The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Hand of LeBron and Funniest NBA Media Narratives With Bryan Curtis | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 376)

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons, still coming down from the NBA Finals, talks LeBron's hand injury, the media aftermath of a finals sweep, and legacy implications for Kevin Durant and Steph Curry (3:15), before sitting down with Bryan Curtis to revisit NBA Finals narratives, the NBA replay, the NBA and NFL offseasons, and more (24:28). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer podcast network brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Having a high sports IQ is important. Just look at LeBron James. He got swept in the finals and then figured out how to retroactively blame his broken hand. That isn't actually broken? What's going on? I don't know. He has the freak ability, but he has the smarts too.

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NMLSconsumeraccess.org number 3030. All right, NBA Finals is over. If you're getting into the draft, I would highly recommend the Ringer NBA Draft Guide written by Kevin O'Connor, Jonathan Charks, Danny Chow. There's some Mark Titus in there. Breaking it down, the mock draft, there's some Mo Bamba. Mo Bamba's rising.

I don't know if it's the best press campaign ever or just a really effective YouTube video where he made a lot of threes. But Mo Bamba rising now to number three. Even I'm starting to get swayed. I thought he was going to snooker everybody. Now I'm starting to think it would be a mistake not to take him too. Check that out, the Ringer NBA Draft Guide and on the Ringer NBA Show podcast. We have, every Friday, we're breaking down the draft as we get closer and closer. Finally,

we're not, this isn't a new podcast launch, but it's a little bit of a relaunch. Binge mode. After almost a year of hyping that we were going to do this, it's finally happening. Harry Potter launched today. Binge Mode, Harry Potter. I think it's going to be over the next six, seven months. They're going to be hitting every book, every movie, everything in between, all the minutia. It's just, if you like Binge Mode, Game of Thrones, and you like Harry Potter,

I would say there's a 100% chance you're going to like this Harry Potter thing. Maybe even a 105% chance. Anyway, the first episode launched today. I think there's somewhere between 50 and 60 total coming over these next six months. Congratulations, Harry Potter fans. You have a reason to live this summer. Or another reason to live, I should say. Check that out coming up.

I'm going to talk about coming off the finals, a couple of leftover narrative subplots. And then Brian Curtis is coming in. Joe house. I think he's going to call in about the, about the caps, but first our friends from bro. All right, so we're taping this Monday morning, a couple days after the NBA Finals.

Really weird end to the finals. First of all, the Cavs got swept, which you know. LeBron, he pretty much broke his hand. He basically broke his hand, but he didn't break his hand. I don't know what happened. It seems like that has now tainted the Warriors just a tiny bit about winning the title or not. First of all,

it shouldn't. They would have swept them regardless of what happened on LeBron's end, I think. I just think they were way better. And game one was the fluke game to catch them right after this grueling seven-game rocket series. And they almost did. And they got a playoff career performance from LeBron and they still lost. And I don't know. I watched game two. I watched the highlights. There's really only one play during that game where you could specifically say, man, maybe his hand was a little screwed up because he had a dunk in the second half that he didn't actually kind of follow through on

and kind of gently dunked it. But, you know, at the game, it definitely looked like he was a little bit off. But when you look at his stats and everything he did, I mean, game two, he was 10 for 20. Game three, he was 13 for 28. I thought he was good in game three, actually. And I think the reason maybe you play the hand up right after the game,

like he did is it's trying, he's trying to do a little gamesmanship with golden state, which I actually, I think is a smart move by him. It's not, you sweat me. It's you sweat me, but Jairus missed a moron.

And I broke my hand and you're just playing in that little seed of doubt in the warriors. Like, oh, well what happens if LeBron has a better team and he's totally healthy? So I think it was gamesmanship more than anything, especially like at the end of game four. He comes out of the game. He gives everybody lefty high fives or little fist pumps or whatever he did.

And then after the game was just wearing this ridiculous contraption on his right hand. I don't know why he needed that after the game. But I think it's all gamesmanship at this point. And this, this is kind of the legacy of this finals for me is, you know, it was a sweep. Everybody complained about it.

We complain after every sweep. We complain after the 2007 finals. We complained after the Lakers and versus the Nets that year in 2002. Like when the final sucks, we always come up with, this stinks, it's unfair. No, I blame Kevin Durant. Why did he have to go there? That's not what's going on here.

