…Such as this Spurs-Knicks NBA Finals, we get a documentary 10-20 years later. This time, we’ll be getting one much sooner, thanks to Ben Stiller, who has been shooting one from his courtside seat this entire time?! Is that legal? Who cares! 

Anytime I can sing the praises of Reddit, I will. And honestly, the same goes for Adidas. So, a Reddit AMA with the Global Category Director who helped design the World Cup national team kits for Adidas is kind of an obvious slam dunk for me. You’re welcome. 

Megan Reyes is the best jersey-styler this side of the Mississippi. I don’t really know which side of the Mississippi she’s on these days, but I’m sure that’s true. If you need help finding interesting ways to wear your World Cup kits, check her out. She does hats, too. And if you pay attention closely, you may just read an exclusive interview with her in OffBallFC one of these weeks.   

Kelsey Plum, UAre an Adidas athlete. The Sparks star left Under Armour earlier this year for stripier pastures, it seems. A move that wasn’t wholly surprising, considering she’s been leaving Easter eggs. 

New York City officially named June 11, 2026 “OG Anunoby Appreciation Day” for his big performance and, namely, his very clutch tip in to win game 4. Though, I don’t see why it can’t OG Anunoby Appreciation Day everyday…

Jay Caspian King is a writer, director, podcaster, Tweeter extraordinaire. If you haven’t read his books, you’ve probably seen his posts, which spark virality like a toddler in daycare. I know him to be hilarious and biting, but also smart. Of course, until our conversation, I only knew him parasocially. Now, I know him a whole 36 minutes worth, which technically isn’t nothing! But he is someone I feel like I could chat to for hours on end. The two of us undoubtedly would end up in a misery spiral, because we seem to have similar temperaments and takes on the state of the world. I cut most of those serious and somber exchanges out and saved you only the good stuff on the World Cup and the NBA Finals. 

Ashtyn Butuso: I’m obviously a follower of yours, but I’m trying to understand, are you a Knicks hater?

Jay Caspian Kang: No, I don't really care….Okay, like, it's more funny than anything, I guess I want them to win. I got a lot of friends that I'd be—I think I'd be happy for.

It’s just basketball. It's a weird thing, this fandom. Not to get too deep about it, but it just feels like it’s people moving there and they decide that this is their place. Knicks fandom is like their way of confirming that, which I think is totally fine, but it does lead to some weird dynamics. Like, I don't believe you like it this much.

AB: You’re so locked into both the Finals and the World Cup, and you have smart takes, rooted in empirical evidence…

JCK: [Laughs] Is that true?

AB: Maybe not, but they’re true. And there’s a fervor there, and they are rooted in something, they’re smart. And I just want to talk about this significant moment right now that we're in, because the World Cup and the NBA Finals sort of rule everything. And I saw your tweet, I think it was today where you said, I need to take my daughter out of soccer because none of you guys care.

JCK: Yes. That's a long-term fight for me. Basketball is the sport that I followed my whole life. And the one I care about the most by far. Soccer is relatively new. I found it about 10 years ago, but my kid plays a lot of soccer — she's only nine, but for the past four or five years, I've tried to support her by learning a whole lot about soccer. It's led to me watching a ton of soccer myself. And I've gotten very, very invested in that, both intellectually and emotionally, I guess.

AB: Well, as someone who did grow up playing soccer, and being an even bigger basketball fan, I have to say I would support her switching to basketball because the Europeans are tracking better than the Americans in the W right now. 

JCK: Yeah. Even in women’s soccer, in the last 10 years, the players on the U.S. team are good, but it's shifted too. I think the Guardian and ESPN both did individual lists of their top 200 or top hundred women's players in the world. I think in both of them, the highest-rated women's player from the U.S. was Emily Fox at like 26 or 27.

AB: : I don't even agree with that. Where was Naomi Girma?

JCK: I feel like she's always disrespected. She was like in the 80s or something. I'm like, how is she not the best defender in the world? But I feel like they watch more than I do, I don't know. 

AB: Yeah that stinks, and you're right. We’re here to talk men’s soccer though, and in terms of sports, this summer is wild. Which is more important to you right now, the World Cup or the Finals? 

JCK: I'm not doing much prioritization except for prioritizing watching everything over the other stuff I'm supposed to be doing. I think that maybe the Finals is not so exciting, and that maybe it would not seem like the two were in competition. Because the World Cup is such a big deal.

AB: I wrote a piece the other day about why we should care about the U.S. men's national team, because above all, I think it's just fun to have a dog in the race and to care about something. We do that for every other sport in international competition, and when it comes to men’s soccer sometimes we go “Ew!” Why is that?  

