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The Heat Check by Hot Takes #1

Author

Lucas Arender
May 23, 2025

Happy Friday. Anyone who’s ever half-drunkenly yelled “I could’ve hit that” from their couch after watching an NBA player miss a layup, you could get the chance to prove it. Fanatics is launching a three day competition that will pit 50 pro athletes and celebrities against 50 sports fans. The mini games will include closest-to-the-pin golf and basketball shooting competitions.  

Tom Brady, Kevin Durant, Kevin Hart, Logan Paul and Gronk are among the A-listers already signed up. I don't know about you, but watching some 50-year old Texan dad take on KD in a free throw contest with $1 million on the line sounds like a hell of a way to spend a Saturday.

In today’s letter:

Source: @Cheetah / X

NFL owners have officially given players the greenlight to play flag football in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It’s the first time that flag football has been in the Olympics, and given the spankings Team USA is likely to hand out, it might be the last. 

As always, the internet hasn’t missed a beat predicting how this will go down.  

So who’s actually gonna play?

  • Stars including Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs and Aaron Jones have all expressed interest in suiting up for the U.S.

  • Even old man Jerry Jones took a break from running the Cowboys into the ground to praise the idea of NFL players heading to LA.

The ground rules: Details are still being decided, but from the sounds of it, Team USA won’t be able to completely stack its team. The current proposal only allows each of the six teams to have one NFL player, and only one player per NFL team can go to the games. 

What about the actual flag football players? 

  • Yes, there are professional flag football players, and shocker, they’re not psyched about this. Team U.S.A. flag football QB Darell Doucette was pretty adamant that those roster spots aren’t automatically up for grabs to NFL talent.

  • "We just don't think they're going to be able to walk on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name,” he said last year.

  • I love the confidence, but I don’t think anyone’s putting their money on this guy to beat Mahomes out for the job.

Bottom line: Whatever way the rules and rosters shakeout, the thought of Tyreek Hill putting a cornerback / part-time carpenter from Australia in a blender on the first snap is already getting me excited. I can't believe we have to wait three more years for this.

Source: @okcthunder / X

🏆 SGA wins first MVP. Just a few nights after sending his biggest competition, Nikola Jokic, packing in Game 7, the OKC star was fittingly given this year’s MVP honours. Shai shot over 50% from the floor on the year (not bad), averaged 32.7 points per game and won his first NBA scoring title. To thank his teammates for getting him the ball, Shai bought the whole OKC squad Rolexes. We’re sure Jokic would’ve bought his Nuggets teammates horses if he won


⚟ Soto has a sour return to Yankee land. The bleacher creatures happily tormented, heckled and flipped off their one-time superstar in his first game back at Yankee Stadium — and the mind games might’ve actually worked. Soto went 1-10 in the Subway Series and his Mets lost two out of three. Meanwhile, the $765 million man had to pour cold water on reports that he flies on his own private jet between games, insisting that he does (allegedly) travel on the team plane. 

🏀 Tyrese Haliburton is that guy. The Pacers guard hit an absolute prayer of a three ball at the buzzer to send Game 1 of the Knicks series to OT — which Indiana went on to win by three. He, of course, hit the Reggie Miller choke celly for good measure after draining the shot. Hali didn’t even have to wait for game one to start trolling Kicks fans. Earlier in the week, he tracked down a Pacers fan on Twitter who got pelted with food by butthurt Knicks fans outside of MSG and sent her floor seats to Pacers-Cavs game four. What a guy. 

💰 Mr. Irrelevant gets the bag. Brock Purdy is now one of just eleven players in football making $50 mil a season after signing a five-year $265 million extension with the niners. The new deal makes Purdy the highest paid player in 49ers history and puts him above the likes of Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts on the QB salary sheet. Not bad for the last pick in the draft. 

💉 Ozempic lands Phillies best reliever an 80-game suspension. That’s right. Phillies’ Jose Alvarado reportedly took a weight loss drug in the offseason that, as it turns out, contained a banned substance. It could actually be true, but it reminds us a lot of Fernando Tatis’ fake story about taking meds for ringworm when he was popped for PEDs.

Source: @MapleLeafs / X

The Toronto Maple Leafs are all-time choke artists. If you need a breakdown of just how bad this team has been in the playoffs, look no further.

  • The Leafs scored just four goals in the final four games of their second-round series against the Florida Panthers.

  • The core four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares have combined to score just one goal in the last five Game 7’s the Leafs have played in.

  • Speaking of Game 7’s, the Leafs have now lost seven of them in a row. That last one’s almost too tragic to believe.

Source: @Rockies / X

The 2025 Colorado Rockies might be the worst professional sports team of all time. Just a year after the Chicago White Sox posted the worst season in baseball history, the Rockies are threatening to dethrone them. 

As of Wednesday, the Rockies are 8-40, marking the worst start to a season in MLB history. They have lost every series so far this year and are on pace to finish 27-135 — 12 losses worse than the White Sox last year. Yikes.

Source: @BlueJays / X

Max Scherzer is bagging nearly $90 million to barely throw a baseball. 

  • The future HOFer has made just 10 starts since the 2024 season but has managed to collect about $88 mil over that span — which means he’s made just shy of $9 million per start. A first ballot bag-getter — gotta respect it. 

Lock in your picks on HotTakes to be featured in next week’s letter.

Shoutout @reaperplay’s for hitting big this week. Clearly had a hunch it was gonna be a big night for punch outs. Who doesn’t love proving themselves right? 

HT’s very own @gdubs hit a centipede this week thanks to the Pacers ridiculous comeback and Shai coming up one point short. Gutty call taking the league MVPs under. 

Thoughts on Reaperplay’s Parlay

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Source: @PhilMickelson / X

On this day four years ago, a 50-year-old Phil ‘The Thrill’ Mickelson became the oldest player in golf history to win a major tournament, beating out Brooks Koepka to take home the PGA Championship. As happy as he looks on the golf course, from what we hear, Phil’s true love is cooking up parlays. đŸ—ŁïžOne of us !

Source: @TheEagleTimes / X

đŸ”„ The tush push is valid. The Eagles shouldn’t be punished for doing it better than the rest of the league.

  • NFL owners voted this week to keep the play legal, at least for another season. In typical Eagles fan fashion, a billboard was put up to celebrate the win. 

Let us know what you think of the tush push and reply to this email with your hottest take for next week’s edition.

Should the Tush Push be legal?

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Its immaculate grid o’clock: Choose your own adventure. 

🏈NFL Grid 

⚟MLB Grid 

🏒NHL Grid 

🏀NBA Grid

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

Got a hotter take? Think we missed something? Want to argue that the Leafs are actually cursed by a 1932 ghost?

Reply to this email, ideally with the subject line “listen here you clown.”

And if this newsletter hits harder than Aaron Donald after a fresh smelling salt, do us a favour:

Forward it to a friend who lives for the group chat debate.