Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back. It's the Rich Eisen Show Basketball Podcast here on a Wednesday.
We are in July, July 20th. Brockman's here with the guys, TJ and Adam. Fellas, what's happening? What's going on, Brockman? What's cracking?
What's cracking? It's great to see you guys. You know, there's not a lot of NBA stuff kind of going on right now. So we're going to kind of bang out a quick pod and talk about a few things that have kind of been on my mind, our minds, collective minds here in the basketball world.
I saw this today. I want to let's talk about this first before we get to LeBron at the Drew League, which I want to talk about, too. It's the anniversary one year ago today because of the way the season worked the last couple of years in the NBA.
It's been weird COVID and then the shortened season. The Bucks won the title a year ago today. Milwaukee closed out Phoenix winning four straight after being down to last year. If you guys remember, seems like forever ago, but only one year. And Giannis threw up one of the greatest closeout games, maybe an NBA history, 50 points, 50, 14, five blocks.
He was 17 of 19 from the foul line. And then that kicked off kind of the epic Buck celebration with P.J. Tucker and the giant bottle of Ace of Spades and Giannis going to Chick-fil-A and getting the 50 piece nuggets for the 50 points he scored.
Didn't we try to recreate that, T.J., when Ben Lyons was hosting last year? And we went and you said you were going to buy Chick-fil-A for everybody and that's how I thought it was. Let me ask you something, Adam, if we're talking about Giannis getting Chick-fil-A right and somebody goes, just randomly, somebody goes, hey, I'm going to get that tomorrow and bring it in, right? When I say that to you, is your first inclination to assume that that person is going to bring it for everybody? Obviously, that's what you you're just teasing people with that. So.
All right. Well, 60 piece McNuggets. Maybe I screwed that in. I come in 50, 50.
I look on Brockman's desk. He's got a 50 piece McNugget. I actually got 50. I think I got 30. Well, OK. There were a ton.
There were a lot. And I look at Ben. He doesn't have any. I don't have I was like, did you bring favorite?
He goes, no, I bought him for myself. I was like, that's not how you made it. See, you made it.
Otherwise, I would win myself. You're right. You're right. But then I did get the what was it?
A large sprite sprite lemonade. Yes. All right. And I was bad, actually.
Remember, I kind of like I don't know. I OK. In hindsight, I screw that up. I should have brought enough nuggets for everybody. I apologize. I brought some nuggets for my apology. I mean, it was I mean, if I were just to make a list of the things that you've done, that's make me scratch your head. That would be high on the list, but not number one. So it's fine. I just want to talk about this Bucks title a year later.
Let's do it. Think because a few of my friends are Bucks fans and they were talking about this morning and I really started to look at it. And then I think for me, it's the 50 points doesn't happen every day in the NBA finals. I mean, we'd have to look. I don't know how many times it's happened.
Had to have been just a handful. But when I think about Giannis and especially last year and what he was going through at the foul line during the playoffs, the 17 of 19 was just in hindsight, that is just so ridiculous and crazy when I think about him as a player and where he was. Remember last year, the fans were counting down how many seconds between cuts. They were telling teams to stop doing the countdowns on isn't against Brooklyn. They were putting the numbers on the thing. They were counting down.
I think so. I just think and, you know, we look back on this. This is going to age so well when Giannis finishes his career, how great he was in the NBA finals. I mean, I wasn't alive for Magic Johnson's 1980 closeout performance, but I saw pretty much every Michael Jordan championship final. I've seen Shaq. I've seen LeBron and you know, I'm the biggest Michael Jordan fan in the world, but that Giannis closeout performance was the greatest closeout performance I've ever seen. Yeah, by far. It was so incredible.
He just took it over. He said we are not losing this game. And like you said, the free throws was the ultimate shocker because Shaq would Shaq was a bad free throw shooter and he would he would be pretty clutch when it mattered also, but not 17 for 19, right? That is just unheard of and it and it changed the narrative on Giannis because before that finals, there are a lot of pundits, a lot of people saying that Giannis is a guy that's a great player, but you can't win a championship with him that that was a narrative that he's not going to win a championship and that the team surrounding him wasn't good enough to win a championship and he shut down that narrative with one of the greatest finals performances ever, not only in that game, but overall in the series. So it was truly unbelievable to watch and Giannis went to another level in that series. The other thing to TJ about it is he had that really weird awkward injury against Atlanta in the Eastern Conference Finals. Remember, he fell funny and he kind of hyper extended his knee. Oh yeah.
And everyone was like, oh my oh my oh my God. Giannis just blew out his knee. He's out for the playoffs.
