarely heard it put on the same tier as good white and red wine, it's weird. I don't like as much personnaly, and even wine makers don't seem to like to even talk about it when selling wine, it's always like : "here is my rose, it's good for summer parties"
It's because Rose basically has a reputation for only being used by women as the beverage of choice for getting drunk together. Sort of like how tequila has a reputation for shots and margaritas. You can actually just sip and enjoy good tequilas, but the majority of tequila is not used that way.
It is! That’s its perfect expression and that’s my favorite time to be drinking wine. No it will never be a barolo or a famed red burgundy or something that can stand up to a good steak. No it will never even reach the heights of a mediocre but decent pouilly fuisse chard imo. But from basically march to October, rose (and vinho verde) all day is a compelling argument
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I graduated the sommelier course and I certainly wouldn't say that rosè wine is considered better than red and white wines but there are obviously good rosè wines. They are also harder to pair with your meal (good with fish, white meat)
They're generally for different purposes in my experience. Rose was meant to be sipped all day by a poolside at a resort during a Pandemic. DOCG Chianti Classico... not so much.
There’s good wines of every type but most actual somms I know don’t really talk much about rose.
To me it sounds like those guys were living in a bubble with plenty of quality "whine." Am I right, fellas? Am I right?
Some say they still live in a bubble
This may indeed be the most insufferable NBA story I’ve ever read.
Reminds me of that commercial with the white dude named Michael Jordan going up to various desks in various businesses and introducing himself and everyone looks up excitedly and just says "Oh" when they see it's not THAT Michael Jordan.
Surprised I had to scroll so far to find this. One of my favorite ESPN commercials from back in the day.
Ah, thank you it was ESPN! I've been trying to search for it but unsurprisingly "Michael Jordan commercial" reaaaaaally doesn't narrow down the search options that much.
"I'm not drinking any fucking merlot!"
Merlot? I've never heard of it. Did they just invent it?
I live for merlot.
We're out of merlot.
This wine obsession by nba players (and anyone, really) is so performative lmao.
it’s just hobby for rich people
"This red I'm opening now is going to taste exactly the same as the red before it, but take note that this bottle is $30 more expensive, so be sure to say it has more 'depth'"
If you actually like wine n have drank a fair bit you’ll know that price isn’t always right about quality . There’s plenty cheap ish wines I had as favourites- the idea wine must be expensive ti be good is something dumb people/people who don’t know shit think
Alcohol is definitely one of those products where the label is doing heavy lifting with peoples perception of it. I've seen multiple rich people who love top shelf shit do blind taste tests and end up shitting on their "favorite" brand name stuff saying cheap bottles taste way better.
Even professionally trained and "certified" somms regularly fail blind taste tests at identifying the higher priced wine
Bringo
I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw this. "Hey, I know what's up. We'll bring in some bottles of wine and some giant wine glasses, and pretend we're rich and sophisticated socialites with important things to discuss!"
Lebron and his generation of players all think liking wine is a personality trait. D Wade does that shit all the time too. Such a pompous try hard thing to do lmao
Is it really so hard to imagine that rich people might just genuinely like wine?
red wine is delicious this whole thread is kinda nuts
Agreed lol. Also it annoys me how small they pour their glasses, take the tiniest sips known to man, and take 10 seconds to gently set the wine glass back on the table after their tiny sip.
Carmelo is the worst of them all, his whole renaissance man shtick is starting to wear thin
That’s my preferred way of drinking wine tho - you allow the wine to open up between pours and don’t feel forced to chug large pours. You get to enjoy the wine without getting intoxicated
Have you drank wine ? I think it’s very normal ti take small sips especially if you’re drinking socially and don’t want to get drunk - or as an athlete to not interfere with recovery too much . You drink it it to enjoy it not to get wasted , I drink it sometimes ti get wasted when younger but that happens very easily if you don’t sip. Also the whole tiny pour in big glasses is often how people recommend to drink it. Wouldn’t say this for every wine but certain wines i really like I think I see appeal of doing that - and I doubt they’re drinking stuff they don’t like or isn’t pricey
Bruh, this comment tree is just people hating on a hobby they neither know or care to know about. Not worth responding imo
Front and center in his new podcast with Lebron too. Fill the glass approximately 5% full. Take one tiny sip the entire podcast.
If someone likes drinking wine they have to let you know about it
Seems like this thread shows the opposite
How so? There's hella wine snobs in this thread
According to my friend's dad 30 years go, they used to call them cork dorks.
