Thunder Set For Long-Term Success (Hour 4)

JR's out tonight.

I'm in. Final hour. Sports Machine Sean Levine with you right here on the Infinity Sports Network and we got a lot to get caught up on. First of all, the scores are changing on the baseball diamond. So, middle 8th, Cincy up 6-4 on Cleveland. Top of the 9th now, Chicago, the Cubs and Phillies tied up at 2. And Boston scored two runs in the 7th, excuse me, in the 6th to tie it up with Tampa.

So now we're in the top of the 7-3-3 between the Rays and the Red Sox. We got hockey going on as well. 3-0-5 left in the first period.

Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Panthers up 1-0. They got an early goal, like one minute of the game. Brad Marchand did his thing and put the Panthers on the board. So again, 2-46 left in the first period of that game. They're up 1-0.

We will keep you updated the final hour of the show if anything changes on that scoreboard at all. But of course, the biggest news of the day. Thank goodness. Ed, the Zebra, after eight days on the loose in Tennessee. Everybody was worried sick about Ed the Zebra. Didn't know where he was.

He's been found on the side of a highway in Tennessee. Which made me think, how many people own zebras? Like I've known some people that own some weird ass pets. Ryan, do you know what a capybara is?

I think that's the way to say it. I do. You do? You're familiar with those? My buddy had one of those. I once knew a guy that had a, it looked like a lynx type cat. I don't know if it actually was, but I think it might have been.

Or maybe I'm just making that up. What about a, what's that weird fish? An axel? I don't know, is that what they're called?

My cousin had one of them weird looking things. A koi fish? No, not a koi fish.

I don't know. A-X-O-L-O-T-L. Axel, you think I meant to say koi fish and I said axolotl? I don't know random fish.

I don't, I don't know fish. Now I'm just looking up weird animals you can own. What is this?

This can't be a real thing. K-I-N-K-A-G-J-O-U. The way I pronounce that is a kinkajou? You should see, you should see the dude.

Google what I just said. Kinkajou. And wait till you see this little bat looking, oh it's disgusting, little animal that comes up. Anyway, apparently a pac-man frog. What is this thing? A deagu?

D-E-G-U. This thing looks like a giant mouse, hamster, gerbil thing. Anyway, if I ever get land, I don't care what the laws say, dude, I'm getting a giraffe. If I ever have 10 acres and a little bit of money, it's one thing to have a Lamborghini, it's one thing to have a 150 inch TV screen, right? 10 bathrooms in your house. Nobody's going to be as impressed if you take them out back and you've got a freaking giraffe, all right?

Not saying, I'm just saying. Anyway, 888-710-4ISN is the phone number. Yes, thank goodness. Ed the zebra is back in his, I guess, enclosure. It just seems like a very weird animal to own. Can you tame a zebra? Can you ride a zebra? Is a zebra that different from a horse except for the fact that it has stripes? Gotta be honest with you, I know very little about zebras. That's a good movie.

Isn't that racing stripes? When they take a horse into a zebra or a zebra into a horse? That's a movie? I'm pretty sure there's a movie where a zebra becomes a racing horse. You're making this up.

I'm not even joking. I think it's called racing stripes. The last movie that I saw that was anything like that, just about some safari type animal when I was a kid, there was a movie called Cheetah. I know there's going to be at least three people listening to me.

We're on like 300 different stations across the country. There's probably three people this is resonating with, but it's worth it for me. There was a movie called Cheetah, Ryan, which me and my sisters loved. I swear we saw it 10 times. There wasn't a word said in the whole movie. It was like a silent movie. I think my parents just basically let it babysit us.

It was called Cheetah. And it, I tend to think that if I watch it again as an adult, it's going to kind of be like watching Willy Wonka and Rookie of the Year. I'm gonna be extremely disappointed, but I think you're, I think you're lying.

I'm just going to say racing stripes command 2005 with Hayden Penitentiary and Dustin Hoffman and Steve Harvey and Snoop Dogg. What? Yeah. The sticky icky icky.

Oh, wait, what are you talking about? They take a, do they take a zebra and turn it into a horse? Into a racing horse.

Yes. So they don't take a horse and paint stripes on it to turn it into a zebra. It's a zebra turned into a racing horse. Are zebras that fast? I don't know. See if zebras are faster than horses, because I've always been under the impression that horses and zebras were basically of the same speed, but now all of a sudden you're telling me that zebras are just striped faster version of horses.

Google says, no, they are not. They can run up to 40 miles an hour though, but a horse is 55. Who knew? Who knew?

All right. Off the horses and the zebras and back to the basketball, something I actually know about. It seems to me that the Thunder are in such a good position to dominate the NBA for the next five, 10 years. All they got to do, and I'm not making it seem easy when I say this, is win three more games.