He's going to miss basically all of next season. And this guy who is becoming like you just had Superman kind of before our eyes in this playoffs because he really had a dominant playoff. I mean, his numbers against Brooklyn, the series before in the second round were just ridiculous. Six out of seven games over thirty three over thirty points. And then he's miraculously only out two games against the against the Hawks.
And then somehow plays in the NBA finals. Game one scores 20 points and then afterward goes forty two, forty one, twenty six, thirty two and fifty as they come back. It was just unbelievable. TJ, what's crazier about that is at halftime, you know, many points he had at halftime.
I haven't looked at the actual box score yet. Now it's seventeen and half and half. And he finished with fifty. Wow.
Okay. Seventy. He had seven points in the second quarter. He was three or five. Not bad. Ten in the first. You know, what was he shooting in the first three or five?
So he was fairly consistent, but nothing going into halftime that would have given you any indication of what was what was coming. You know, that's amazing. And oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Looking at the line score now. So Milwaukee had a huge lead.
Twenty nine to sixteen. And then Phoenix was actually up at halftime. They scored thirty one. They outscored Milwaukee thirty one thirteen in the second quarter. And then just Giannis just absolutely took over the second half.
And you think someone puts up a fifty piece, right? They scored a team scores, what, one twenty five, one thirty, something like that, especially in kind of today's NBA where scores are outrageous. The Bucks only scored one hundred and five points. He had half the points. That is in a close out game. Unreal to win the finals. The Bucks, the Milwaukee Bucks in the close out game of the finals, played one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight players. One, two, three, four, five of them scored. That five and not even one of their starters. OK, they had 16 off the bench.
P.J. Tucker didn't score. You honest at fifty Lopez at ten Milton at seventeen.
Holiday at twelve. Portis had sixteen. That is the whole entire one hundred and five points that were scored by this tremendous. If you said a team would win a game with only five players scoring, I'd say you're crazy. That never happens. Never happens.
Never happened. It happened in the biggest game of of the honest. Yeah, in the biggest game of their life. Well, I mean, Jeff Teague only played a minute forty three, but still like, you know, and and just think about now. Now the narrative on Giannis is what I mean.
I there is no narrative, Chris. No, I just I'm talking about last now that this happened. So winning a championship and doing what he did there in the playoffs last year, also coming off back to back MVPs and then fight. Now he wins a finals MVP with that type of finishing performance now. I mean, well, I came in the next day and was like, he's going to be better than a team.
You know what I mean? Like all of a sudden, that's now the narrative on this guy that he could suddenly be a top what, eight player all time. Maybe when it's how it came, get brought into this like it came to center on.
This is a power for it. Like it just seemed like random to pick of all people. Just look. I was looking at guys who we consider, you know, top ten all time. It seems kind of in their two championships and greatest defender of all time, arguably, and which is what Giannis might be.
I mean, you could make the case. Giannis should win defensive player of the year every year. The guy the guy wakes up and has 12 rebounds and three blocks. I just think, you know, it's the year anniversary and now we're talking about this guy is, you know, who could suddenly be somehow an all time great. And I think that's fair. I love Giannis. He's one of my favorite non Celtic players in the league right now.
It's without question. I love the guy. He's incredibly likable. He came from nothing. He came from selling trinkets on the street in Greece.
Had no money, had nothing. Nobody even really knew about him except for advanced scouts. He seemingly came out of nowhere.
He's one of the greatest stories in NBA history. And he's so likable. He's friendly. He's outgoing. He's got a cool family. He's got two other brothers in the NBA who are probably, let's be honest, only in the NBA because they're brothers Giannis.
Yeah, but I mean, maybe good for them. But by the way, I'm totally okay with that, especially like like his brother that asked us, who's on the box with him. Let's keep him on the team.
He should be a lifetime, but the masses has to be on the bottom of the two of them is going to have a job forever. Yeah, we need to get Costas on there, too. Let's get them all three together. Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked if Giannis had that in his contract. He's like, you want to sign me? And I need at least one of my brothers to compose. I realize we're going to run out of letters for the jerseys of the both on the team.
So one of them, at least there's only so many A's that they have. Chris what a cool just like sports family. Like you said, his life is now a Disney movie. It's just amazing. If you don't like Giannis, it's definitely a YP.
That's a you problem. And also if if you guys want to watch, there's videos of Giannis when he first was on the Bucks and he was new to America. So there's there's like a video where he tries a smoothie for the first time.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's talking about how much he loves smoothies. So like watching his earlier videos are great because you see a guy that's not accustomed to the American culture just learn all these new things.
So it's fascinating to watch. He's like a like a kid at that point. Doesn't he have an Oreo thing too? He like loves Oreos.