What's going on here is the Warriors sent a message to LeBron that you can go chase a title. You can go to Houston. You can go to Houston. You can go to Boston. You could go, I guess those are really his only two options. If he really wants to win the title, go to New Orleans, play with Anthony Davis, whatever you're going to do, we're still the best team. So if you want to go chase the title, it still might not work. And I think what's changed with LeBron since the finals ended is there's no guarantee anywhere he goes that he's in a better spot than he was this year where he just gets his ass kicked in the finals. And that to me, it's Cleveland or L.A. now.

I don't see any other alternatives for him. If he stays in Cleveland for one more year, they trade the number eight pick. Maybe they trade Kevin Love, whatever. They fix the team. And he makes another run knowing that he would be the underdog in any Golden State series, hoping somebody gets injured, whatever. That would be option one. Option two would be just go to LA, change your life, do the narrative of, I want to be the first billionaire. I want to own a team. I want to learn from Magic Johnson. All my businesses are in LA. All stuff we've talked about in this podcast for a year. You go there, you basically throw away that first year. And it's a two-year plan because next year,

you're not beating this Warriors team either. And you're thinking about 2019, 2020. Luau Dang will be an expiring contract at that point. You'll just have more options. Lonzo will be in year three. I think he's going to be really good, whether they trade Brandon Ingram or not, whatever. Maybe Dame Lillard becomes more of an option in a year. Maybe Anthony Davis does. Who knows? You just go, you point your flag in LA.

You assume that whatever team you're on, you're winning the title anyway. All right, I'm not winning the title, competing for the title. So it doesn't matter if he's doing that in Cleveland or LA. Either way, he's competing, but he's not going to be the favorite. And that makes sense. Staying in Cleveland makes sense.

To me, nothing else makes sense. I don't know why you would chase a title that you're not guaranteed to win. When Durant went to Golden State, he's basically like, this is a unique chance. All of these factors have gone into play at the same time. The cap went way up. This Warriors team is awesome. They just won 73 games. They're basically turning Harrison Barnes into me,

and we have a chance to dominate and become the NBA's next dynasty. Whether you agree with his logic behind that, whatever. I'm just saying that was really smart as somebody who wants to win titles to make that move. LeBron does not have an equally smart move here. And this is something I wrote about in February. There was no perfect move for him. Philly is the other team I guess he could go to, but Philly's not ready to win the title next year.

And you don't know, can Embiid stay on the court? What's their GM situation? What's going on with Fultz? It's not a slam dunk. None of these teams are slam dunks. The only team that would really give him a genuine chance is Boston. And that is complicated for a million different reasons. And I really don't see that happening.

I also think he has a pretty conflicted relationship with Boston. It's a team that beat him a couple of times, that got super personal with him in 2010. Some of the stuff the fans chanted, some of the stuff KG and Pierce said to him in 2012. I just find it impossible to believe that he would just go to Boston. That seems like just such a shameless chase of titles. I don't think that's what he's about. I think he would rather do this in Cleveland or LA. And I think there will be a narrative behind it. I'm pretty convinced he's filming a free agency. And I think there will be a narrative behind it. I'm pretty convinced he's filming a free agency documentary.

I think that's in play. I would not be surprised if that's going on. And he's going to play up the drama. And the only two moves that really genuinely make sense for everything we know about this guy is Cleveland or LA. Now, I don't think it's going to matter next year unless somebody on Golden State gets hurt I just think

they're just built to keep winning especially with the cap the cap is at I think 100 goes up to like 102 million the only team that can really improve next year in a significant way is Boston and I think Philly maybe

if Philly did a couple was able to add that third piece. When you talk about third pieces though, so just think about Clay Curry and KD together in these playoffs, 2018. They averaged 74 points a game. They averaged that. They made 9.7 made threes.

They shot 47%, 38 from three, 91 from the field. So you're just getting 74 points a game from three guys. Guess what? They're getting that again next year. It's so hard to compete against that. I think the Cavs, the dumbest thing they did was the Kyrie trade last year because that team was really good.

And we've talked about that in the podcast too. We talked about it with Zach Lowe on the court for the HBO show. Zach thought that was a top five all-time offensive team in the playoffs. And that is how I think you beat the Sawyers team with either you do it with more offense or you do it with the way the Rockets tried to do it was just to turn it into a slug, a weird kind of chaotic slugfest with guys just fighting and clawing and scrapping and then threes. That seven-game series was a really strange series.