They've done all the heavy lifting. When you're in Oklahoma city, which is the second smallest market in the NBA, you're not going to land a bunch of free agents. You're not going to make a bunch of trades. What I'm saying is it's not Dallas or Los Angeles or New York where guys just want to go there. Typically you either get traded there and you go middle America, Oklahoma city, which by the way, it's a very underrated city.

Bricktown's a lot of fun. Or you get drafted by that organization. And 15 years ago, the Thunder, when they first got to Oklahoma city, remember they actually drafted Kevin Durant as a member of the Supersonics. They moved to OKC and then they were good right away where they drafted Durant. And then they drafted Russell Westbrook. Then they drafted James Harden three years in a row. And then a couple of years after that, they're in the Western Conference finals. And the year after that, they were in the NBA finals. And we all know how that ended. Eventually Kevin Durant, and I'm not pretending like Kevin Durant was only there for a rookie contract.

And then he said, screw it. I went out of Oklahoma and he went to go play somewhere else. Kevin Durant did sign a couple of different contracts. His mama, the real MVP, like Kevin Durant had a really nice run.

And there was a great love affair between him and the city while it lasted. But I also think that Kevin Durant eventually said, I'm not going to stay here in OKC. I got to go to a bigger market, a place where I can play with better teammates and give myself a chance to win a championship because I think Durant thought that's not going to happen here in Oklahoma. I think it's fun. I think the fan base loves me. I think the organization is going places.

My teammates are really good. We're entertaining, but I think Kevin Durant wanted to win a championship and he was there for seven or eight years and eventually said, screw it. And he ran to Golden State. Eventually the same thing happened with James Harden.

After four or five years, he was third fiddle. And he said, no, I could be a guy that averages 30 something points per game. If I got the chance, by the way, Panthers score again with just 24 seconds left in the first period. So now Florida's up two to zero over the Oilers trying to go up two to one in the series, try to make it back to back stay on the cup final.

I'll keep you updated on that hockey game. First period officially over Panthers up two to zero back to what I was talking about in the NBA where the Oklahoma city thunder can only win one way. And that's what they did 15 years ago when they drafted Durant and Westbrook and Harden, and they got really good.

Then eventually those guys left. And then for a few years they sucked. It's crazy to think that they've been able to do it again, that they've been able to go out there and draft a shade, Gilda's Alexander and turn them into basically Kevin Durant leading the league in scoring.

My mama, she's a real MVP. He's the current MVP leading the league in scoring. And I would actually say if he's able to cash in talking about shade, Gilda's Alexander this season, you could argue that he's already more accomplished than Durant because Durant went to a ready-made team to get his championships and it's taken him 17 years to win a couple of those things.

In the case of shade, Gilda's Alexander, this is year what number six with this market being the MVP and he was able to cash in and win a title. But my bigger point is this, those guys will stay unlike Durant who went to golden state, unlike Harden who went to Houston, unlike Russell Westbrook who eventually said screw it and went wherever his first stop was. That's not going to happen with this current group of thunder because they're about to win a championship. See those other guys, the reason Durant left was not because of the market size, was not because of his teammates, it's because he genuinely didn't think he could win a title. If they do win a title and win three more games in OKC, then they're going to win several titles because I think a bunch of these guys are going to resign, they're happy where they are and they don't ever have to ask themselves do I need to go to New York or LA or Dallas or somewhere else Miami to win a championship. If they know they can do it in OKC, then there's no reason to leave OKC. I understand that this day and age in the NBA, a superstar that stays for his franchise is extremely rare.

I mean how many guys off the top of our head can we even name that did that? Like Kobe, one team the whole time. Dirk, one team the whole time. So far Giannis, Steph Curry, one team the whole time. I'm not suggesting that Shaquille Alexander is going to play 15-17 seasons with the Thunder, but I do think if they win the title, he's going to stick around for the next four or five, he's going to play his entire prime there and they're going to win a bunch of those things in OKC.

You know how hard that is to do, it's damn near impossible. That's why it's so important that they win a title and they're not just good or competitive or fun. These guys have to know that we can stay and win a championship and there's no reason to go anywhere else.

888-710-4ISN is the phone number. Let's switch gears for a couple of minutes and talk about the Knicks. Because I think the Knicks have found themselves in a very unique position this offseason now that their coaching job is available. Because if your aspirations are to become an NBA head coach and you get offered the job in the biggest market with a great fan base for a team that got further than they've gotten in the last 25 years, that seems like the ideal position, right? I mean, if you want to be a basketball coach, what better job could you get than hand to Jalen Brunson, Karl Anthony Towns, a team that damn near went to the NBA finals for a rabid fan base in New York City playing at the Garden. I mean, what more could you possibly want?