We talked about that before he I was watching the video. He had two huge glass containers in his living room and his wife's recording him. And this man, he had to have had a minimum of six packets of Oreos and he's just put in the pack.
It was weird. He's taken them out of the Oreo pack and put them in a glass bowl. And his wife is like, what are you doing? He's like, where are you going to put these? And he's like, in the basement. And she's like, who's going to eat all these? He's like me and my son. And you can tell like he was just kind of over.
She'd probably been getting on him about all these Oreos and he was just like fine. I'm gonna put them in a bowl and I'm gonna take them down the basement and me and my son are going to eat them. Leave us alone. It doesn't matter how many points you score in the closing game game of an NBA championship. When you go home and you got a wife, that goes out the door. Isn't that one other famous story? He was like, it was like raining or something. And he was, well, he was, he was in his full uniform as a rookie and he was trying to get to the stadium and someone gave him a ride. What he did was he would take his money and he would send it home to his family. But then he realized that like he, I guess, wire transferred at Western Union. He sent all the money and realized I can't get to the stadium. So he started to walk and jog and he's maybe a mile away from the stadium. Somebody looks over and goes, doesn't he play for the Bucks?
And he gave him a ride to it because he couldn't have enough money to get a cab like he sent all his money home. It's incredible. I love Giannis. And it's the one year anniversary of the Bucks title. So just wanted to give him a quick shout out and just think about how far we've come in a year in the NBA and all the storylines that we were talking about last year and last offseason and the season started. And now here we are a year later and Steph Curry has his fourth NBA title and we're talking about him as a top 10 player all time as he gets ready to host the SPs tonight in Los Angeles.
It's just kind of fun to think about other fun things that was going on kind of recently. LeBron is back on the court. Adam, he showed up at the true league, which I think a lot of people don't even really know what it is. They just kind of hear it thrown out as, you know, oh, something that happens in the summer in L.A. And that's what it is. It's kind of a summer league. And pros kind of pop in now and then.
Guys who are L.A. based. You see James Harden's played and DeMar DeRozan played with LeBron. I know what Jamal Crawford. He's popped in there now and then.
Right. So he did a lot of Seattle, Seattle stuff. Seattle stuff. But what are your thoughts on seeing LeBron roll out there? It seems like he had a nice he had a nice game, even though the only one by two, which is something that I think only I care about. What do you think about that? He saw LeBron Kyrie is supposed to play and then no showed. Of course. Are we reading any and anything into what went down at the true league over the weekend?
No, he's probably the most flaky person in the world. Kyrie, like if you have plans of Kyrie, like just expect him not to come. You know what I mean? Like it's like that one Kyrie, that one that one friend that you have, you just invite him to the party anyway, just because, you know, he's not going to show up or the person that you invite to the wedding just for the gift, because, you know, they're not going to come. Right. But yeah, no, I think it's super dope that LeBron did the Drew League because he's the biggest superstar in the world, I think, in sports right now.
And he has been for years. And the fact that he was doing a program league where it's it's in a high school gym. It's such a small gym. It's it's a it's a legendary venue in terms of the the Drew League. But the fact that like a lot of these people, it's in the hood. So a lot of these people can't afford to go to the state to Staples Center or whatever crypto and see LeBron that close those seats would be thousands of dollars in crypto. And the fact that that he went there and these people were able to see LeBron up close and personal the closest lover gets to him.
That's just so dope. And the fact that, you know, he played he had some great highlights. So, like, he had he provided them a show.
Really, LeBron had great highlights playing basketball against non NBA players. I can't believe that. Yeah, but you're an asshole. You never know what I'm saying. Yeah, you never know what's going to happen.
So, you know what I mean? Just like kind of just played it casually. But like he was playing. And the fact that also DeRozan was on his team, they they provided a show.
So I just think it's dope that that he decided to do that and gave back to the community. You've lived here longer than we have to. Have you ever rolled over to the Drew League?
I've never been to the Drew League, man. And there's been so many summers where I'd be like, man, normally I'm always late with stuff, right? Like, I'll hear about it after it happens. Like, I never see concert all of a sudden out here. Oh, you know, Jay-Z was at Hollywood Bowl last night. Wait, what? Like, oh, you know, Chappelle was at the Comedy Store.
Like, no. So I usually only hear about these big Drew League games like after they're already done. This was the first time in years I can remember. I remember one year I knew Jamal Crawford was going to play and a friend of mine were going to go and we didn't.
But I I didn't know about this, but I didn't go. I've never, never been to Drew League by hear all the story. And the crazy thing is, I'm not that far from the Drew League in.
