The Official 2022 Open Floor All-Stars
On today's episode, Michael and Rohan discuss Grayson Allen's flagrant foul on Alex Caruso, and whether a one-game suspension was more or less than what Allen deserved for injuring one of Chicago's most important players. They then reveal their official All-Star picks, naming the starters, reserves, and honorable mentions for each conference!
The following transcript is an excerpt from the Open Floor podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Michael Pina: What's up Open Floor Globe. I'm your host, Michael "The Pod" Pina. And I'm joined on the other line by my good friends, Sports Illustrated staff writer, Rohan Nadkarni. Rohan, I texted you last night to let you know that on today's show, we would each be power ranking our 10 favorite shots from Jason Tatum's 51 point masterpiece in Washington. But instead, I've spared you that assignment. And I have a question that's more in line with the actual theme of today's show that I want to run by you. Are you ready?
Rohan Nadkarni: Yeah, let's hear it.
Michael Pina: Okay, so after the dust has settled and all the ballots are counted. How many all-star votes do you think Grayson Allen will receive from his fellow players?
Rohan Nadkarni: Who's running the Bucks social media account?
Michael Pina: Potentially someone different now than three days ago.
Rohan Nadkarni: Team social accounts, like, I generally don't get involved anyway but it's like, what does it really matter sometimes? Like, there's definitely things that are in poor taste or whatever, and it's like, generally it doesn't matter. Like you can just ignore a tweet and your life will go on. But the Bucks for some reason seem intent on just like making people angry. They went after the Raptors weirdly like a week or two ago and Shang Chi was in their mentions. What's going on here? I don't know what's going on there, but just team accounts ... like take a breath, just tweet out the score, you know? What's going on here?
Michael Pina: I was not expecting that diversion.
Rohan Nadkarni: The team accounts are just a little heavy handed with the masala these days. And it's like, let's dial it down a bit.
Michael Pina: So that's your Grayson Allen take?The Milwaukee Bucks social media needs to chill out?
Rohan Nadkarni: Like what were they thinking when they tweeted? The context, obviously for people who don't know, is like the morning after he flagrant fouled Alex Caruso, they tweeted a video of him. It was like "good morning it's game day." And it's Grayson Allen eating a donut. And it was like, what are you gaining from this? Do you think Bucks fans even love Grayson Allen? I don't think he's like some hometown hero.
Michael Pina: I was not expecting again, to go into the social media portion of this type of conversation, but I, yeah he wasn't a part of the championship winning team. Um, I was at the white house when the Bucks went to the white house, cause that's what you do when you win the title. And Grayson Allen was like sitting with family members in the crowd. Cause he obviously wasn't a part of the team and it makes total sense and it's understandable. And I'm not trying to make fun of him, but it was like kind of jarring to see that. And I was like, oh yeah, Grayson Allen is on this team.
Rohan Nadkarni: And you were there to protest in defense of the filibuster Right?
Michael Pina: That's exactly what I was there. I failed miserably.
Rohan Nadkarni: You just happened to be there the same day. You were like, what's this?
Michael Pina: But, uh, but no. So like, I hope everyone is aware, but Grayson Allen fouled, Alex Crusoe on a pretty dirty play. Grayson Allen has a history of of fouling and tripping and doing all these sorts of things, going back to his time at Duke.
Rohan Nadkarni: And then just making a weird face after doing it. It's like he has history of both doing the thing and then being really smug about it.
Michael Pina: Yeah, did you feel like the one game suspension was too lenient?
Rohan Nadkarni: It was way too lenient. I didn't get it at all. Like suspend the guy for a week, even a few weeks.
Michael Pina: A week? Ok wow
Rohan Nadkarni: Even if you have to do like half of it without pay and half of it with pay, like I absolutely think they gotta suspend him for longer than that. I don't know. I'm a little surprised. It was only one game. Listen, I was surprised when Jokic frankly only got one game for that Markieff one. Markieff still has not played..
Yeah. I thought that, uh, Allen's suspension absolutely should have been longer, but I mean, I, I don't know. I don't know what goes into that. And I'm sure the union would have probably gotten involved. If it had been too long or whatever, but one game, I was like, that's it? After all that? Yeah, it is what it is.
Michael Pina: I was kind of weirded out that the bucks released a statement–
Rohan Nadkarni: –that they disagree with it! Yes! Why did the Bucks continue to try to piss people off? Are they incapable of reading the room? Did they think that was going to be cool? They were like, oh, people are gonna think it's like bad ass when we say we disagree with the decision. Like what?
Michael Pina: Yeah, it is weird. I personally, I find it hard to not like the Bucks just because of the players –most of the players on the team. Like I love them. Love Giannis, love Chris Middleton, love Jrue Holiday, love Bobby Portis. Bobby Portis is like my favorite player of all time now after last year. But like, come on. Like, what are we, what are we doing?
Rohan Nadkarni: What about just no statement? What about that required a statement?
Michael Pina: It was ridiculous. And I think that we've made our point, our opinions are clear on this and we will not be releasing a statement when releasing this podcast.
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