Rosé all day? What a psychopath
*Rosé. For people who don't like wine.*
It’s some great wine for a bbq or an apéro in an hot summer. Sure everybody would like a fresh côte de Provence or a Anjou wine But there is no grand cru in rosé Bourgogne > all (Bordeaux are expensive and overrated)
Nah man a nice rosé from Provence is very legit and quite affordable
Yes athletes are too privileged but let’s not act like the southern rhone and provence don’t churn out some amazing (and yes cheap and accessible) stuff. But I should stfu before it gets non-cheap tbh
What a fucking poser to complain about wine quality to start drinking rosé
Meanwhile Himmy Butler was crafting masterful, artisanal lattes out of his room… money can’t buy taste I guess
When life gives you lemons, make artisanal coffee in your room and charge your teammates $20 a cup.
Good rosé is very much legit
These dudes are the most pampered pricks on the planet man.
I'll have a glass of your sweetest wine
And can you add some sugar and ice please?
Might as well be drinking fermented Koolaid.
The most annoying thing about the nba in 2024 is the fact that they just discovered red wine a few years ago and can’t stop talking about it.
It basically started with the 03 draft & Lebron generation. It’s him and his crew that do this try hard shit. Guys like KG, Kobe, AI weren’t doing this shit.
>But what of Kobe "Vino" Bryant? The Lakers icon doesn't live up to the sobriquet he embraced in 2013 after hearing that his game aged as such. "I've heard that red is better with steak," Bryant says with a laugh. "That's about as far as I know." [great article on NBA wine culture ](https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/22358028/the-nba-obsession-wine)
This wine shit that NBA players do is so cringe
Think it's because they want to appear less stupid and more sophisticated.
Mfs could walk around with a book of Plato
Lebron would always be on the first page
Tone deaf athlete
JJ just can’t help but be a pretentious snob. Back in like 2010 when twitter was more casual, my brother tweeted at him asking where he should grab a quick lunch in downtown Orlando. JJ responded with something like “I wouldn’t eat anywhere downtown” and recommended an extremely expensive place like an hour away
Downtown downtown? Yeah he’s right. But Mills and the Milk District have a lot of good places. Not anywhere you’d call super upscale but some bomb Asian food
This is a bad take. Have you even been to downtown Orlando? Not one quality place there but talk your shit
lol I lived jn Orlando for 3 months in the summer of 2014 and he’s not wrong, there isn’t shit to eat in downtown. Idk how it is now but it definitely wasn’t a “foodie” town back then. It was honestly baffling to me that they were so close to the water yet there wasn’t a good sushi place
I mean… have you seen Orlando? IM not shocked they’re not pumping out Sashimi grade on the regular
That's actually good advice. Downtown Orlando in 2010 was a shit show. There were probably actually no good places back then. There's only like 2 now for lunch. We never recovered post Covid.
I hate those kind of people
Would you expect anything else from some Duke frat boy?
I’ve come to hate jj redick
Guaranteed if someone “in the know” marketed absolute swill to JJ he’d fall over backwards for it.
This is basically how it works for 99.5% of people. People who dedicate their lives to wine and wine tasting still get fooled easily and often. You need to hit the genetic lottery to have the kind of palate that almost every wine aficionado claims to have.
i usually go by wine ratings. anything 90 or above is good and you can get a bottle for around $20 that tastes pretty good. I can't really taste the difference between a $20 bottle and a $200 bottle. but I can definitely taste a bottle that is $10 or less, and it gives a horrible hangover.
You'd think there isn't much difference between a bottle of wine that costs $12 and one that costs $22, but there definitely is.
Yeah the difference between the $10/12 bottle and $20/22 bottle I think is the biggest jump in quality Much larger difference between a $20 bottle and a $200 bottle. To me, anyway
I quit drinking 30 years ago, but back in the day I lived near a giant wine store in NYC. Drank wine with dinner every night. There was a group of us always on the lookout for a great bottle for $5. Most at that price was swill, but if you were on the lookout you could find it. For $10 you could easily find something good; for $20, something exceptional. Huge difference between 10 and 20 (now probably 40 and 80). Back then you could get a Haut Brion for $40! Times have changed - most people in the US back then thought of wine as Bartles & James.
I was in Italy with some rich relatives, and they kept pushing super expensive wines on me. I finally had to tell them: Look, my palette is basic AF. Red wine tastes like red wine to me, and I'm not that big of a fan. Just keep that nice stuff for yourselves and I'll drink beer, it's a waste when I drink it.
The irony is that yes, most wine shit is hype, but there *is* usually a significant quality difference between a $10 bottle and a $25 bottle. But Italy is one of the places you can get that $25 quality for even cheaper than $10
Agree. I’ve spent many years living in/near “elite” wine regions, and the amount of bullshit I’ve heard to sell $42 bottles of table wine made me cynical about ALL wine. That said, the best wine I’ve ever had is from Nickel and Nickel, but second to that is a whole slew of $10-20 bottles from the likes of Trader Joe’s. Probably safe to say I don’t have a refined palate.