It was a form of basketball, but they were successful, and they almost won. You make a case of Chris Paul didn't get hurt, I think they would have won. But some legacy stuff for me just coming out of the finals. I think Durant's in the conversation now for top 15. There's a bunch, when I did my book, I think nine years ago, there's a bunch of forwards in that 14 to 23 range.

You had John Havlicek, Elgin Baylor, Bob Pettit, Dr. J, the mailman, Charles Barkley. And then since I wrote the book, Dirk Nowitzki, I think jumped all of those guys and was probably in the 16 to 17 range. I think Durant has made the case now that, you know, with, let's say two more years in the range of what he's doing now, I think it's going to happen. I just don't see how he's not in the top 14 or 15 ever.

You're talking about in the playoffs only, 29 points, eight rebounds, four assists, 127 playoff games. I looked this up. Of everybody who's played at least 50 playoff games, only five guys have averaged over 28 a game. Jordan, 33.4 a game. He needs to say ridiculous. Allen Iverson, Jerry West, LeBron James, 28.9, and Durant at 28.8 nobody else in the history of the league has done that so his credentials as an all time

all time all time scorer I think gets slept on a little bit he turns 30 in September he's won 4 scoring titles he's 8-1 against LeBron in the finals and then if you count 2012 that brings it to 9-5 in the finals. Still better than LeBron.

Two finals MVPs. MVP, four second-place finishes in the MVP. Six first-team All-NBA. Two second-team All-NBAs. Nine All-Star games. And played two of the great games in recent finals history, game three last year. And then a game three this year was one of the best games I've ever seen

anyone play in Cleveland. He was just, just the total package. And the fact that he only turns 30 this year is, is kind of dumbfounding right now. I'm looking at he has almost 21,000 points already. So just figure he plays, even let's give him four more years

at a first, second, third at all NBA level. That puts him close to 30,000. He wouldn't even be 35 yet. This is a guy who conceivably could get to 36, 37,000 points if he wanted to. My guess is he's not going to want to keep playing until he's 45, but we'll see.

But an all-time player. And I think we're going to look back at basketball like 150 years and be like, wow, they won 73 games and turned Harrison Burns into Kevin Durant. That happened? The league allowed that? So you got that. And then the other thing is Curry, who there's a case now that he's at least a top 30 guy.

And there's an even bigger case. Is he the third best point guard of all time? Is he the best point guard of the 21st century? He's certainly on his way. Three titles, two MVPs, five all-stars, two first team, two second, one third. The shooting numbers just have no parallel to anything. He's basically been, he's been 25, seven and five during the season. He's been 26-6-5 during the playoffs. And the splits are really close to 50-40-90. 48-44-90 in the regular season.

45-41-89 in the playoffs. That's not for this year. That's for six years. 90 playoff games. 378 threes. So he's made more than four threes a game. Only three guys have ever made 250 playoff threes and shot 40%. Clay, Curry, and Ray Allen.

And I think the thing that got lost with this Warriors team, especially in the finals, because KD and LeBron took a lot of the attention, is just Clay and Curry, how great they've been together these last six years. You were talking about two, three best shooters in the history of the three-point line on the same team, stretching the floor,

doing all the stuff they do. And, you know, I don't know how that changes. As long as they keep that together and they keep KD there, I'm not positive, but it really matters who the other nine guys are and whether, you know, as long as you keep getting role players, Draymond Green, eventually, whether he stays 10 more years or whether, whether they punt on him and try to save some salary cap, luxury tax, all that stuff.

You know, they'd lose something, but they would still have this team that's built around those three guys. And if they can keep that together for another five, six years, there's Russell Celtics potential. There really is. At least he talking about five titles in six years, five titles in seven years, seven straight finals trips, whatever you're looking at, there's the potential for that if they can keep these guys healthy. But the Curry thing, Magic's the best point guard of all time, Oscar's second best. And then it drops off. And now you're going into Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Bob Cousy, dips down a little further, Walt Frazier, people like that.