I still have never been. Yeah, I guess what Chris Haynes had the report or Yahoo had it that like, well, Brown Brown's going to play tomorrow in the Drew League. Just imagine this. I also expected to play and you're like, whoa, imagine you're in the Drew League and you're feeling good. You got a you got a game the night. You know, you're just you're just getting off.
You're working at FedEx or UPS or Target or the Rich Eisen Show. These are good players to players. I'm sure a lot of them play college or college.
By the way, I doubt you're getting in that league if you didn't at least play. Right. And then you go, all right, we're going to smash this team tonight. And then, oh, by the way, the ringer is showing up. It's DeMar DeRozan. Oh, dang it. Oh, wait a minute.
There's one more. James. James who? Oh, no, it's LeBron James.
I see L. James in the roster. Yeah. You're like, oh, my God, nervous breakdown. There were some funny tweets going around. It's like some dude just like finishes shifted and then he's got to wake up and thinking he's going to have a great game.
And you realize you have to guard LeBron. You're like, what? I was reading the tweets from one guy.
I mean, this tells you, man, people will dig in the crates for anything. Oh, the dude from eight years ago who had been over the years trash talking LeBron on Twitter like LeBron's not clutch and he's not the king of the goat. And then he had he was on the other team that game. And so he ended up guarding LeBron and he got cooked, of course, because that's of course, LeBron had what, 42 or something. You're going to get cooked if you're playing it. But it's just like you spend all that time talking trash about the guy.
Now you've got to play him. All right. I know the answer before I ask the question, but does it make me a super hater that I'm hung up on the fact that a team with two NBA superstars only won by two points in the summer league?
Yeah, it does. I don't know if it makes you a super hater, but it's just like, who cares? It's like summer league. He's never played with those guys. They've never played with him. It's a summer league game. Like you said, the competition, these aren't chumps out.
No, they're not chumps. And imagine it. I get it. Like you're the greatest player in the world, but you're stepped on the court where no one's played with you. Imagine how many LeBron passes just bounced off a guy's hands because they're not used to getting the ball here. Like who put the ball in my hands? Probably that much heat.
He's got to whip that. So now I would I would say now that's not all right, because that was the first thing I thought of. I saw the highlights as it was happening. I did watch a little bit. I think NBA dot com was kind of live streaming it. And it was funny. One guy was just everyone was standing the whole time, right?
Obviously, it's our own high school gym. And but the camera that NBA dot com was using was posted up kind of in the like the last row. And it's just like this dude head. No, this guy's head was in the middle of the court the whole time. So, like, they were just kind of doing this with the camera. And this was the back of this guy's head the whole time. Every now and then a camera.
You get that shot. If they put the camera in the stand and you'll get a shot, it'll be like, wait a minute. Somebody just stood up in front of the camera. They said that people were waiting from eight a.m. to get into that game. So people were waiting all morning. It started at like two in the afternoon.
Two or three. So I saw the highlights. Obviously cool. Broad doing LeBron stuff. Kind of what you expect, even though it's going to be 38 or whatever. But I saw the score.
I was like to win by two, especially having DeRozan win by two. Like, what type of you have two NBA all stars in the same team? That's kind of what I thought.
I don't know. And then skip Bayless, man. Just a legend like that guy never quits. I'm a legend.
I don't know is a word I would use. I think he's a legend at this point, just in terms of his absurd absurdity. It's just kind of using legend, kind of like. I don't understand. Like, you don't think it's funny?
Honest to God, I really, really don't. It's just like he's just doing the thing. You know, I mean, like he's after a while.
But after a while, it's like, OK, you've been doing the thing for 18 years now. The guy is arguably at work at absolute worst. Second, I'm saying the absolute worst is the fourth greatest player. I'm just saying in the history of this earth, OK, there may be he might be top 15 ever right to ever walk this planet to play basketball.
And that might be too low. But I'm just saying, I think it's a safe to say because we all know there's guys who didn't make the NBA. But you've got a guy who's in the history of mankind.
There may be 14 other men or women who played this game better. And all this dude does is just his ridiculous rants. And I think it's funny. I think it's one of those things. And like it's like a comedy theory. Like when you say a joke at first is funny and then you say the joke over and over again, it's like Letterman does. This is not funny. And then eventually it becomes funny again because it's so ridiculous.
I subscribe to the rule of three. After the third time, it's just not like, no, it's not funny. But then the twenty fifth time it becomes funny again. You know what I mean? Now, I don't I mean, I just I just feel like Skip is ridiculous with his like LeBron hate. It's just it's utterly amazing to try to like.
And also, that's why it's funny to me. I've got issues with people always trying to like bring this man down. LeBron has had more pressure on him as an athlete than any other person in the history of the planet when it comes to being visible, when it comes to that time when he became famous and all eyes were on. And we didn't have Michael Jordan at you.
