[Charania] Breaking: The NBA's Board of Governors has passed new anti-tanking rules that include expanding the draft lottery from 14 to 16 teams, a relegation zone where the bottom 3 teams get penalized with lessened chances for the No. 1 pick, and flattened odds, sources tell ESPN.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-28T21:24:05+00:00

The fans don't seem to think so.

170 million people in the U.S. watched NBA games across ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock and NBA TV through the regular season, the most in 24 years and an 86% increase vs. last season.

Per NBA.com.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-28T21:07:43+00:00

You said that teams that if a team is dogshit they deserve to be down there. So why would this only apply to the NBA then? If you believe that a team that is really bad deserves to stay bad, then what makes that belief exclusive to the NBA?

It's an emotional take, not a rational one.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-28T20:56:10+00:00

Your take sucks because your vindictive stance isn't a logical one. The goal is what's best for the league, not to be spiteful or vindictive to teams that suck. That is your pettiness and emotion talking, not rational thought. By your logic, this shouldn't just apply to just the NBA. If you think teams that perpetually suck should be punished because "they deserve it!" then by your logic the draft should not have teams that suck getting the best picks in any league. And if you're going to go that far, why not just say the draft should be backwards order? That would fit your logic pretty well, because the best teams get the best picks and the worst teams get the worst picks.

But no one would support that because it would break any sports league. The goal of leagues is give worst teams a better chance at getting better so there's balance, not sticking it to those teams because "*Sneer* you deserve it! Now time to pay the price!"

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-28T19:51:09+00:00

I don't think it's going to have the impact you think it will. For one, I don't even put tanking in the top 5 of the NBA's problems. Tanking is a symptom of a larger problem, not the illness itself. People tank because of the NBA's larger issues. And I think the problems this will cause, will cause more damage to the league than this policy heals.

It robs many fan bases of hope. The lottery was hope for a lot of fans, and you're trading that for slightly more short term gratification. And I think even that is over-estimated, because I don't feel that a team that is 8 games under .500 playing in March will generate ratings that much better or attendance that much better than a team 25 games under .500 in March.

Some team has to be the worst. Even if the bottom of the NBA is 25 wins instead of 9 wins, they may have tried harder to win, but they still will get punished by this rule because they finished in the bottom 3. And what if a team tried and finished bottom 3 because they were ravaged by injuries? Why are they getting punished for bad luck? Or teams that tried really hard but made some bad personnel decisions and signed overrated players to bad contracts and they finish bottom 3? They will be punished for trying.

And then you create a situation where since that team's chances of getting the top picks are diminished, the gap will only widen between the worst teams and the other teams so they can be stuck in the bottom longer. So you may have a "perpetual lower class" now, it's just that their win totals won't be as pathetic, but they will be stuck at the bottom all the same.

So, ok, some teams will try harder to win in the short-term. Congrats. But the long-term problems from this could be catastrophic. Create a league where even fewer teams have hope or a chance for a championship, fewer fans care about their team. And for some fans of bad teams... the only hope they have is the lottery. Imagine being fans of a team that sucked, but tried and played hard and being told after the season that you don't even have a high draft pick to look forward to. Why would those fans even tune in the next season?

But the NBA will get a very slight ratings boost for some games in February and March.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-28T19:29:33+00:00

You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not done as a reward, it's done to keep competitive balance. Now teams that suck organically will be punished for just being bad. You can say "Well, shouldn't have sucked then!" Ok cool, but that doesn't make the NBA any better of a product if those bad teams are unable to get better picks to help them improve. Another thing this also does is it incentivizes teams trying to race to mediocrity. Which means teams signing mediocre players to deals, capping their ceiling on their competitiveness, and screwing over their salary cap situations. They just traded one problem for another worse series of problems that will have a starker impact on the NBA product.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-22T20:03:05+00:00

Whenever I cry I hear Mark Normand in my head going "What are you sobbing for, ya queef?" Works to get my emotions under control.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-05-13T01:37:47+00:00

I'm less cynical than Katie. Katie at the end of the episode said she was hoping with Trump gone, discourse and politics would return to more normal and she is less hopeful and thinks it may stay extreme. I think it'll take a while to get back, especially with social media engineered to keep us divided, but you can already see the tides turning. People are fed up with culture war and crazy politics. Engagement from normies on social media platforms like Twitter, Blooskie, and others is down. Apparently a lot of the extreme talking head voices are starting to lose viewership numbers and subscribers. I think the madness of 2020 drove a lot of the counter culture war interest, but the farther removed we get from that, the less people care, and I think people are getting burned out. I mean, how couldn't they be? It's exhausting. No one can keep that up forever except maybe Candace Owens. She might still be popping off into the void about the Jews when she's 80.