Here's the problem. I think it's going to get even a little bit sweeter with the Knicks. I think they're going to get even better. I think the expectations are going to go even higher.

And I think it makes that job even less desirable. What am I talking about? I think they're going to find a way to get Giannis this offseason. I think the New York Knicks understand that they've got the pieces, that Giannis is available, that he wants to be a Knick, and that as long as the conversation is had, it should actually happen. Right now, it's just one of those sports radio things that we talk about because Giannis is under contract and because the Knicks just paired together Karl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, we got to see one year of it, and it was pretty damn good.

So I understand right now this is just fodder. This is just Monday night sports radio conversation. But I promise you, in the next few weeks, in the next couple of months, Giannis is going to get loud. He's going to complain a little bit. He's going to start talking about New York. New York's going to dangle a couple players out there.

Then there's going to be a conversation. The next thing we know, it's going to be breaking news the same way it was Jimmy Butler is now a member of Golden State or Luka Doncic is now a Laker. I truly believe that that's what we're going to see happen is that Giannis is now a Knick, and if Giannis is a Knick, then that makes them the favorites.

It doesn't just make them good like they were this year or take them over the hump and get them to the NBA Finals. That makes the New York Knicks the favorite next year if they land Giannis to win the NBA Finals. And of course, the roster is going to look different because to get Giannis, you're probably going to have to trade away Karl-Anthony Towns.

You might have to get rid of a piece like Bridges or Oji Ananobi. But I believe if you put together a healthy Giannis at 31 years old in the prime of his career, and he's healthy and he's happy and he's in New York with Jalen Brunson, who same thing is healthy and in the prime of his career, and now he's got a true big guy. Not that Julius Randall wasn't a Karl-Anthony Towns, but we're talking about one of if not the best big guy in the land.

And you put that guy with Jalen Brunson both in their prime? All of a sudden your expectations go from winning 55 games to winning 68 games to winning the Eastern Conference to getting to the NBA Finals. And anything short of getting a championship, if you actually add Giannis to this next team that we just saw, would be considered a disappointment. Which brings us to who wants that job as the coach?

Again, I see both sides of it. If you want to be an NBA coach, you want to take over a good team in a big market with a great fan base, it seems like a great job. But what kind of coach would actually take that job?

The names that have been floated out there. A guy like Jason Kidd. Jason Kidd has a gig.

He's in Dallas. The fan base loves him. They're pissed off at the general manager, so he gets a little bit of an easy ride. He took the team to finals just a year ago, and now he's got the number one pick to play with. And seemingly, you're going to get a healthy Kyrie and Anthony Davis at some point. I mean, I would argue that that job, that actual gig that Jason Kidd has, is as good as the Knicks' job, if not better, because of job security. So if they're going to talk to Jason Kidd, Jason Kidd's going to say back to them, no, I'm good. Nothing against your job, but my current one is better.

And I agree with them. Jay Wright said I want to stay on TV. Rick Pitino said I want to stay coaching St. John's.

I mean, at some point, the Knicks are just going to keep going down this list, and it's going to be okay. We wanted this guy, but he didn't want us. All right, we thought we'd get this guy, but it turns out he likes his job better than ours.

And now you're going to get into the Mike Malone's and the Taylor Jenkins and the Jeff Van Gundy's and nothing against any of those guys. But at some point, if you're going to get rid of Tom Thibodeaux, the plan had to be we're going to fire him because we're going to hire this guy. And so far, I think all the guys they thought they were going to be able to hire have said no. And I think the reason they're saying no is because of the expectations. Look, expectations in life are a good thing at your job. We want the boss to think that you can do it.

We want your clients to think that you're the best out there. But if it's championship or bust, if you can't screw up at all, that's what happens. Jason Kidd takes that job next year. All of a sudden, they finish third place in the Eastern Conference and get knocked out in the second round of the playoffs. People are calling for his job. Why would you leave where you currently are?

It's weird. It's like that Knicks job right now is a good one. If they get Giannis, it's a great one. And it's almost too good for a great coach.

I'm very curious who the Knicks actually are going to land because the difference between who they think they can get and who actually wants the job, it seems like they're very far off. 888-710-4ISN is the phone number. Coming up on the other side, let's get back into the NFL right here on the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. Welcome back into the show for JR on the sports machine, Sean Levine. Think O'Reilly Auto Parts for all your car care needs.

Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Welcome back into the show. 888-710-4ISN is the phone number. We're about to start the second period of game three of the Stanley Cup Finals. Panthers up two to zero. Thank you for the guy that called in and corrected. I was telling this really good story about Shea Gildas Alexander and how he's played his whole career for the Thunder and how only Kobe and Dirk and Steph. And the story seemed pretty good except I was lying to you because honestly I forgot that he got drafted by the Clippers. And then the caller reminded me of that, yo, the Clippers got to be kicking themselves. Because as good as this Thunder team is, let's just be honest, they're great in their championship caliber because they have Shea Gildas Alexander, right? I think that if you took Shea Gildas Alexander, this version, and put him on any other team in the NBA with their current roster, including what the Clippers have, then maybe they're not 68 wins and beating up on everybody the same way this Thunder team did in back-to-back best record in the Western Conference. But they're certainly in the championship conversation. Like very rarely do you trade a player early on in their career and then it comes back to bite you this quick.

And it feels like that's what's... Where are we for Shea? This is year what, six? Year five in the Thunder uniform and he's already the MVP, the leading scorer in the playoffs, leading scorer in the regular season. He's going to be the MVP of the finals, his team's about to win the championship? Yo, the Los Angeles Clippers probably, maybe could have done a lot of those same things had they just done nothing.

So again, that's one of those trades where you look back a few years later and go, whoops, 888-710-4ISN is the phone number. Speaking of new players on new teams, Pittsburgh got their quarterback, the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers. And it's funny because Mike Tomlin has a certain type, right? We've all got our type, whether it's a type of food, a type of girl, a type of movie, we've all got our type. And his type, talk about Mike Tomlin, is a quarterback that's not going to turn the ball over, that's a veteran, that's smart, that doesn't have a huge arm, but he's accurate.

You know what I'm talking about. Been around this burger for like 12, 15 years, took him to three Super Bowls, won a couple of championships, it's all gravy, baby. And then it feels like ever since then, Roethlisberger retired, Pittsburgh keeps going 10 and 7 or 9 and 8 or 11 and 6 and they go over 500 and they make the playoffs and the playoffs come around, they lose their first round playoff game and then the off season's here. That kind of feels like what it's been since Ben Roethlisberger's retired because that's exactly how it has been since Ben Roethlisberger retired.

The team's not terrible, the team's not great, they're good enough to back in the playoffs, but they're not good enough to do anything once they get there. And the last couple of years it's been the same thing because of the quarterback. Tomlin's still great, the defense has been pretty good, but when you've got Russell Wilson slash Justin Fields running the show or Kenny Pickett slash Mason Rudolph running the show, there's a ceiling to this thing, right? You can only win so many games and when you get to the playoffs you're probably not going to beat other playoff teams with that guy at quarterback. So the Steelers decided, you know what, we need to take the next step and the next step is getting a quarterback kind of like Ben Roethlisberger and the closest thing to Ben Roethlisberger in 2025 is named Aaron Rodgers.

He's going to have a good touchdown to interception ratio, he's going to throw like 210 yards per game, he's not going to have a bunch of deep bombs and they're going to win however many games they end up winning. I think that the Steelers are delusional. I think the Pittsburgh Steelers held out for Aaron Rodgers because they looked at what Peyton Manning did 10 years ago when he hurt his neck, when he was on the Colts, when the Colts traded him away to the Broncos and a couple years later the Broncos won the Super Bowl with Peyton Manning. I think that the Pittsburgh Steelers saw what happened a couple of years ago with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who went out there and got, I mean there's no way that most people thought Tom Brady was going to go to the Bucks and win a Super Bowl. Maybe you thought the Bucks were going to be relevant, maybe you thought they were going to be good, maybe you even thought they were going to win a playoff game or two, but be honest with me, did you really think that Brady was going to switch teams, switch leagues, come out of retirement and win a Super Bowl right away?

Damn! I guess after all he is the GOAT. To me Pittsburgh thinks that that's what they're getting. A guy that is going to come in, that's going to lead your team in the playoffs, when the playoffs come around he's going to use his experience, going to win a couple of games and then all of a sudden we're going to look up and the Steelers are in the AFC Championship game against my Chiefs or the Bills or the Ravens and I'm here to tell them that ain't happening. Not this version of Aaron Rodgers. This version of Aaron Rodgers over the last, let's call it four years and we can take out the year that he got injured where he didn't put up any stats, his QBR is 24 out of 32 starting quarterbacks.

So we've gone now, this will be five years when he starts game one for the Pittsburgh Steelers since Aaron Rodgers has been even a top half the league quarterback. See the problem is some of us are stuck in our prime. I remember back in the day I had this great long hair, I had more game than Milton Bradley, dressed nice, felt really good about myself, all kinds of confidence. I was the man.