Curry is hitting all the right checkpoints. And, you know, two, three more years like this, we're going to be talking about him as a top 20 all-time guy. But even bigger than that, just how entertaining he is as a performer. And I think, unfortunately, the Cavs were not a worthy foil in this playoffs, but the legacy of this finals to me is the Warriors were able to fight off the Rockets, get through whatever they needed to get through. And around game three, really, really, really went to another level in that game. And, you know, how hurt LeBron was, who knows,

but it didn't ultimately really matter. I think the Warriors were going to take that. They managed to win a must-win game three for Cleveland in Cleveland with Curry having one of the worst games of his career. It didn't matter. Shook it off. So just going forward, I guess the big existential dilemma is,

is this good for basketball? Is it good to have a team that kicks everybody else's ass? First of all, they didn't kick everyone else's ass. The Rockets almost beat them, and I think could have beaten them if it wasn't for the Chris Paul injury. I believe somebody's going to actually beat the Warriors when we see it. I just think they have this extra gas tank slash the Nas that Vin Diesel has in Fast and Furious.

They just have one extra level to go to at all times. And the Rockets pulled it out of them in six and seven and didn't have the weapons to fight. But I always feel like the Warriors can go to that one last place. And if they're at that place and somebody beats them, I'd be surprised. But just going forward,

how do you beat a team that has that last kind of place to go to? Well, I don't think LeBron, I just don't think the options are there. And he's going to need either the Warriors to self-combust or he's going to need the luxury tax to become super onerous, onerous, onerous, onerous for them, where it just becomes ridiculous to try to keep this team together, where all the guys are making 160 million a year and they're paying 100 million in luxury tax, you know, however this plays out.

And there's also, we've seen this is the era of player movement and players getting kind of restless and not wanting to stay in the same place for too long and seeking new challenges. And Jalen was on the podcast last week talking about, could KD go to New York at some point? Somebody, who's going to want to go to New York? That is now the biggest challenge in sports. Who's going to want to go to New York at some point. Somebody who's going to want to go to New York. That is, that is now the biggest challenge in sports. Who's going to want to go to New York and try to win

a title there. Who's going to want to be the guy who turned it around in New York. Is it going to be Durant? Is it going to be Anthony Davis? Is it going to be somebody else? But as we go into the summer, we say this every summer, but it really seems like this is the case more than ever this summer that everyone is, is now trying to figure out how do we get past this team? What do we have to do? What are our moves? Before it was like, how do we build a contender? Now it's like, it doesn't matter if you build a contender, you start to

figure out how to beat this team and i think the rockets came the closest last summer with some of the moves they made they said you know we got chris paul that's that's somebody that's always had the words have always had trouble playing against him we get pj tucker that's somebody we can throw against lebron and they specifically build a team that try to beat the Warriors with math and talent. And I think that's what everybody's gonna do from now on. It's not just about building a contender. It's about building a team that can beat this team. And before it was about building a team

that could beat LeBron. And I think that's the passing of the torch that happened in this finals. The Warriors became the superstar. LeBron was always the one that everybody measured themselves against, whether he was on Miami those four years or whether he came back to Cleveland. It's the reason KD went to Golden State in the first place, because he wanted to beat LeBron.

And now that shifted. And I think the Warriors are the bullseye now. And that's one of the cool things about the NBA. I think, you know, over the years, everybody becomes the bullseye. You know, Shaq and Kobe in the early 2000s, they were the bullseye. Jordan was the bullseye through the entire 90s. The Celtics and Lakers were dueling bullseyes in the 80s and just were constantly trying to one-up each other

like it was a cold war. And now you look at this decade, every the early part of the decade was all about beating LeBron in Miami. The next two were about how do we compete against Cleveland? And then it eventually became golden state. And now that's where we are now and, and how you beat these guys, what kind of team you have to put against them is going to be the number one thing people think about because nobody just wants to contend and lose in round two.

It's like you want to win the title. Right now, there's only one team that's positioned to do that. We'll see with the Celtics. We'll see with Philadelphia. We'll see with what Cleveland does. We'll see if Houston can keep everyone together. And if they're paying Chris Paul $200 million, as has been rumored. And if that deal was done for a while, wink, wink for a while,

and they're paying this guy who's been in the league now for 13 years, who I'm not convinced can play more than 32 minutes a game in the playoffs, I'm not convinced that that's a good decision. I would not pay Chris Paul $40 million a year at this point in his career, especially if I'm trying to beat this Warriors team. So that's where we are. That's what we're looking. We're gonna, coming up, we're gonna talk to Brian Curtis in a second.