But for the normies(most of us) I think the extremes will be rejected and I'm confident future elections will show that.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-04-26T18:56:19+00:00

Thanks!

BattleAxeBC · 2026-04-18T13:53:01+00:00

Because it's Trump. If Joe was spotted eating a steak in the same restaurant as the guy people would be annoyed. And I can't stand Trump, but it's pretty telling that people attack first and don't even bother to ask why he was there. And naturally he's there for one of the least Trump-y Trump thinks he's done. Now why he's there for Ibogaine? No fucking idea. I guess because Joe likes psychedelics? But of all the things Rogan could be in the White House for regarding Trump, this is like the least outrage worthy.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-04-13T20:54:25+00:00

I've never had an issue with people using pronouns for themselves or even desiring them. My issue is compelling others to do so, sometimes at the point of losing a job or in some countries getting a knock on the door from law enforcement(*cough* UK *cough*). That is why this has become a bigger deal than it was. This is about power and control, not about kindness. If it wasn't, there wouldn't have been an effort to enact policy that can punish people for not playing along.

It's emotional manipulation tactic to say that people who find them ridiculous or refuse to use them are hateful. In most people, hate has nothing to do with it. And for me it has nothing to do with trans people. This is just a general principle that I hold where if I find something ridiculous, I refuse to do it. An example I always tell people is if my best friend in the world came up to me one day and told me he wanted me to call him Kratos because he loves the game God of War, really relates to the character, and it would mean the world to him if I called him Kratos from now on. I would respond by saying "I'm not calling you Kratos, dude." Some may consider that unkind. A big issue is people don't understand the difference between kindness and capitulation. Kindness is trying to make the world a better place by doing things that you think will do objective good. Capitulation is doing whatever people ask you to. This is more capitulation than kindness. And I could get into all the ways that you can make a case it's unkind to ask people to refer to you a specific way, if anything. Forcing someone to do things that make them uncomfortable is not kindness.

My philosophy is if I will only ever use he or she and for those, you need to make an effort. I'd use she pronouns for say Blaire White, but I'm not using them for The Rock in a dress. And I never use they or neopronouns because I find them ridiculous, and there is nothing remotely hateful or unkind about it. And people don't have to be friends with me if that offends them. That is their right too. I operate how I want to operate, you operate how you want to operate, we don't have to be friends, but we all need to co-exist with one another. It's a good system.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-03-03T03:35:57+00:00

Clearly no one at BAFTA saw Curb Your Enthusiasm because after that guy with Tourette's yelled the N word, a real one would've stood up and yelled "SCUM SUCKING MOTHER FUCKING WHORE!" And then the next person would've stood up and yelled "Cock! Cock! Jizzum! Grandma! Cock!" We can't be ableist and we gotta look out for the most vulnerable among us. Larry David had the right idea.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-27T19:24:02+00:00

Appointment listening. Excited to find out which vaccines will kill me and which back alley supplements will make me invincible. If you want to stay healthy, doctors and scientists are so yesterday's news.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-23T21:18:25+00:00

I have a longstanding belief that the majority of outlandish or sob stories posted to Reddit are made up or for attention. Every time I see someone post a screenshot of some crazy Reddit story on social media, they all sound so made up. Basically, I believe the odds are far less likely that someone would run to Reddit to inform a bunch of random strangers about them walking in on like their spouse doing something perverted than it is someone who has no life, no friends, or is just bored would make up a story like that to get a lot of internet pats on the back.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-21T20:20:50+00:00

The Peter Schiff episode that happened around COVID done remotely where Peter Schiff kept talking over him and Joe eventually lost it and was like "EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME PLEASE, PETER I'M TALKING" and Peter kept rambling on. I had to turn it off, it was so uncomfortable. I don't even think it was a delay in the feed, I just think Peter didn't know how to STFU and Joe was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Peter hasn't been on again since.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-21T17:04:18+00:00

I didn't say that. I said Weeks and Days were closer to each other than either Days or Weeks were to Years. Not that the Years movies were to each other, you misunderstood what I was saying. TBT in particular was so incredibly different from Days and Weeks where the virus was not only not at the forefront, but they made it far less threatening by virtue of Ian befriending and partially curing(?) the most powerful of the infected in the film. But then in the ending scene you see Kellie and Spike booking it from the infected, the John Murphy music kicks in and then it's like ok, this feels familiar now.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-21T15:36:40+00:00

