The DeGods Squad: Killer 3’s
The Resume
Owner: DeGods
Website: degods.com
Twitter: twitter.com/DeGodsNFT
The #1 NFT Project on Solana, legendary innovators of web3 and craziest community of degenerates treated like royalty by an elite team of non-stop builders based out of Los Angeles, California.
Captain: Franklin Session, AKA Frank Nitty
Twitter: twitter.com/FrankNittyY
2021 Big3 League Rankings: #1 in steals, #3 in assists, #3 in blocks, #7 in rebounds.
3x Drew League MVP (2016–2018)
2021 Qatari League Champion, Prince Cup Champion, Emir of Qatar Cup Champion and Qatar Player of the Year
2x Qatar Guard of the Year (2019, 2021)
2x All-Qatar First Team
2018 NBL Canada Newcomer of the Year
2011 First-Team All-CCAA
Certified Magician With a Basketball
Collector of Broken Ankles
Creator of Dunk Posters
Badass Call of Duty: Warzone Player on Twitch
Co-Captain: Donte Greene
Twitter: twitter.com/dontegreeneCOS
2021 Big3 Most Improved Player Award
2021 Big3 Rankings: #2 in total field goals, #3 in total points, points per game and three pointers, #4 in rebounds and four pointers, #9 in rebounds per game
2021 Big3: One of only two players to average more than 20 points and seven rebounds per game
2021 Big3: 33 point/10 rebound game (one point short of Big3 record)
Co-Captain: Josh Powell
Twitter: twitter.com/JP21Reasons
2x NBA Champion (Los Angeles Lakers, 2009 and 2010)
2018 Big3 Third highest field goal percentage:(.588)
2021 Big3 Third highest field goal percentage: (.632)
(Really the #1 field goal percentage in 2021: #1 and #2 ranked players had less than ten shots on the season.)
2013 FIBA International Cup Champion
2013 EuroLeague Champion
2004 WBA Champion
2002 ACC All-Rookie Team
Dominique Johnson:
instagram.com/niquejohnson_5/
2014 Polish Cup Top Scorer
2018 FIBA European Club Champion
2019 Lebanese Cup Champion
KJ McDaniels:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kjmcdaniels
3 NBA Seasons, #32 Overall Pick in the 2014 Draft
2014 ACC Defensive Player of the Year
2014 First Team All-ACC
The Story
With all due respect to the rest of the league:
The DeGods community was the first to jump into Web3 Ownership this 2022 season.
As I’ve documented here, Frank and the rest of the team took a huge amount of criticism from the core NFT and crypto space who considered it a bad investment. The price went down by $16K within two weeks.
Coming from a marketing/brand/journalism background, I understood the value of the purchase. But we’re in a space that is still evolving to understand the benefits of outside revenue and exposure.
With the price of our project going down and all the criticism, I was practically pulling my hair out for months.
Seriously. It was really getting to me.
A narrative that threads through the history of DeGods is criticism over every innovative decision. Each and every time like clockwork, the price of our NFTs stays level at best, drops at worst. And then months later, as the concept comes to fruition, the rest of the market finally gets it.
Here are the receipts:
In the DeGods community, all that doubt and criticism tends to build up some much needed catharsis when it all works out.
It’s no more evident than this weekend when the crypto market is seeing what might be its most destructive crash ever. And while all of that is happening, we get to go live on CBS in two days.
We have a lifeboat to safety to get out of this storm.
And after all that doubt, the DeGods SOL value price has grown back to new highs. We still maintained our position as the #1 project on this blockchain.
I had to meme it! Too much pent up frustration over six weeks. That white box is the day of the Killer 3’s announcement overlaid on the Crypto Total Marketcap chart.
I have an advanced degree in media theory. I was keeping track of all the PR coverage for the week before the season.
Here’s the thread:
Okay, that’s enough backstory! I just wanted to sum up this timeline so we can look back at it in two months when the season ends, a year from now and so on.
Let’s get to the fun stuff.
Killer 3’s Roster
Franklin Session AKA Frank Nitty
Twitter: twitter.com/FrankNittyY
Straight up, Frank Nitty is one of the most purely talented and athletic basketball players on earth.
And without a doubt, the most exciting and electric to watch. The 6’2 guard has a tough style of play on defense that’s almost unbelievable for someone of his size.
Here’s some eye-popping stats from 2021:
7th in the league in rebounds
3rd in the league in assists
1st in the league in steals
3rd in the league in blocks
How in this even possible?
Seriously, on what planet is a 6’2 guard playing the kind of defensive game you’d expect from a forward or center a foot taller than him?
Pure, raw athleticism and instincts.
Oh, and he’s a revelation with the ball in his hands.
Magician level ball handles that break defenders’ ankles.
Ability to drive to the lane and find just the right opening with precision.
Getting the ball to a teammate for an easy score on an assist.
All that, and he has the most legendary poster level dunk in the history of the Big3.
With all of this elite talent, let’s address the elephant in the room: “Why did he never play in the NBA?”
Frank Nitty’s first love wasn’t basketball. It was skateboarding, and he planned to become a professional in that sport.
But as fate would have it, his high school coach thought his athleticism would translate to basketball. And it worked: despite a lack of experience and learning the game at a much older age than his peers, his natural talent carried him to college level play. The man himself openly admits he didn’t consider himself a “good” player until his junior season.
He put up excellent stats and was a difference maker, but ended up bouncing around from school to school. Most notably, he was cut from Weber State despite having a great year.