And that's it, man. Weird finals. Cool finals. Game one, game three were awesome. J.R. Smith will be the legacy. Guess what? With J.R. Smith on your team, that means J.R. Smith's on your team.

That's one of the legacies of this finals for me. Anyway, back after this. Before we get to Brian Curtis, I wear me undies every day to the point that my family makes fun of me. I have no other underwear. I know this is true because I packed for threeies every day to the point that my family makes fun of me. I have no other underwear. I know this is true because I packed for three weeks to go to the finals. And I brought, I think, 20 pairs of MeUndies.

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satisfaction guarantee in the best and softest underwear you will ever own. Go to meandys.com slash BS, a limited time offer. Start wearing the best underwear of your life. It changed my life. It's time to let me and these change yours. Meandys.com slash BS. Brian Curtis is here. You happy with your underwear, Brian? I am. Great. I am. Thank hear that. Thank you very much. That concludes the underwear portion of the conversation. NBA press conferences, you wrote about it last week. One of the weird

sub-narratives of this whole weird finals were the finals press conferences, which have now become a chess match. Players wanted to say nothing. Reporters in the audience either trying to take it seriously

or just trying to get attention. And first of all, is it useful? Do you learn anything from these things? Because I was in the middle of it, but you're 3,000 miles away. Are you like, thank God we're having this? It's the best post-game show possible, I think. Okay, good. It is wildly entertaining, even if it is also humiliating for the reporter. I think it's less like chess match than just like

Twitter. Right. It's just because it's so fraught, you know, and everybody's coming in. It just feels even watching on television. It feels, everything feels very nervous. Yeah. It feels like the players are very far away. It feels like the players are just kind of waiting. I mean, of course, I think in the finals, you had two pretty good, LeBron's pretty good. And LeBron's good. And the Warriors are very good.

Yes. Right? But when you had like James Harden and Chris Paul up there, I mean, those guys were just, we're going to be dicks. I mean, we don't care. We don't care. My favorite moment is when they asked, Tim McMahon had this great moment where he's like,

players don't never want to talk about how they're injured, right? So he had this great kind of workaround. He goes, Chris, how much better did you feel today? This was after his first injury. And I was like, oh, that's a smart way to ask it. And Chris Paul starts answering it hard and goes, he's fine. He's fine. And just cuts it off.

He's like, I won't let you answer this question, even though you want to answer again, Harden goes, he's fine. He's fine. It just cuts it off. He's like, he's like, I won't let you answer this question, even though you want to answer it. Right. So weird. LeBron, it comes out after game four, that he hurt his hand, that he pretty much broke his hand. He basically broke his hand and he had this big giant thing on it.

And it's, I didn't see the post game, but I read all the stories the next day. It seemed like there should have been like 20 follow-up questions to this. Did the hand get worse during the playoffs or during the finals? Did you re-injure it? Was it worse in game four and game two? You had game one was on a Thursday.

Game four was on a Friday. So he had eight days. So did it get better? Was it a sprain? Just seemed kind of significant. And he's throwing it out there in the underlying theme, which I talked about before you came on.

I was like, I do think there's gamesmanship with this. Where it's like, you swept me, but I was hurt. And we'll never know how, only he knows how much he was hurt, but he's trying to plant that little seed of doubt in the words not working by the way it's stagecraft it's stagecraft because it can be true but deciding to reveal it right at that moment when you've been swept in humiliating fashion by the warriors right i mean that's pretty humiliating so you come out with this thing and with this thing. And by the way, did you see the moment? So he kind of hit it under the table for large parts of it.

And then he brings it up to scratch his nose and the camera starts clicking and he smiles. He's like, you guys liked that, didn't you? You guys liked that. Kevin O'Connor pointed this out in our Slack. At the end of game four, when he said goodbye to everybody, he did lefty fist pumps for everybody in the team basically as he went out.

But if you watch the game, you go through game two, game three, he's doing right-handed high fives. He's throwing chest passes. He's shooting shots. Kind of seems like that's why we have the post-game press conference because if new information comes out, this is our chance to find out more information about it. What do you mean your hands hurt?