We didn't have Charles Barkley or Iverson. We all everyone in this room has known LeBron since he's 15. This guy, the amount of pressure that this guy has to have, not just on the basketball court, but walking down the street and you see a girl in a nice summer dress, you can't even look because all of a sudden now you're going to look at my girl and there's a cheater.
Check out the like. Right. No one's had more pressure than this guy.
And this dude has he has passed each and every test. Like people want to go, oh, you can't go to the finals that many times and lose. How many people have gone to eight finals or nine finals in a row?
Like it doesn't happen. So I'm also like I and I think I stand I defend LeBron a lot because I used to be this way with Kobe because he played for the Lakers. I just like Kobe Lakers. But then I got to a point where I was like, man, you love basketball and you are just truly missing out on some great basketball because you're hating a little bit.
I just like skills commitment to the bit, though, to be honest. I think in a weird way, I respect that. I just don't think I like the guy.
That's totally fine. I'm not saying I like him at all, but the bit is like it's just like, man, you're still going on with it's beyond absurd at that point at this point in time. So that's that's what makes it funny to me. It just makes me funny. He's just like crapping on us on a summer league game. It doesn't matter. Like, by the way, let's give LeBron what is terrible tequila.
He'll go all in. Let's give LeBron props to not even like acknowledge this jerk like your entire career is probably. And I told you guys a story once, like I was in college, I was playing a Sega baseball game with a guy who was on our school baseball team from Canada.
Nice dude. Never talked trash. I'm talking trash when I play video games, right? This dude beat me like 17 to nothing. I just got work, guys.
I've never been beaten that bad in the video game of my life. And you know what made me the most mad? He just sat. He sat there and didn't say a word to me the entire time. And I kept looking over him like grit and like, say something. And he wouldn't.
He didn't trash talk. And I feel like that must be how Skip feels when LeBron doesn't say anything back like, you know, begging for a response. Just just look at me. Call me.
Say I suck or something, but no, you're not giving me anything. So I feel like maybe that's what skip doesn't stop. He keeps doing it. So same energy. Look, Chris and Adam. Skip Bellis makes eight million dollars a year doing that, and I don't.
So maybe I should apply and use maybe what works for him because, you know, I'd like to make eight million dollars a year at some point. So yeah. So anyway, that's kind of what's going on in the wig as we sit and wait to see if Kyrie is going to get moved.
Kevin Durant's going to get booed. Neither one of them are getting moved like I tried to tell you. I don't know.
It's not happening. I think you're I think you might be right. There was what? Some report that said the team's kind of bracing for Kyrie to return because there's just kind of been no movement. I kind of thought the Drew League thing that him possibly playing was like a way for him and LeBron to kind of I thought it was kind of like meet up and talk and have a pow wow. But it doesn't seem like that that might be the case.
So before we get out of here, I just saw a few things on Statmuse, which kind of made I like this one. You said yes, what kind of maybe there's there's actually two of them. They did two good ones.
They're kind of using our game that we do in the big show start bench cut. And I saw there were two of them. What was the one that I sent you guys? There's one. There was one to start bench cut was Luca Giannis. Oh yeah.
The one that I say. So it's start bench cut heading into this season. So it's heading into this season.
Who you got? Start bench cut Steph Giannis, Luca. This was actually easy for me when you said it was very hard for me. You go first. Well, I just look at it this way. Okay, you go then one players never let his team do a championship. Okay for ever playing start bench cut rules. Okay. Okay. That's easy for me.
I'm going to cut heading into this season. I get it. Okay. But I just go going by that and I got to cut Luca.
Oh God. Okay. I'm going to sit Steph. I'm going to start Giannis just based on that factor. You're going to sit Steph and you're going to start Giannis heading into this season. I actually think that you're right. What? I know that really hurt me to say let's talk this out.
That's the only like what is our criteria here? Is it like who we think has the best chance to win the title start bench cut or just like player we're taking like MVP or they didn't really. Yeah, they didn't say they literally just said coming into this season start bench cut. I think look, I think I think if Chris Middleton doesn't get hurt, I think I am far removed enough from the finals to say honestly the Bucks probably win the title. Steph was the MVP of the season for what the first like 30 games last year something like that.
He balled it first and obviously I love Luca. He's a walking he you know, he's going to be a super duper star when it's all said and done. I think he will win a title but I don't think the Mavs are set up to win a title coming into the season.
I think you're right. I think it's Giannis Steph is still at the top of his game and then Luca still needs some better teammates if we're basing it on title Adam. Yeah, I'll I'll go I'll go start Steph just because he's the defending champ. Okay, I'll accept that.
