Basketball Podcasts for the Holidays

We’re in the final week before Christmas. For me, that means frantically trying to finish up work, wrapping (and rapping), and packing before traveling to see my family.

Between travel, chores, and downtime from eating 58 cookies in a 23-minute span, there’s a lot of time to listen to basketball podcasts.

I’m a podcast fiend, and I still sometimes find it daunting to try a new show. Some of these podcasts have hundreds of episodes…where do you jump in?

I want you to have a simple life, so I’ve gone ahead and waded through these shows to pluck out the highlights.

Here are five podcast episodes to check out over the holidays. Santa’s probably got them queued up in the ol’ sleigh playlist, also known as a sleighlist.

No Dunks: “SQUAD | All-Sitcom”

Crisp Bounce Pass has always enjoyed exploring the intersection between basketball and pop culture.

So while No Dunks (formerly The Starters, formerly The Basketball Jones) is a basketball podcast, I’m recommending one of their more pop culture-y episodes.

This particular episode aired during the break in sports during the pandemic, but I think it’s still quite applicable.

The fellas draft an All-Sitcom Team using key barometers like lead character, quirky sidekick, set/location, the pet, and an NBA player cameo.

And you KNOW there have been some good NBA cameos in the sitcom world.

Listen here.

Dunktown: “S4E19 -Tim Baltz & Lily Sullivan + Fun Hat Ideas”

Agata and Anastasia were new NBA and WNBA fans when they started Dunktown, hoping to learn more about this wacky and wild game we call “hoops.”

The Dunktown hosts enjoy asking guests which player they’d most like to kiss. My choice would probably be Matisse Thybulle because I want to step on my tiptoes but not TOO much.

Plus, as the title suggests, we get some quality hat ideas. I don’t often wear hats, but I do love admiring quirky ones from afar.

The episode also trashes Grayson Allen, which I can fully get behind. I mean, the man has injured several NBA players with reckless abandon and looks like noted horrible waste of air Ted Cruz. It’s okay to dump on him (and on Cruz, who decided to go on vacation while his constituents were literally freezing to death. He sucks.) 

Listen here.

Road Trippin: “Episode 110. RJ, Channing & Allie feat. Gilbert Arenas and Nick Young”

This is one podcast where the video version is even better than the audio version.

Richard Jefferson, Channing Frye, and Gilbert Arenas all attended Arizona for college, so they have some great stories from their college days.

The real magic starts 44 minutes in when Nick Young hints that Arenas burned down someone’s house because he was mad at them. We also learn where Arenas’s “Hibachi” nickname comes from and hear more insults per minute (IPMs) than most other shows.

Jefferson tells a story about Arenas and guns around the 53-minute mark that seems a bit telling, knowing what ended up happening with Arenas’s career.

Listen (er…watch) here.

Roundball Rock: “A Film Critic Reviews Some NBA Schedule Release Videos w/ Vince Mancini”

Do you remember when the NBA regular season schedule came out earlier this year and EVERY TEAM had some kind of weird and/or cool video about their schedule?

For instance, the Denver Nuggets told us all to grab our bags because we were hittin’ the Nuggets Trail and then made an Oregon Trail-esque video featuring Nuggets players. It’s lovely.

This episode of Roundball Rock came out around that time. Hosts Sean Keane and Joey Devine have plenty to say about NBA fandom in general. Remember, this is when no actual games were being played, so you had to fill airtime somehow.

But the highlight of this episode is in the title. Sean and Joey invite film critic Vince Mancini onto the show to walk through these release videos. What a delight.

Listen here.

Sports R Dumb: “The Original Rules of Basketball R Actually Kind of Enjoyable But a Little Dumb”

Yes yes, I know this is a shameless plug. But this IS one of my favorite basketball-adjacent podcast episodes.

Sean and I (wait…ANOTHER Sean and Joey?!) go through the original 13 rules of basketball and see how they’d stack up in today’s game.

And you know what? I think we should bring some of these back. Dr. James Naismith had a lot of good ideas even 130 years ago, including the equivalent of sending a player to a hockey-esque penalty box for multiple fouls.

Listen here.

This is the last issue of Crisp Bounce Pass for the year. Hope you have a wonderful holiday, however you’re celebrating (or not celebrating) it.

This issue is presented by The Morning Blitz.

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