JCK: It's a good question. We don't have that problem with the women. I just think it's because there are lowered expectations for the team always. But can you have a more successful American player that Christian Pulisic? I don't think so. But…let’s say they win [on Friday]. And then they win again, I think there'll be a lot of excitement for the team. They obviously have a real fan base, but it just always felt kind of cultish to me.

AB: We know your prickliest takes on New York fandom now, and I know you aren’t Wemby’s biggest fan. 

JCK: With Wemby there's this obvious thing that could happen with him where he comes back and they win and he's had the ultimate arc. Now he’s kind of spat on and he’s having eggs thrown at him and being harassed, being called a dirty player and having people turn on him finally, after being this golden child for the first three years in the league where everybody just kind of unabashedly loved him so fast and he had to go through this.

And I kind of don't want that to happen because I feel like it would be too soon. I want this to take place over years. That's the normal life cycle of an NBA player is that it takes like five, six years for them to get to that point. I just want the normal order not to be disrupted by this guy just because he's so tall.

And losing to the Knicks and having his first dose of hatred will make him a more likable player in a lot of ways. LeBron went through this obviously where he goes to Miami and everyone hates him. And then by the time he got to Cleveland and wins in 2016, a lot of people have switched. 

AB: Why can't a player just be liked their whole career? 

JCK: I actually think that [the Spurs] might win. But if he won this year, the coronation would happen too soon. I'd be disappointed because I was more hoping that I could enjoy this with this guy for years. You know, you gotta have intense feelings about them to truly love them.

AB: You’re making me think of “The Last Black Man In San Francisco” where he says, “You don't get to hate it unless you love it,” except you’re giving “you don’t get to love it unless you hate it,” which is a hilarious reversal. What are you loving or hating about this World Cup?

JCK: The question that I've had about the World Cup the whole time, is: Will the political questions with it actually show up? When the World Cup was in Qatar, for example, between all the people that died making these stadiums and the obvious corruption that was happening within FIFA, once the actual tournament started, like nobody even remembered that it was in Qatar, right?

And so I was wondering if that would happen again with the World Cup here. Because you have all these scandals around Trump and visas and then also the crazy way they priced all the tickets and the fact that it seems like nobody really wants to go to a lot of these games now in the States. And I imagine that it's probably just going to go away like that. People will start to get into the tournament and it won't be an issue. 

There is a sportswashing question that you can ask there: Do the politics of these things actually end up mattering when the event itself is so appealing?

AB: What is the most appealing part for you? Who are you excited to watch? 

JCK: The team that I was most invested in is Portugal. They have the best midfield in the world by far. And then they're passing it out to like Cristiano Ronaldo, who, at least through what we've seen so far, just seems to be intent on ball hogging and trying to score goals for himself.

Is Cristiano Ronaldo going to destroy his own country’s odds at a World Cup by being so crazy and selfish? And that answer seems to be, yes.

AB: What’s soccer’s stance on Shakira being music’s face of the World Cup right now? Too much of her, not enough, just the right amount? 

JCK: I feel like all the World Cup songs that she has done are not really World Cup songs, which I know that other people have said, but I just find it really interesting because it's clear they're kind of thinking, well, who would be the least offensive person that we could put out there that seemingly represents all the cultures of the world?

[Laughs] I guess, kind of ethnically, you would be like: Where is she from? Is she from the Middle East? [Is she] Asian? South America? Is she from Spain? You may not really know. 

AB: [Laughs] She’s Colombian! 

JCK: Is she Algerian? Like, I don't know. What [other reason] would it be? I will say, my kids love Shakira. For the World Cup songs, like, they're dancing around.

After last night’s Knicks-Spurs game, there was a lot of talk about what it means to be a casual fan vs. a real fan. It’s a topic I love to talk about ad nauseum, but lucky for you, I’m not really here to give takes on it (for once). 

Perhaps that’s because the celebrities are doing the heavy lifting for me. 

Selena Gomez, for instance, who is perhaps the most notable Spurs fan on the planet, threw subtle shade on her IG story when she said it was funny how so many people were suddenly Knicks fans. Interestingly enough, her Pennsylvania-born, Cleveland-rooting bestie was at the game in orange and blue with the most LA people in the arena, the Haim sisters.  

Monica McNutt had something to say about that from the booth. And eventually had something else to say about it on TMZ — that something else being an apology. 

And Noah Kahan made fun of the whole situation by calling himself out for being a long-time Knicks fan since May. 

Probably the remarkable thing to me was the sheer volume of celebrities at MSG for Game 4. Sydney Sweeney was six rows back. The Jonas Brothers were in peasant seats. 

In Barcelona for the Grand Prix? Follow this city guide. 

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Watch this and then call your grandpa.