I'll accept that they they have pretty much their core coming back plus Wiseman Plus Wiseman plus an improved cominga and Moody. So yeah, I'll go start Steph. He just the way he ended the season was just ridiculous.
It's so so crazy. He just tore tore the Celtics up. Yeah, so I'm going to go start Steph. I'm going to go bench Giannis Giannis. He'll have a bounce back here. I can see the Bucks in the finals. Did you say bounce back?
What's going on? Like that's more the team I guess like I think that if they're healthy the Bucks will win the East and Giannis another 30 and 14 season whatever that's that's easy work. It's so ridiculous. I wonder if we're going to get to the point where we this might be blasphemous, but we got with Mike where like Mike was the best player every year, right?
So he you know, you can make a case. He should have been MVP every single year. Are we going to get that way with the honest where it's just like he's going to throw up some like 34 and 16 and five block season and we're just going to be like, nah, but I think we'll mellow balls MVP. You know what I mean?
That's what's going to happen. Well, Adam predicted LaMelo would be MVP at one point. So was it me? I think I think I was. I think LaMelo is awesome.
I think LaMelo is awesome. But yeah, I'm just saying are we going to get to the point where we're just taking the honest greatness? Yeah, we already do. It's already like because it's like, yeah, I expect 28. I expect 14. I expect two blocks. I expect somebody get locked down. I expect to highlight dunks. I expect to highlight defensive plays like, yeah, like he's he's going to become a prisoner of his own success because he's so good that we're going to be like, yeah, I expect it instead of going, wow, you know, that's really tough to do every every night. And I think people at some point, if the Bucks don't win next year, they're going to demand another championship from Giannis or start to criticize him.
Well, I don't know because I don't think about this. I don't think Milwaukee fans, those type of fans will. I think they're good.
The rest of it, like, but no one up there, no team. I think you got them a championship. I think you're good for that fan base for the next 10. I mean, more like the media. You're right now. People who maybe don't matter to that story will say that you're absolutely right. But I think fans of the Bucks, everyone in Wisconsin and up there, they're good.
They're good for sure. They were so nervous he was going to leave them. And we all thought he would. Yeah. If they didn't win that championship, he might have been gone. And the fact that they won the championship and he's there.
Yeah. The coach was about to end up in Golden State or something, you know, I thought the coach was going to get fired. He thought everything was going to go bad. So I still don't think Coach Bud's a good coach. I think he's kind of like the Mike McCarthy gets one more than you got it.
You got to take him off the side. I got to respect him. All right. The other thing I sent you guys, which I thought was pretty funny on first takes Instagram yesterday.
Kendrick Perk, Kendrick Perkins and Mad Dog. We're talking about Steph Curry with Molly because obviously Steph's hosting. Yes. Can I just give a shout out to Molly? Sure.
Hey, Molly, what's up? I'm like, has Steph surpassed Kobe all time? And I notice I didn't vote on it before I sent it to you guys.
So I like saved it because I wanted us to just talk about it. You know, guys, it just depends where you put Kobe, right? I know you hate you hate.
I'm really happy because it's so tough because how can you really how can you really save it? Like, I don't know when you're that good. Obviously, I can say that Steph has surpassed Michael Cooper, right? I can say that Steph has surpassed Joe. I'm just saying I'm like great players. But you could say like Joe DuBois was a great player. Steph's better. But when you get into that upper, upper, upper one percent, like of the one percent echelon, it's very it's like moving parts around.
If I put you at 10 and you have a guy at three, it's very easy to switch those around. Like, so I don't know. Has he surpassed Kobe in what way? Just just all time greatness. You know what? I'll take you off the hook and I'll say I'm gonna say no.
I'm gonna say no. If you just look at the accolades, right? First off, Kobe to two time finals MVP.
Right. It was a big deal that Steph finally got his first. And the other thing that kind of separates, I think for me, like two time MVP, Kobe was only MVP once of the regular season. OK, but defensively, Kobe's a 12 time all defensive player.
It's a difference. That guy was going to lock you down and he was going to take it personally and he was still going to get that you weren't going to get that we're going to get yours. And then he was going to do it on the other end. This wasn't like a Bruce Bowen situation or Patrick Beverley, where he's just going to shut you down defensively, but only give you six. Exactly.
He's going to shut you down and then he's going to get thirty four in the other end and he's going to let you know about it. Whereas Steph Curry by the way, has never been a defender that we give a lot better defender than we give him credit for. He's improved for sure. For sure.
For sure. But he's never made an all defensive team. He's never made an all defensive team. He's been an all NBA player eight times.
Obviously mad respect. Greatest shooter of all time. Greatest shooter of all time. The back to back MVPs.