What does pretty much broken mean? Yep. Broken is like it's broken or it's not broken. I would also rewind. If you remember the very weird thing he had with ESPN's Mark Schwartz after game one. Yeah. If my timeline is correct, that was right after he punched whatever he punched. Right.

In the locker room. Yeah. And then LeBron, who was so at ease with punched right in the locker room. Yeah. And then LeBron who was so at ease with the press throughout the whole playoffs, even when it looked dire in Indiana. Yeah. You know, and all that stuff. That's the one bad moment he has the whole

time. And it's like now it sort of makes sense, right? Yeah. You know, whatever he punched, he won't talk about what J.R. was thinking. It's the one place he won't go. And he's angry. I didn't have a problem with what Schwartz asked, by the way. I mean, of course, that's what you want to know, right?

Of course, that's the most important question. The state of mind thing is a weird kind of phrase. That seems like something you would make fun of on Twitter. It feels like it was. Brian, what's your state of mind right now as you do the podcast? True. But it felt like it was the workaround, right? Right.

What we all want to know is what did you think about JR? You know, what did you think about that? Like, what are you pissed at him? Do you think he really didn't know, you know, or do you think he's like, is he lying is all that stuff. And then, but what we're trying to do is ask the question in a really nice way. Right. Well, obviously he was lying because the camera caught him saying,

I thought we were leading. And later he backtrackragged on the right one. Another way I knew he was lying was he grabbed the potential winning rebound in a tie game and dribbled out the clock backwards. So obviously he didn't have the score. That was your first clue. Yeah, that was my first clue. But I was at the game and I was under the basket where the Warriors were shooting.

And it was where LeBron drew the charge. And he was so mad that they flipped that call. And he was just stalking. I talked about this on a pod last week. He was just kind of stomping back and forth. And he was the angriest I've ever seen him. And then when he pinned the Curry block in overtime, and that was kind of the most aggro I think I've ever seen LeBron

in a basketball game ever. And it really did seem like he wanted to fight. It was was like he was turning, he was Bill Bixby turning into the Incredible Hulk. Sorry for the 40 year reference. Go to YouTube, watch the old Incredible Hulk. But like he was starting to turn green. Like that's how mad he was. Oh, I guess they've made Hulk movies in the last 50 years. We got a new Marvel universe. He started, he was starting to turn green on the court. That's how angry he was. So hearing a week later that he punched a whiteboard, I'm not surprised at all. I thought he was going to punch one of the Warriors.

He was so angry. He was so mad at J.R. Smith. And then you saw that video that came out a couple days later of the overhead shot of J.R. and LeBron not talking to each other for two minutes. LeBron asking, did we have a timeout? Ty Lue says yes. And honestly, it looked like there was a possibility

LeBron just is going to leap on J.R. and start punching. So the whiteboard makes sense to me. The images I'll remember from the finals, in addition, is basically LeBron holding his hands about, what, a foot and a half apart? Yeah. Either on the bench or on the court going. Right, what happened?

Yeah. Like, just kind of not looking at anybody. You know, this is a really weird finals from memory. Really weird. To me, it's JR's brain fart and KD's game three. You know, like the only possible things. And Curry's crazy three hit in game two. Yeah, that was pretty exciting.

I thought that'll be in the Curry highlight, like career highlight reel. Yeah. And the one, two, three thing. But other than that, it's like. Game one was one of the best game ones we've ever had. Ever. It was amazing. It's the best, I think, since Iverson in 2001.

Game three was the best. It was just an awesome basketball game. I think that got lost because game four was such a bummer. That game was awesome. And Durant was incredible. And I thought LeBron played really well. It's funny though, over the course of the week, just being there and be in the middle of everything and hear stuff. And the two things I heard that I always judge when I hear things, I don't know if you do the same way. Like you hear a story and you're like, that's so weird. It sounds like that might be true.

It's like, why would somebody make that up? That's a weird thing to make up. The first one was that LeBron, it was really chaotic right after the game in the Cavs locker room. And I don't think people could get in there. And supposedly LeBron was really emotional. People were like, is he crying? He was just so angry.

Maybe now, looking back, maybe he was so emotional because he hurt his hand. So that's one thing. The other thing was that this hurt hand rumor was there after game two, heading into game three, game three, and then after. Because we were filming stuff for the HBO show, and I asked Zach Lowe if he had heard that rumor. And Zach Lowe was like, what? And I was like, yeah, there's a rumor.

