Two pieces of content debuted this month: director Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel (which was NOT received well) and NBA pundit Kevin O’Conner’s new yahoo podcast (fate TBD).

But as disparate as the two may sound, there are some similarities here in terms of how one reacts with a public misfire – and how the rest of the world (hopefully does not) react accordingly.

PART ONE: Burnt by the Sun

If you’re not aware of him prior (understandable, since this is a basketball sub), writer/director Todd Phillips had been one of the most successful filmmakers in the comedy world. He made Road Trip, Old School, and the Hangover series.

Rather than stay in that lane forever, Phillips took a major risk with the Joaquin Phoenix-led Joker. He took a big ol’ juicy piece of IP and made disturbing character study more in line with Taxi Driver or King of Comedy than the quippy, fun, popcorn superhero movies of the day. And that risk paid off handsomely. The movie was a commercial and critical hit. It got nominated for Best Picture and Joaquin Phoenix even won for Best Actor.

From there, Phillips must have felt on top of the world. His next choice was to bet on himself, roll the dice again, and make Joker 2 a strange, unexpected follow-up – a courthouse drama with musical performances and (no spoilers in the comments please) a polarizing end.

If you judge based on the critical and commercial reaction, the risk did not pay off. It’s been seen as a complete disaster. A critical and commercial failure. Phillips flew high – but perhaps flew too close to the sun like Icarus – and came crashing down.

Now, basketball writer Kevin O’Connor can’t claim to have been on the same level as success as Todd Phillips. Still, he went from a random blog boy to a featured NBA writer with Bill Simmons and the Ringer. In his world, that’s about as successful as an outsider can get at his age.

O’Connor must have felt on top of the world. And riding that high, he decided to make a bold choice of his own: he ranked French guard Killian Hayes as his top overall prospect in the 2020 draft. It wasn’t a ludicrous notion at the time – Hayes was considered about the # 5 prospect in a weak class – but it was against the grain enough to raise some eyebrows.

O’Connor even got some flak from other analysts at the time. Notably, Draft Express’ Jonathan Givony implicitly lobbed criticism at O’Connor as some amateur who didn’t understand the intricacy of the European leagues. But O’Connor stuck to his guns, kept Hayes at # 1, and effectively put his reputation on the line.

Like Joker 2, it did not work out so well. Hayes was not just worse than other top prospects (like Anthony Edwards or LaMelo Ball), he was practically worse than every other player in the NBA. A rocky rookie year felt understandable, but Hayes didn’t improve much in Year 2, in Year 3, in Year 4. Worse yet, the Pistons kept trotting him out there (for 145 total starts) and kept damaging their chances of winning games. It’s become an embarrassingly bad pick – by both the Pistons and O’Connor. That stink has stayed with O’Connor; I’ve noticed most of the comments about him bring up Killian Hayes time and time again.

PART TWO: Licking Their Wounds

Of course, Todd Phillips will be fine. He’s an uber-rich director who has survived poorly-received sequels before (like the Hangover ones).

You also get the sense that Todd Phillips also doesn’t really give an F. His first film was a documentary about controversial punk rocker GG Allin – and he’s always maintained that sense of renegade spirit; it’s almost as if he doesn’t want to be mainstream.

Kevin O’Connor will be fine, too. He’s now working for yahoo, the premier place to go for your fantasy football and for your spam email accounts.

O’Connor doesn’t have that rock star swagger about him, but I appreciate that he hasn’t shied away from taking his lumps either. He’s joked about the Killian Hayes whiff – and hasn’t tried to bury it or make excuses for it either. That stands in contrast to other analysts – most notable of which was when ESPN’s draft expert Chad Ford got caught going back into articles and retroactively changing his old rankings.

PART THREE: Letting the Scars Heal

I can admire Todd Phillips and Kevin O’Connor’s reaction to their misfires. But I’m more worried about the rest of the landscape’s reaction to them.

About Joker 2 flopped, the takeaway has been that it was too strange, too off-putting, too dissimilar from the first film. Essentially: too outside-the-box. The studio should have kept tighter control and prevented this!

In the old days, it felt like the “suits” at the studio were the bad guys, trying to prevent originality from slipping through the cracks. To decide that their constraints are now a good thing is a scary reaction to me. It’s doubly scary at a time when A.I. is on the rise and threatening to put writers and artists out of work. We may see more safe bets, more carbon copies, more Xeroxed versions of movies that we’ve already seen before.

If the takeaway from Joker 2 bombing is that movies need to be more formulaic and more safe – then that’s damaging for the industry.

Oddly, I’d argue the same for Kevin O’Connor’s Killian Hayes misfire. That pick got linked to him heavily – and his reputation took a hit accordingly.

My fear is that the reaction from other writers and fans will be to try and avoid that same fate – to play it safe. 90% of the mock drafts I read, be it in the NBA or NFL, already feel like they’re just xeroxed copies of the same consensus preseason rankings anyway. There’s really no value to that.

I much prefer reading non-consensus, contrarian takes (provided that there’s some actual logic behind them) because you’re exposing yourself to new information and learning something new. You may agree with it, you may not, but you’re better off for it.

As strange as it sounds, the film industry is better off with swings and misses like Joker 2 or Megalopolis. And the NBA content world is better off with swings and misses like Killian Hayes at # 1.

I’d prefer a strikeout rather than someone who’s afraid to swing the bat.