I think that's a huge deal. All star game MVPs, obviously, whatever that 12 time all defensive team for me, I think just keeps Kobe ahead of him. Also, five titles with sure. Two time finals MVP and the 12 time all defensive, whether you put Kobe with you put stuff in your top 10 or not. Totally fine. If you want to have Steph 10, have him nine, but Kobe better be that one slot ahead of him.
That's interesting. I agree with you on that. I believe that Steph has had a greater impact on the culture of basketball in terms of the way the game is played with everybody shooting threes. But in terms of an overall player, Kobe is better.
I just can't see how there would be an argument that he's not better than Steph with the overall game, like you say, with the defense. That is not taken a single thing. No, exactly.
We're not taking stuff down at all. I'm just saying just that little particle little big deal. Part of Kobe's game just keeps him keeps him ahead of him for now. I couldn't agree. I mean, I mean, look, if Steph could rattle off, Seth wants three more rings. Exactly. Exactly.
He's never getting 12 all these. Hey, now. Hey, now. Hey, now. He's not getting 12 all defensive team.
But look, you're right. If Steph plays six more years and the Warriors somehow win two more titles and he's wins finals MVP both times that you'll have to do the damn. We're really gonna have to have a real conversation about whether he is past Kobe Bryant all the time, because that would be six titles. Overall ties in with Mike.
That'd be three finals MVP. Oh, my Lord. We really have to have a conversation for sure. You know, I mean, you know, for as much as I say, I don't like this, but I do love it because I love bat. And I do.
I do love the comparison. I just feel like it's just so hard to really like if we can put a top 10 list, right? And they're all gonna be different, but they're all gonna be right. Because that's how we feel. That's how we're doing it. Because like I said, if you have a team in your top 10 and someone else has Moses Malone or something like, yeah, all these guys are the top of the top.
So I don't know. I'm very conflicted with these guys. Here's one for you. We could get out on this down to Steph stuff. Game seven NBA finals. Korea ball at the top of the key Korean. It's Kobe or staff. Who do you want? Taking the last shot for your life?
For my life? Steph stuff. Really? Yeah, I know.
I know. There's been. There's been some Kobe.
Yeah, I gotta go. Like, if I need one shot to go, Steph is one of maybe five people I'd be comfortable with my life with in that moment. I mean, but nobody. Here's the thing. Nobody wants that moment more than Steph might be able to make the shot.
I'm not doubting that. Kobe wants it for sure. He wants it. He wants that situation. He wants the ball he wants. He wants the team just to be down just so he can take a shot like that to potentially tie the game or win it or send it to the line and one elbow jumper fade away and one bucket. Yeah, that's I mean, stuff doesn't have he doesn't have too many game winning shots, does he? I know he has a few, but nothing like a crazy amount. Nothing.
Nothing wild really sticks out. But but but I just think Steph is such a great shooter that for my life on the line, it's Kobe obviously was a really good shooter, but not like stuff. I'm going Steph. I just trust him. You know, it's kind of crazy. Kobe Bryant has missed thirteen thousand seven hundred sixty six shots.
Are you going to want you want to go with that? How many shots is Steph missed? Not that Kobe's missed the most shots in the history of the NBA.
He's probably taken the most, right? No, that's like the Jordan commercial. Remember that where he talks about I've missed twenty six shots or whatever, missed all these field goals and that's why I succeed. He's missed thirteen thousand seven hundred sixty six shots or shots on twenty five thousand eighty seven attempts.
You know, it's like it's like bread fire, but it was like five. You have the most interceptions in the history of the NFL. It's like I took the most chances. Yeah. By the way, Kobe was never there wasn't a shot that he was afraid to take. That's for sure.
And that says a lot. Guys, I remember there were times when like when I was younger and balling, I would get shook in the sense that like I was I knew I was always out there to rebound and play defense. But if I miss like two shots in the first quarter, you could bet that T.J. was probably unless I had a fast break layup, I'm not shooting again the rest of the game because I wasn't a shooter. Like that wasn't my thing. Like and then I get like nervous because I missed and I would just try to compensate. All right. Let me play harder defense. Let me rebound. But I don't want to be taken like any more 15 footers because it became a point of like I'm now I'm embarrassed that I missed the shot.
If you're a true shooter, you're not going to be embarrassed. I never cared about this. And I did.
I never cared. You know, I could be over 10. And guess what? I'm jacking up the next 10. See, I always say this, too. And I think Kobe may have said this about something like you'll never see me go. You might see me go like two for 19, but you'll never see me go one for eight. Right. I was that guy for a minute who was like, I'd rather go over two than one for 10.