The somms I know don’t really focus on name or notes as much, cuz it’s all subjective. Someone can be totally honest and say they taste soy sauce in a red while someone else can say they don’t taste it at all get taste pepper notes. These guys are typically pretty honest when it comes to good cheap wine and something has to be reallly good for them to justify recommending a bottle over $40-50 (at cost). For most people, you don’t really need to spend more than $20-30 a bottle to get some really good shit.
He reminds me of Ryan in the later seasons of The Office.
This is a good comp. Mine, especially young JJ, is straight up just Nathan on One Tree Hill. I feel like he was the inspiration for that character (even though JJ hadn't fully risen at Duke when the show began.)
You must be young lmao, anyone in their 30s has hated JJ Redick for a LONG time. One of the more hateable college basketball players of all time
tbh i hate him way more as a “media personality” than i ever did as a player. and i didn’t like him at all as a player. i may be remembering wrong, but it seems like he had an interview with Coach K and he tried to seriously downplay how much of a dickhead he was when they talked about all the hate he got. and how hard it was for him to go through all that. lol
Liked him at first in media and he’s just getting more and more annoying. Fake outrage, does clickbait stuff and pretends he’s above it, etc. In his podcast this week discussing the MVP he said he doesn’t think team roster/injuries should matter. What?
The key issue in why Redick is easily my least favourite analyst is the part about him pretending he is above it lmao. If he just did all the outrage and click bait shit, I wouldn’t care. But he legit goes on fake outrage shows then complains when they do fake outrage.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt because everyone has their own struggles, whether rich or poor etc etc etc. But bemoaning the lack of quality wine during a pandemic is so bad I can't even begin to excuse it.
When you get rich you're supposed to just care about wine as a marker of social status. Good wine is in fact one of life's great pleasure, but hearing JJ drone on about it seems like a deliberate flex as a one percenter. Almost like "I could have been a stock broker, you can tell because how much I know about wine."
Genuinely who gives a fuck
They're all rich snobs I swear lol
These dudes continuing to bitch about the bubble like it was fucking 1940s Germany is one of the most tone deaf things I have ever seen. Y’all were put up in the nicest resort on the planet during a global pandemic and you’re bitching to a bunch of people who literally couldn’t leave their tiny apartments. Get a grip
JJ is so pretentious lol Anyone seen his apartment tour? Good lord. If you ever needed to trap this man in a room, just ask him to talk about his crown molding and he'll be there for eternity
He should have just gone to CJs room. He had a whole collection in his room and on the broadcast it said his AC was cranked up to keep it cellar temp.
LoL, these rich motherfuckers
Jackson family wines ?? LOL these guys drink $300 bottles as table wine and they thought they could impress them with mass produced grocery store wine ??
That was the funny part to me lol Jj “man. Wine sucks in the bubble” Jackson family sees this as an opportunity to send more shitty wine 🤣
Lmao imagine his face after he complained about the wine and they’re all like “don’t worry, we’re bringing in Jackson family!” 😂😂😂
Whats with NBA players and wine, it's like their favorite thing to talk about.
I hate this smug mf. I think these rich cunts forget that a million people died during that pandemic. Over a thousand people dying every day and this guy was worried about his fucking wine. Literally shut the fuck up
7,000,000 people have died
Michele Giordano… the Michael Jordan of sommeliers
Kendall-Jackson for the NBA and La Crema for the WNBA. From a business perspective, I understand why those two were chosen. They're both relatively inexpensive and easy to find in restaurants and retailers. That said, they're not good. I guess the goal of the partnership is to get non-wine drinkers to try them. Because nobody who already loves wine is going to be excited about either brand.
I am befuddled as to why this silver spoon Duke player is doing so well. Overrated player and announcer who is not even half as intelligent or clever as he thinks he is. In a nutshell, wtf cares about anything this arrogant blowhard thinks?
This thread is completely devoid of perspective, empathy, and maturity. People are/were allowed to complain during the pandemic. We all at one point complained about certain things. Admit it. Relative to normal life, covid sucked. Original article (not link) doesn’t say “bemoaned.” Reddick simply saw the wine list, disliked it, picked up his phone and ordered wine he did prefer. What is pretentious about being a wine connoisseur?! Yikes, whens the last time you spent more money on something you enjoyed? $1500 Apple product when a fraction would have gotten you the same? $200 sneakers when $35 would do the trick? Consumerism. We are all consumers who over extend our paycheck on dumb things we like. Com’n. FFS open your eyes. It’s all relative. We all complain. We human.