“That’s BS!” - Chris Webber Rips Nikola Jokic for the Jaden McDaniels Dust Up

Chris Webber was not in the mood to play diplomat.

Rich brought up the Jaden McDaniels layup with 1.3 seconds on the clock and the dust up that followed when Nikola Jokic took exception. Rich acknowledged it was already four news cycles old. He still wanted Webber to weigh in on whether Jokic had a real grievance or if McDaniels should have just laid it in and walked off.

Webber did not pretend to be above it. He admitted that as a player he had taken his own frustration out on opponents and officials more times than he could count. Then he said exactly what he thought.

"That's BS," Webber said.

Webber said if he were still in the league with the mentality he played with, the moment a team was up 10 he would start practicing dunks at the end just to push the other team's buttons. The point was bigger than that one play. The unwritten rules, the protocols of acting like you have been there before, the demand that scorers stay quiet, are over.

He pulled in a cross-sport thread. He had seen a clip earlier that day of Reggie Jackson hitting a home run and going at the pitcher. He remembered when a player could not look at a ball, could not flick the bat, could not dance in the end zone.

All of that is gone.

Webber's logic was simple. If a hitter dances, strike him out. If a receiver scores, tackle him. If a guard scores at the buzzer, win the game.

"Win the game," Webber said. "You don't want that to happen, win the game."

He was not buying that any of it was real anyway. He called the confrontation fake, said nobody was actually going to fight, and labeled the whole sequence an attempt to manufacture energy for the next road game. He dismissed the moral high ground entirely.

"How righteous of you to come over and start a fight because I scored at the end of the game," Webber said. "Get out of here."

Rich brought up what Jokic did the very next game, when the center handed the ball off to a Timberwolves player as time wound down to force a jump ball.

Webber loved it.

"I'm from the place where we plant the flag in the middle of your home field," he said.

Rich pushed back gently. He admitted he was old school. The unwritten rules used to be the unwritten rules. TJ Jefferson, listening in, said the same. Webber understood the position but said the locker room banter has now moved onto the floor itself, and the disrespect is part of the game.

He brought up Terrell Owens. The popcorn moment. The Sharpie touchdown.

Rich corrected the chronology. The Sharpie was not after the game. Owens had it tucked in his sock during a game against Seattle, and his money manager was sitting in the front row. Owens caught the touchdown, signed the football, and handed it over.

Webber said he had a problem with that one, because Steve Mariucci was the coach. The popcorn moment, with Owens in Dallas, was a different story. Standing on the star at home? Webber called the outrage misplaced. The star is a stadium logo, not a sacred document.

The protocols, in Webber's reading, are done. Handshakes after the game still matter. The four corners of the floor do not.