I'd go out to a bar and pick up any girl I wanted. Well that was like 15 years ago. Now I'm bald, I got a gut, I got man boobs, I'm anxious, like I'm not that same guy and we all like to remember ourselves in our prime. I'm not mad at you for that but Aaron Rodgers, I'm here to tell you in Pittsburgh, I'm here to tell you that's not the Aaron Rodgers you're getting. You're not getting discount double check, you're not getting four-time MVP, you're getting a very average quarterback at best.

You know what you're getting? You're getting Ben Roethlisberger at the end of his career. You're basically getting what you had last year in Russell Wilson and if the plan for Pittsburgh is we're going to get Aaron Rodgers but he's going to make us better, well how much better does he really make you? Does the Pittsburgh front office actually believe now that they got this version, 40 year old Aaron Rodgers, ayahuasca, dark room, injury, this holding out, this version of Aaron Rodgers?

How many wins is he worth? Maybe one in the playoffs that they haven't been able to get the last couple of years but if you can't win the Super Bowl then why not just look toward the future? And Pittsburgh got tons of options, you could have seen what you had at Justin Fields, you could have kept Russell Wilson, you could have said you know what's up in the stopgap year with a guy like Jameis Winston, hell if you wanted to you had four different chances in the draft to take Shadore Sanders and put him on the field but you held out for this version of Aaron Rodgers.

Good luck, he ain't Tom Brady, not Peyton Manning. Guarantee you that because I look at the hierarchy of AFC and Pittsburgh is not anywhere near the conversation, they're just not. Does anybody think Pittsburgh's any better than third place in their own division? I know Cincinnati had a down year last year but that was the exception of the rule. If Burrow plays anything close to what he did last year that team gets right and wins 12 or 13 games.

The Ravens win 12 or 13 games in their sleep. The only thing I can say about the Pittsburgh Steelers Aaron Rodgers led team is that they're not the worst team in the division, that's definitely the Browns but that's it. They didn't all of a sudden get in the same conversation talking about the Steelers because they got Aaron Rodgers with the Chiefs or Buffalo or Baltimore. There's a huge gap between all those great accomplished teams and what this Steelers team is. In the NFC I got to be dead honest with y'all, I can't figure out the hierarchy. Outside of Philadelphia, if you said all right sports machine give me all the division winners in the NFC.

I'm pretty confident telling you that Philadelphia is going to win the East. The Cowboys stink, the Giants are terrible and DC probably takes a step back from what they were a year ago. Still a playoff team, still have a great quarterback and still have a lot of potential going forward but they won 12 games in the regular season last year. I wouldn't be surprised if that's a 10 called 11 win team. So what I'm saying is I think Philly no matter what happens as long as they stay relatively healthy they rack up so many wins this year.

13, 14 something like that they get to buy the playoffs go back through Philadelphia. Maybe I'm just got PTSD as a Chiefs fan from the Super Bowl but I remember that shellacking. Look the Philadelphia Eagles are the best team. You could argue they got one of the best coaches, one of the best quarterbacks, they got the best running back, their defense is legitimate. Like that team isn't going anywhere and they're clearly the best team in the NFC.

Who else are we sure is a playoff lock in that conference? Are we sure the Lions are? Because the Lions to me are a team that I don't think their window is completely shut on them but it's closing fast.

Like you better get a crowbar and jam that thing open because a couple of years ago there was this really good feeling. You got the new coach, you got the new quarterback, you won 13 games and then you get knocked out of the playoffs but it's okay because you're the Lions and you've sucked at football our entire lives. The only time anybody ever talks about you is when you had Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson or Thanksgiving. That's it you're the Lions. So a couple of years ago when you won all those games and won the division and won a playoff game everybody's patting you on the back and then last year they did it again. Well at least during the regular season would they go 14 and 3, they had the bye, it was all good until it wasn't and they lost in the playoffs. I wouldn't be too surprised if that was their chance the last couple of years and all of a sudden other teams in the division are getting better particularly Green Bay.

Chicago can't get much worse. You think maybe they take a little bit of a step back, maybe win 10, 11 games this upcoming season, maybe they're a wildcard team and Green Bay wins the division. I'm not saying that Detroit's a bad football team but we made them out to be great before they really ever accomplished anything and I don't really know what to expect from that team this year. Same thing with Green Bay, I don't know what to expect from the Rams.

I think that San Francisco is still part of that conversation but I'm not a million percent sure. I mean let's be honest last year they were probably the biggest disappointment in the entire NFL. They were the favorite to win the Super Bowl, the San Francisco 49ers were heading into last year. Better odds in Buffalo, better odds in Baltimore, better odds in Kansas City, better odds in Detroit. They were the favorite to win the Super Bowl and they missed the playoffs and you're probably thinking yeah because they had a bunch of guys that were injured.