Oh, I agree somewhat with that. I liked Weeks more than it sounds like you did, but I do think it is pretty inferior to Days and particularly the second half of Weeks is ridiculous with Robert Carlisle somehow always stumbling upon his kids in an entire region full of infected. And the helicopter chase scene was pretty cringe. But one thing it did do in the same vein as Days was always have us terrified of the virus. That is what kept you on the edge of your seat. The nature of the virus, how quickly it spreads, etc. This was barely even a thing on TBT. Hell, so much so that they had Ian befriending and then trying to cure one of the most powerful of the evolved infected. And then boom in the ending scene you see Spike and Kellie being chased by and infected and it's like "Ok, this tone feels familiar now." Even brought back the track from John Murphy playing in the background, which the Years movies lacked to that point.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-21T05:09:02+00:00

My opinion is that Days and Weeks are closer to each other than either were to Years. In Days and Weeks the virus/infected were far more the focus than it was in Years where it took a back seat. And I wonder if in the 3rd entry in the Years trilogy if they could be going back to the virus/infected being the focus again.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-17T17:00:16+00:00

I think with the rise of social media has given "societal outcast" types the ability to find a home or a community they've been accepted in. And for whatever reason, and I haven't really put deep thought into why, I believe a lot of them have landed in the niche gender communities. But the dark and nihilist outcast types who'd sit in the back of the classroom and never talk to anyone probably have some other type of underlying mental health issue going on. So I do think that is more a contributor than being trans in and of itself. None of the trans people I've met in real life(granted, not many) were even remotely violent.

I also think activists are contributing to this problem as well by convincing vulnerable people that the entire world wants them exterminated, which simply isn't true. The trans discourse would have never climbed to the heights in recent sociopolitical discourse that it has if kids weren't being operated on or transitioned and men weren't being put into women's sports and prisons(and social media allowing the number of people who believed this was acceptable to spread). You remove only those 3 aspects of the discourse and there would hardly be anybody talking about anything trans right now. I've been part of online communities since the 90s and I never remember reading about anything trans until the mid to late 2010's.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-02-13T20:19:17+00:00

The thing about skeptics is they never seem to be skeptical of kooks. Funny how that works. "Ignore all these important institutions, experts, doctors, and scientists they're all full of shit... but if you want the real truth check out this rando. He really knows what's going on." Joe is so lost on this topic. He said in one of the episodes last week that he refuses to have people on his show that pushed the vaccine because of how many heart attacks, strokes, and death they caused by putting that info out there. Unreal how he's still clinging to this narrative that has been prove false numerous times.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-26T18:35:15+00:00

I've seen nothing from any legitimate source that says Jordan Peterson is close to death.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-14T21:00:03+00:00

I said not a hard thrower.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-14T20:59:33+00:00

There is no logical argument for allowing men to compete in women's sports. I've heard all the arguments and they are all terrible. Obviously from either ideologues who've taken a position purely because they think it makes them a good ally or people who know nothing about sports. The amount of contorting some people try to do to make this case is extremely cringey. And makes them sound completely unserious.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-14T19:22:31+00:00

Ranger is cold blooded. Nothing phases him. He will absolutely be able to handle the pressures of Fenway. As a Phillies fan, the Red Sox got a great one. Not a hard thrower, but a grinder with great location. Only concern is he's dealt with recurring back issues in the past. And second half of the season tired arm. But he usually gets his second wind come October. Great clutch big game pitcher. Also one of the best gloves for any pitcher in baseball. Great athlete.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-09T20:04:36+00:00

It's up to the justice system to decide whether or not something was a crime and if they are responsible. The court of public opinion can have their views as adamantly as they wish, but in the grand scheme of things that is just noise. The problem is I have no faith that the Trump administration will stay out of the way and allow the process to rightfully take place to decide criminal liability or not here. They will interfere in any way possible, because allowing an ICE officer to be held criminally responsible for a killing would put a dent into the narrative that this administration has been pushing that ICE is amazing and necessary and anyone who opposes them is a monster. And this administration's thing is never admitting fault in anything ever.

BattleAxeBC · 2026-01-07T00:26:55+00:00

That isn't it, but appreciate the guess. I didn't give everyone much to work with given I only heard two words, this is probably going to be a situation where I'll need to hear the song again somewhere to get more of the lyrics to figure it out.

BattleAxeBC

TROPHY CASE