Why? Again, he’s humble enough to look back and admit he didn’t have the maturity to play within a system. He wanted to be himself.
After he got his seasons in, Frank considered himself retired. He moved on to work at a Verizon store to support his family, and was training to be a firefighter. But his wife encouraged him to give the game another try. From that point on, with experience under his belt, he took his game and accomplishments to a whole new level.
Frank is the undisputed star of whatever league is lucky enough to display his talents. He’s most famous for being the 3x Drew League MVP, and received every award possible in the Qatar Basketball League.
Oh, and he became a legend on YouTube by scoring 44 points plus 11 rebounds going up against the NBA’s Denzel Valentine — a player with a College Basketball Player of the Year award on his mantle.
Frank didn’t care. He utterly embarrassed Valentine, and talked a whole bunch of smack to pour salt in the wound.
Now, he’s found a perfect fit in The Big 3. A professional stage live on CBS to display his talent with a fast paced, tough and gritty set of rules practically designed to play to his strengths.
Oh, and he has one more exceptional talent: streaming Call of Duty: Warzone on Twitch.
It’s amazing to watch him play! Just watch how quickly his eyes scan all the action like a point guard, leading to elite and unfair reaction time to dominate. Seeing him take his on-court talents to thrive in a video game environment is a blast.
Donte Greene
twitter.com/dontegreeneCOS
Donte Greene is one of the top scoring threats in The Big3, making him the perfect Yin/Yang match to Frank Nitty’s talent for elite level defense, precision passing and speed. Together, they form the most dynamic duo in the league.
Numbers don’t lie. Here’s Greene’s league rankings in the 2021 Big 3 Season:
3rd in points scored
4th in rebounds
2nd in total field goals
3rd in three pointers
Stacking those impressive numbers earned Greene the Most Improved Player of the Year Award in 2021.
His season highlight was one of the best performances in Big3 history: he scored 33 points (with a ton of beautiful three point shots) while pulling down ten rebounds.
Those 33 points were only one short of Joe Johnson’s single game Big 3 record of 34!
Greene and Frank Nitty not only compliment each other’s skills on the court, but they’ve been playing together on the Killer 3’s since 2019. That continuity between them will make for a smooth flow state of play unmatched by any team in the league.
Josh Powell
Twitter: twitter.com/JP21Reasons
Frank Nitty and Donte Greene are a fantastic duo, but Josh Powell is the final ingredient in the mix that puts this all together. In nine NBA seasons, he won two championships with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 and 2010.
Powell was unofficially the best field goal percentage shooter in The Big 3 last year with a .632 line. Technically he placed third in that category, but the two players above him had very small sample sizes of two and nine attempts each. It’s no fluke: Powell really is the most accurate shooter in The Big 3, proven by having the official #1 ranking in 2018.
He’s been on the Killer 3’s since 2018, adding even more continuity to the familiar team dynamic between the captain and co-captains making up the core of this squad.
Off the court, Powell founded the 21 Reasons to Give charity, giving back to the needs of young people in communities that need help. To learn more, check out the official website at 21reasonstogive.org, and follow them on Twitter at twitter.com/jp21reasons
Dominique Johnson
DeGods took Johnson with our first pick in the 2022 draft — we wanted a three point shooter who could step up at the four point line when necessary. He gives this squad an excellent way to shift gears when the game is close and down to the wire.
KJ McDaniels
Rounding out the team is our second round pick, KJ McDaniels. Like Johnson, he has the ability to sink three pointers, and rounds that out with a power game to drive to the lane. On the other side of the ball, he’s got an ACC Defensive Player of the Year award to serve as a receipt for what he can do to stop an offense and generate turnovers.
Coach: Charles Oakley
Charles Oakley was the toughest, most physical player of his era. Coming off a college season where he won NCAA Division II Player of the Year, he was drafted by the Chicago Bulls as the 8th overall pick in 1985. He carried the skills that brought him to that level with him to Chicago, and was also assigned the role of protecting a young Michael Jordan on the court.
Dubbed “The Enforcer”, he’d protect his teammates for the rest of his career, while doing the hard work of defense and rebounding.
Earlier this year, he put out a book called “The Last Enforcer: Outrageous Stories from the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors” Appropriately, the forward was written by Michael Jordan — a player who got the benefit of Oakley on his side, only to become rivals later in their careers.
A few years later, Oakley was traded to the legendary 1990s New York Knicks. He became the heart and soul of the team, setting the tone for the physical style of play that endeared them to New York fans and made him a legend in the city (we won’t get into the disgusting disrespect shown to him by current Knicks owner James Dolan.)
To call Oakley a mere “physical presence” or “enforcer” would minimize his talents on the court.
The man could ball.
Most notably, he was a machine on the boards, leading the NBA in rebounds for the 1987 and 1988 seasons. He closed his career as a true iron man, playing a total of 1,282 games (25th all time), and 12,205 rebounds (22nd all-time).
With this level of passion for the game and universal respect for what he did on the court, we can’t think of a better coach to lead our team. He adds a layer of toughness, grit and experience to round out the championship level of talent on the Killer 3’s.
No More Talk. F.I.W.B.
It’s been months of waiting. Time to see this thing play out!
Make sure to follow the official Big3 Twitter account for updates on where to watch the games every week.
The official DeGodsNFT Twitter account here.
And of course I’ll be covering the league all season long here on the blog, and on my personal Twitter account.
On subject: we’ve got a matchup this Sunday against Krause House and their Ball Hogs.
I’m looking forward to seeing them at 0–1 and raiding their Discord with many more more DeGods on Monday.