Okay that's true but this isn't chess right? This is football, this is the NFL and every team has injuries and for whatever reason San Francisco, yeah they had a lot more than most teams, they couldn't overcome them. I'm just not completely sold that's an elite football team is still part of the Super Bowl conversation. In the NFC, honest with you, it's Philadelphia and then I don't know who's next. If you want to tell me it's DC, Detroit, LA, a bunch of these teams, I'm not going to argue with you.

In the AFC it's pretty clear. There's three big dogs, Kansas City, Buffalo and Baltimore and I think, I think Cincinnati's part of that conversation also but I reserve judgment. That's a weird-ass football team.

888-710-4ISN is the phone number. Before we get another sports update and then wrap things up on the other side, the Bears and the Jets to me are the two most interesting teams heading into this season because of their quarterbacks. When you look at, let's start with the Jets and Justin Fields, that's the great unknown in the last five years I would say in the NFL. I mean if I talk about every other quarterback, you probably have an opinion on him in the league.

You probably think okay Trevor Lawrence sucks, Patrick Mahomes awesome, Jalen Hurts is awesome, Geno Smith's getting old, like you can formulate an opinion. If I ask you how good is Justin Fields, saying I have no idea is a perfectly acceptable answer because that dude's had one of the weirdest starts to his career of any NFL quarterback ever. You get drafted in the top 10, you get thrown in the fire with the Bears, you got a first-year head coach, it was never going to work and then all of a sudden once you start playing some football they trade you away, you go to Pittsburgh, they throw you in the field, you win some games, they take you off the field, nobody knows how good that guy is.

He doesn't know, Pittsburgh doesn't know, the Jets don't know, you don't know, I don't know. I can't wait to see what Justin Fields is now that he knows he's at least going to get an opportunity. Maybe he sucks, I don't have to come back on here and eat my words, but maybe he goes out there and wins 12 games, we really don't know. But I do know that if he's awesome and if Jayden Daniels is awesome again, better than he was last year, they go out there win 13 games, win the division, he's the best quarterback in the NFC, Bears fans are going to vomit every Sunday when they wake up before they turn on their TVs. Like, it's one thing if Caleb Williams struggles again and the team wins seven or eight games and they miss the playoffs, I think Bears fans could accept that and then year three we'll kind of start to judge the win-loss record and Caleb Williams for real. But man, if Justin Fields is doing his thing and Jayden Daniels is doing his thing and the Bears still suck, it could be a long season for Bears fans. Yo, this hockey game is crazy.

I think I should have played the over. Six and a half looked like a big total even though we got, what, nine in the last game. Since I've been jabbering, we've gotten tons more goals. The Panthers are now up three to one with 14, 14-40 left in the second period and all of a sudden we've already got four goals on the board.

Three for the Panthers, one for the Oilers. Something tells me that's going to be talked about in your update coming up right now with Marco Belletti. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. No JR tonight, you got me.

Final segment, Sports Machine, Sean LaVie with my guy Ryan back in studio spinning the wheels. 8-8-8-7-10-4 ISN is the number. Speaking of numbers, they are wild in the Stanley Cup game. Panthers on the board again, four to one right now. The rats are a flying on the ice down in Florida. 10 minutes left in the second period.

Again, Panthers have a four to one lead over the Oilers. Is it just rats that you throw on the ice or is it rodents of your choice? Could you throw like a hamster? Could you throw perhaps a mouse? What about, anybody, remember R.O.U.S. is from, what was that movie called?

Princess Bride? The rodents of unusual size. How sick would that be? Somewhere from the upper deck. Just tosses in just this 50 pound rat, like what the hell? How are we gonna get that thing off the ice?

Rats on the ice in Florida aplenty. Four to one, the Panthers up over the Oilers. On the baseball diamond, top of the 11th, the Cubs just took a lead with two outs in Philly, three to two. Tampa and Boston and a good one in eighth, six to five and Atlanta just opened up their lead in the eighth over Milwaukee, five to one.

Again, 8-8-8-7-10-4 ISN is the phone number. Earlier on in the show, we were talking some hoops and it made me think the changing of the guard is right in front of us. Where, if you gave me a free million bucks and said alright sports machine, do what you want with this money but you gotta bet it, yes or no? Does LeBron or Steph Curry or Kevin Durant or James Harden or Russell Westbrook, do any of those dudes ever get back to the NBA Finals?

Do they ever win another ring? I would say you can give me all those veterans and my answer would be no and I give my million bucks. I think those guys' days are done. Going forward, I think you're gonna see a lot of SGA, Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, all those dudes.

We're seeing the changing of the guard in front of us, which made me curious. Since Jordan retired, it's kind of the generation that's going away, all those guys that I just mentioned. Who would be on the Mount Rushmore? Who would have been the four best NBA basketball players to step on a court since Michael Jordan retired? Here's the names I came up with.

