"You Can't Even Dominate Your Own Name" - The Austin Rivers/James Jones Beef Is Both Hilarious And Embarrassing All At The Same Time

I'm not sure if the Drake/Kendrick beef has everyone a little juiced up and on the prowl for a beef of their own, but things are starting to get a little out of hand. The way people are obsessing over Austin Rivers' NFL/NBA player take is getting more ridiculous by the day, and it honestly reminds me of 

A) The middle of summer when there's nothing going on and we need to debate stupid shit just to pass the time

B) We were all locked in our houses in quarantine with zero sports on TV and everyone was losing their collective minds

You combine the Drake/Kendrick beef already having everyone on edge with some hot takes involving America's favorite sport and a former NBA player people tend to clown on and this is what happens. It's all kind of sad, but in a weird way also sneaky hilarious?

Take this new James Jones/Austin Rivers beef that has developed as a result of Rivers' take. I'll admit, I did not ever think I would type a sentence that included the words "James Jones/Austin Rivers beef", but here we are. For those of you who were a little confused by this and were curious as to how this all started, allow me to bring you up to speed. 

So we had Rivers' comments about how he can take 30 NBA players and throw them in the NBA but you can't take 30 NFL players and put them in the NBA. Cool. Not sure why people are so upset about this take that we're still talking about it, but whatever. This of course led to a bunch of former NFL players weighing in, as one would expect. That includes James Jone

And we're off!

Alright, so who do we have in the early rounds? If we're being honest, I think I have to side with Rivers? Not because of his initial take, but because James Jones' initial response was pretty weak. It's clear he doesn't know too much about Rivers' basketball history, because if his #1 dig was that he "barely made the NBA"…..well that's not even close to being true. 

Let's continue.

Of course once Rivers tweeted that, you knew James Jones would come back for another shot

Alright, this was a little better. He's still missing the mark when it comes to Rivers' basketball acumen ahead of entering the league, and honestly who gives a shit if someone played on 7 teams in 11 years. That happens all the time in the NBA. 11 years is still 11 years. But I will say Jones did have some solid points when it comes to his own production in the NFL. Listen, the numbers are the numbers and the hardware is the hardware. Is it crazy to say he was a better NFL player than Austin Rivers was an NBA player? Sure. 

So in the name of fairness, let's give James Jones this round.

Would Rivers respond? Would he get in the booth and deliver another punch? 

Of course! This is weird internet beef we're talking about here! This is what Rivers said in a since deleted tweet:

(Source)- “I don’t even know who you are, so this is kind of silly,” Rivers said. “We’re only here in the first place because you got offended that I said there are a handful of NBA players that could make the transition over to the NFL.”

“So for you to even be offended by that, that’s on you, the truth hurts,” Rivers said. “And then to take it a step further and try to come at me personally, and say, ‘You could never play in the NFL.’ I never said I could.

“And then for you to try to come on my career, which has nothing to do with my comments, is kind of silly. And it’s even more silly coming from you, considering you were a role player as well in your career, nothing supersonic in your NFL career stands out, for real, for real.”

“If you want to talk about numbers, there’s a glaring difference between you and me in one regard, and we both know what that is … but I don’t really want to talk finance, especially with a guy that I out-earned …  I think your whole career earnings was like one year of mine. It’s just silly for us to debate or talk.”

“I don’t know anything about you, I don’t know you from Timbuktu, I only know James Jones, the real James Jones like everyone else knows. It’s got to be hard not even dominating your own name,” Rivers said.

“I hate that we’re here, but sometimes you have to pick a booger, so here I am with you.”

OK, now there were a few good lines in there. Not even dominating your own name is a tough one to come back from if you're James Jones. I also give credit for Rivers for exposing the whole "he only got drafted cuz of Doc" angle. That is nowhere close to true. Austin Rivers was the best player in the country. He was awesome at Duke. Him being a lottery pick was very much about his talent and potential as a basketball player. It's not like he was some sort of scrub who only got to where he is because of who his Dad might be. That's where Jones loses some points for me, because it's very obvious he didn't know Rivers' history.

At the same time, where I think Rivers loses some points here is talking about how much money he made. It's not James Jones' fault that NFL players make less than NBA guys/don't have guaranteed deals etc. If the NBA operated like the NFL does, Rivers wouldn't be talking that way. It's kind of weak to use that as a main dig when the player you're beefing with doesn't even control it. Based on some quick research, it looks like Jones made $17M in his NFL career, compared to around $53M for Rivers. That sounds more like a collective bargaining problem than anything else, which is why it's a little weird to flex your money like that. If you take the NBA equivalent of what James Jones was as a football player, that guy probably earns at least $53M in his career.

So while I do think Rivers had some good lines in that rebuttal, I do have to subtract some points for bringing up money. If he had kept everything else in that video minus that part, I think his response is flawless. With that included, it is a little corny.

But overall? The "you don't even dominate your own name" is what gives Rivers the slight edge to me. That's a fatality. Plus James Jones clearly not knowing anything about Rivers' basketball past takes away from his insults a little bit, mostly because they aren't true.

The lesson? We're all extremely bored if such a throwaway comment about NBA and NFL players has become this much of a story/beef. Maybe we all just had too much fun with the Drake/Kendrick stuff, but this beef isn't quite living up to that hype.