Like, I'm just not going to keep. You know, it's crazy to like Kobe. You talk about Steph, right? Steph has that sidestep, the step back that everyone does now in the NBA. That wasn't really what around during. No one was doing step back threes. No one was doing that side dribble side. So that was more hardened. I was doing that. I kind of attribute that more.
So the hardened stuff. No, I'm just saying Steph has that in his game now where, like, if you need a thing, it wasn't a thing during kind of Kobe's head. It's pretty unbelievable to watch that your steps wasn't a thing for a while.
Not really. I mean, I mean, we had to nobly, but now it's just common. It's just a common move for people when it really wasn't back then. It's pretty crazy to see the evolution. Like, I saw this clip on Instagram of these, like, literally 10 year old kids doing, like, euros, working on your step backs. I'm just like, this is was not a thing when I was growing up.
It's really wild. Well, Chris, you know, when Ben was here, lines was here last week. You and we were talking about that. And he was saying, like, you know, he camped that he worked at a camp.
He's like, let me tell you what you never saw when we were kids. Kids doing euro steps. He goes every single kid in that camp was your our our camps, basketball camps. Growing up, it was use your pivot foot right up, up and under chest pass.
Like what? Here's a bounce pass for you. And these kids are learning, you know, step back, step back, steps and euros. It's like it's just a different plan.
Ten years from now, the NBA will be even more talented. It's coming out. There's so much. All right, let's get out of here on this one last start bench cut I saw from Stadt Muse. This is this is a good one, man. Coming into this season, who do you want? Start bench cut KD Kawhi Lebron. Oh, I'll go last on this one. Oh, KD Kawhi Lebron. I think we're out of time for the show.
Yeah, sorry. We're gonna have to get back to you guys next two more minutes. Two more minutes. Adam, come on. KD Kawhi Lebron coming into this year.
Who you got? Listen, he's been out for a year. He's your guy, TJ.
He could lead you to the promised land. And he has. And he has.
Twice. He's had plenty of time to rest. You're gonna start Kawhi? I'm going starting Kawhi. I'm starting Kawhi Leonard. I think Kawhi Leonard is due for a monster season this year.
Bounce back season. He's had all, like I said, all this time to rehab. He's ready to go. He's ready to prove himself again. Did you see him and Uncle Dennis in China?
They're over there making Chinese food and wearing balance. Oh, let me pull the video up for you. It's amazing. Kawhi's acting like Salt Bae putting salt on stuff. Kawhi is low key funny, also. Well, he's a fun guy.
He is a fun guy. All right, I'm going to complete. And then I'm going. Wait, let me finish.
Then I'll do Katie's second. And then I'm cutting LeBron. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm doing the same. I'm cutting LeBron heading into this year because I just don't think the Lakers are going to win the championship.
No dice. I'm starting Kevin Durant. He's still the best player in the world, in my opinion. So I'm going to start Kevin Durant. And I'm going to bench Kawhi because I think low key Clippers might be top four in the West. I think it might be your time, TJ. Finish strong.
We got to get out of here. The only reason I would cut Kawhi is because I know Kawhi ain't playing 82. Hell, I know Kawhi ain't playing 72.
So that might be the only reason for me to go. I'd cut him just strictly because I know he's going to take a lot of rest. He's going to ball. He ain't playing 82. But I can't cut LeBron James, man.
I just I can't. He's he's getting old. He's gonna be 38 on a bad team. He still averaged 28 a game last year.
He was actually so last year. Okay, you got it. You guys are going to cut Kevin Durant. No, he's going to cut nobody. No, I'm going to cut one of them. You're going to cut Kawhi. Oh, my God.
Self-defeated bad attitude. That is your clipper. Pts Dallas out of your top 10 team. And now you're cutting your fair player. Well, here's the deal.
I'm only I explained you. I'm only cutting them strictly because I know he's probably going to log the least amount of regular season game time next year. So I'll cut Kawhi. I'll bench LeBron.
I'll start Katie. Wow. I don't even know what to say. We just got we just got to end the pod. You got to hurt my heart. We just got to end it on that. Man, these are fun. These are fun. So we'll do some that.
There was nothing fun about that. We'll do some more of these. By the way, leave yours in the comments. Leave yours in the comments.
Your start bench cuts. And we'll we'll do some more of these next week. Hopefully we got some other news, too.
Also in the comments. If you guys have any topic suggestions for the pod, hit us up. Absolutely. Absolutely. What do you want?
DMX said don't come at me with no bleep bleep. Use caution. All right. Make them good.
Make them good. We love you guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. We will see you next week. Adam and TJ, we out.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-05 17:14:37 / 2023-02-05 17:34:19 / 20