If yours is different, feel free to hit me up or just yell at your steering wheel if you want to. LeBron, obvious end of story. Some people think he's the second best basketball player behind Michael Jordan of all time. He's got the rings, he's got the MVPs, he's got all the accolades.

We're not gonna argue too far. LeBron makes the post-Jordan Mount Rushmore basketball players. Kobe? Kobe probably, this is gonna sound weird, probably a little bit underrated, only because we talk about LeBron before we talk about Kobe most of the time. I actually think there's an argument that Kobe had a better career, but we'll save that for another day because I've only got a few minutes left here on the Infinity Sports Network.

But on top of that, he played with the Lakers. So when you start to talk about him, was he better than Kareem? Was he better than Shaq? Was he better than Magic? Like some people would say he's only the third or fourth best Laker of all time.

For my money, he's a lock too. Since Jordan, if we're making the Mount Rushmore of NBA players, LeBron, Kobe, Steph's gotta be on there. I mean, Steph Curry's the greatest three-point shooter of all time. He's got all those rings. Steph's definitely on there also.

And then this is where the argument gets good. Maybe you've got Tim Duncan, I'm not gonna fight you there. All the championships, consistency, what does he have, five rings? If you wanna say LeBron, Kobe, Steph Curry, and Tim Duncan on your post-Jordan Mount Rushmore, I ain't mad at you. Personally, I would put Shaquille O'Neal there. I'd put Shaq there. As dominant as he was for as long as he was in all the championship rings, I feel very comfortable saying Kobe, LeBron, Shaq, and Steph. But if you wanna put Duncan, there's only one other guy that could even be part of this conversation, and he's going right now. And I think he needs to win one more ring before he can get on this type of a statue. If we're talking about all-time greatness, and we're saying post-Jordan, we're talking about 20, 25 years, and we're listening to four best players, Nicole Jokic has to be in this conversation somewhere.

He's just a tough one to figure out, man. Because if you look at LeBron James, he's absolutely chiseled out of granite and he can do anything with a basketball, and he looks smooth doing it. If you look at Nicole Jokic, he looks like your great uncle. He looks like some dude at the YMCA that still wouldn't be the first pick. Yet if you wanna talk about actual skill sets and who's the better basketball player, damn, now you're really getting into a conversation.

And I truly believe that. As much as we talk about LeBron this, LeBron that, LeBron-Jordan comparisons, if you wanna say who's the better offensive player between LeBron and Nicole Jokic for their entire career, again, that's a fun conversation to have. We don't have time for it. But I'm keeping Jokic off for now until he wins another ring. I mean, how many does Shaq have? Four?

Five? Steph's got four. Kobe's got five.

LeBron has four. The other guys that I thought about, Kevin Durant, yeah, but no. Iverson. Dirk? Dirk maybe has a little bit of a fight only because if you look at the teams that he played on, not exactly the best running mates throughout his entire career. Unless the Pacers cash in and win the finals this year, I would say that Mavericks team with Dirk, ironically also coached by Rick Carlisle, is the most unlikely championship team in my lifetime at least. Between Wade, Giannis, maybe James Harden, but that's who I got.

LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, and Steph. We got a couple of minutes left. You know how we do. Give me some beats. Overrated, underrated before we get out of here. We talked a lot about the hit king earlier on in the show.

I got a little bit, well, let's just call it what it is. I got pissed off that they let Pete Rose in. He's gonna get allowed in the Hall of Fame.

He's now eligible essentially less than a year after he passes. Overrated or underrated? Pete Rose. Underrated? His game is underrated. His name itself is overrated though. Pete Rose, man, like I understand that he looked like he's a little rough around the edges. Like he did.

Let's just call it what it is. Like Pete Rose, look, if you never spoke to him, he looked like your scary like great uncle that you see every other year at the family reunion that you don't even talk to. But I'll be honest with you, I did talk to him a couple of times. A couple of times on the radio, once in person in Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, the guy's a total sweetheart. Did he like to bet?

Did he break the laws again? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. How long we gonna hold that against him? Pete Rose, underrated baseball player, underrated human being. Joe Mazula. I think he's underrated. What?

I do. I just, I think he's dealt with a lot of injuries and even still the Celtics are a great regular season team. He won a ring last year and it's, if Jason Tatum doesn't tear his achilles, Jalen Brown doesn't hurt his meniscus, they still, Porzingis doesn't get sick, Drew Holland doesn't hurt his hamstring and finger, I think they're in a better spot. Bro, you got more excuses than my ex. They were gonna lose. I'm just saying, they were all hurt. Yeah, but they were gonna lose anyway. Like Tatum getting hurt certainly didn't help the situation, but they were already down.

