The Bucks’ season had just ended in abject disappointment Thursday … and Patrick Beverley’s mind was on his podcast.
Sitting in the visitors’ locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse after a decisive 22-point Game 6 loss to the Pacers on Thursday, Beverley was answering a reporter’s question when he interrupted himself and asked a producer from ESPN, “Do you subscribe to my pod?”
“Do I subscribe?” Malinda Adams responded. “I do not.”
“You can’t interview me then,” Beverley said. “No disrespect.”
When it comes to the Bucks’ guard, apparently reporters need more than just a credential to get a quote—you need to be a subscriber to The Pat Bev Podcast, which is part of the Barstool Sports network. The show gained some notoriety around the NBA tradeline, when its X account broke the news of Beverley’s trade from Philadelphia to Milwaukee, beating NBA insiders by several minutes.
Jack Maloney, an NBA and WNBA writer for CBS Sports, posted on X that “this is unfortunatley [sic] nothing new beverley has refused to talk to any of us in Milwaukee who do not subscribe to his podcast since he arrived at the trade deadline.”
After declaring Adams ineligible for his interview session, Beverley pointed to Adams’s ESPN colleague Jamal Collier, who covers the Bucks and is apparently a subscriber to the podcast. Beverley said Collier could stay, but when Adams lingered, Beverley told her to “get that mic out of my face, please” and then asked her to leave the scrum.
Adams’s coworkers were quick to defend her. NBA senior writer Brian Windhorst, for one, tweeted: “Veteran producer Malinda Adams happens to be one of the most respected and professional people we have at ESPN. Bev, you’re going to have to make a couple apologies for stuff tonight.”
Apparently, he did.
Adams tweeted Friday morning: “I want to thank everyone for their kind words and support. I am humbled. Patrick Beverley just called me and apologized. I appreciate it and accept it. The Bucks also reached out to apologize. I’ve been in news for over 40 years and kindness and grace always win.”
But that wasn’t Beverley’s only notable incident Thursday. With two and a half minutes left in that game, he fired a basketball at fans sitting behind the Bucks’ bench, hitting one in the head—and when he got the ball back he launched it again. Beverley wasn’t immediately disciplined by the NBA, but he took to X to defend himself.
“Not Fair at all,” Beverley posted. “Exchanged between a fan and our ball club all night. We warned and asked for help all night. Not fair.” (Hours later, he followed up, tweeting, “But I have to be better. And I will.”)
On TNT’s Inside the NBA, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who accumulated plenty of fines throughout his own career, predicted the NBA would have a substantial punishment for Beverley.
“Listen, I’ve done stupid stuff and I got criticized,” Barkley said. “That’s just wrong. He’s gonna get suspended for that. And that’s gonna be a good one, too. ’Cause he didn’t do it once. He did it twice.”