All those other things seem like convenient excuses to me. Porzingis, I mean, let's be honest, sometimes he has 40, sometimes he has four and we forget he's even on the team. That team to me, if they don't win at least two more championships with this group of players. Dude, they got four All-Stars, they got three first team All-NBA players, they got five Olympians.

What are we talking about here? Like Joe Mazula to me is wildly overrated. He should have two rings in three years.

I know that's high expectations, but two of those years, including this one, early exits? He's fine. Um, zebras as pets. Overrated and underrated. Overrated. They're too messy.

You never had one. Too messy? I'm just going to assume they're going to be messy. That's a lot to take care of. They do seem messy. They're not as cool as other pets would be.

Such as? I mean, a zebra's a pretty cool pet. I don't know, tigers are cooler. Okay, that's true. Yeah, if you got a tiger, I'd be more impressed than if you had a zebra. That's true. Yeah, like a cheetah. That'd be cool.

A cheetah would be dope. Aren't they... Am I wrong here? Like, I'm barely a sports radio host, let alone a geologist or whatever. Aren't they extinct? Like, close to it? Or I'm just making that up? No. Oh, we got plenty of zebras? Some of them.

We're good there? Maybe rhinos? Maybe? Dinosaurs? Rhinos are almost extinct. Dinosaurs? They're gone, right? Basically, yeah. Basically, okay. Overrated, underrated. The Cincinnati Bengals is upcoming season. Underrated, I think.

Underrated. I think they'll eventually get a deal done with Hendrickson, and they'll figure that out. I don't know, man. I don't know.

It feels like they're kind of at odds. If I said they gotta win 11 games, over or under? I'd say under.

I'd say they get 10. Yeah, the division's good, right? Like, Pittsburgh's going to be better. We know how good Baltimore is.

Cleveland sucks like a Hoover vacuum, but besides that, you could really convince me that any of those other teams win the division. We talked earlier today about Pearl Jam. Overrated, underrated. Underrated. They're great. Saw them live a month ago.

They're great. Did you get peed on like I did? No, I didn't.

Again, don't knock it till you've tried it. Like, I'm not saying that it made the concert... No, I'm not saying it made the concert any better, Ryan. I'm just saying it also didn't make it worse. Like, you were complaining, oh, I got a beer poured on me at the Dave Matthews Band concert, screw DMB. Dude, I got peed on at a Pearl Jam concert, and it's just like, I wear it with pride. Big deal. I was seven at Dave Matthews Band.

Jeremy Spoken. I was easily convinced as a kid that they were bad. No, dude, they're great. And getting peed on at the concert, it's like, that's how you live. Peed on, or beer poured on you. You know what I'm saying?

What do they say, it's better to be pissed off than pissed on, I believe? Yeah. Alrighty, Devin Booker. Overrated, underrated. A little overrated. I think he hasn't done anything on a winning team.

Yeah, but he got screwed because they decided, you know what? Even though we're two games to zero a couple of years ago on the Milwaukee Bucks, let's break this thing up. Let's add a couple of pieces. Let's bring in this Kevin Durant, let's bring in this Bradley Bieler, pretend like we have a big three. They were just fine with Devin Booker. To me, Devin Booker was the key to that team.

They've realized that, that's who they're gonna build around going forward. I actually think Devin Booker's a little bit underrated, and I think that at some point in the next couple of years, if the Phoenix Suns can just get a couple of right pieces around him, we're gonna see them deep in the playoffs once again. Overrated, underrated, I told you I sliced my knee out of my nail up playing a skee-ball. Is overrated underrated like the injury itself, or just like skee-ball itself?

No, the game itself. Yeah, the injury sucked. Overrated?

Yeah, it's not fun. Yeah, skee-ball is a little bit overrated. Alan Iverson, overrated, underrated. Underrated.

Culture of life. Underrated AI. Practice?

We're talking about practice? One more. And by the way, Bart Winkler's coming up next. So apparently there was, what was that memorabilia that I was talking about that got sold for all the money?

It was the Rafa racket from the French Open, pulled in $160,000, so it made us talk about the trough in the Metrodome that somebody bought for $425. A trough toilets. That's one before we get out of here. Overrated, underrated. It's disgusting. Isn't it though? It's horrible. Isn't it? Worst thing in the world. Are those still a thing?

I hope not. There were plenty of times when I've, you know, got gun-shy. I was ready to go. I had to go. I was like six beers in and I just stood there, zippered down, looked around, nothing happened.

Forget about the trough. Thanks to Ryan, thanks to you for checking out the show. Don't forget Bart Winkler's coming up next on the Sports Machine. I'm Sean Levine. I'll talk to you next time right here on the Infinity Sports Network. Goodnight!