LeBron hurt his hand, punching the wall after game one. So we have that. And then it came out after that. He actually did. And the announcers on TV kept talking about, like, his shot's off, right? His shot looked weird. He seemed a little off in game two. He wasn't terrible in game two. But around the rim, his touch shots off. Right. He, he just, he certainly, his shot looked weird. It seemed, he seemed a little off in game two.

He wasn't terrible in game two, but around the rim, his touch seemed off and he seemed, you know, we had just come off this game one. That was the culmination of Toronto, maybe the last four games of Indiana, Toronto.

And then how he played in Boston where this guy is just peak control command of his powers. And game one comes in and he was just absolutely flat out, jaw-droppingly incredible in game one. And then in game two, it didn't seem that special anymore. He's still like great LeBron, but he wasn't at that crazy high. I'm watching the best playoff performance I've ever seen in my life level. And so maybe the hand threw him off a little.

I'm sure all of us have hit our hand or jammed our hand, and it's sore, and it doesn't feel right, and it feels like there's more blood in it. Maybe that's what happened. But by the way, they're getting swept anyway after that J.R. Smith thing. Media-wise, did we talk enough about the refs game one? No. Because I feel like there was a little mini moment on Twitter, and then we kind of moved on because the finals were moving on, and there was so much to talk about in that game. JR and all that stuff.

But can you imagine if Jason Tatum takes that charge, and then they reverse it? Boston Sports Radio. Oh, my gosh. Where the nuclear bomb went off at WEI and everything. We'd just never stop talking about that. No. I mean, that was incredible. And it was really, it was two refs disagreed on the call

and they used the circle thing as a cop-out. Totally. And using the circle thing as a cop-out allowed them to change the call. I actually think they ended up with the right call.

It's just, I've never seen it flipped like that. At the end of a finals game. At the end of a finals game to a guy who always gets calls, LeBron. Yeah. And it was like the first time

they had kind of stuck it to him. And that was the game. That was the game. Well. I mean, it was pretty much the game they had kind of stuck it to him. And that was the game. That was the game. Well. I mean, it was just pretty much the game. So they were up one. They would have gotten the ball back. That was like 20, 20 odd seconds left at that point.

Yeah. Something like that. So potentially they could have gone up three. I just think like it. Our old pal, Jay Kang, talked about us on Twitter a little bit afterwards. But just it opens. A Jay Kang drop. A Jay Kang drop.

Wow. It does open up this whole conversation about that. we've had it a hundred times over the years, but just like with replay of what do you want at a replay? And do you really want to go to something like that? You know, or do you want to just say this is the way it's called on the court? We're good. You know, however, imperfectly, I think I was listening to you on the press box, make this point to shoemaker about when why replay started. Was that you? Was it?

What did I say? Heard this somewhere. That basically it started because that Houston Oilers-Steelers playoff game. I don't think that was me. It was a very smart observation. I just assumed it was you. I'll take credit for it, but I don't think I said that. I heard it somewhere.

It was in the myths, but it was basically like 40 years ago, there's replay because of that play. Because the Oilers advanced to the Super Bowl, if that play is called correctly. I think it was Mike Renfro. Okay. They said the ball bounced or whatever, and he ended up, he caught it,

and they probably would have scored. And I don't know if enough plays that have been overturned that were the right call are worth all the terrible replays we've seen over the years. And by the way, gambling is going to change this whole thing too, right? Oh my God.

Because all of a sudden, the stakes are just even bigger. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And it's like, do you want to go down? This was in one of Marv Albert's book, but he said like the initial fear about replays,

not official ones, but TV replays, was that some producer could be like, who has money on the game could be like, hey, look, let's slow this down a hundred times and show the refs that it's wrong. But I just feel like now that's just like- Marv Albert said that? He was at it, but yeah,

in his memoir a billion years ago. But there's this like whole thing now that was back in the like 80s NFL when they were first Remember there was so much fear I grew up with just

fear of gambling which made it kind of like when Pete Axton was writing about it for Inside Sports it seemed like he was writing about the forbidden fruit like you can bet on these games

but you're not supposed to and everybody discourages it but this is going on over here. But it was basically because we had all these point shaving scandals in the 50s and 60s. And after that,

I feel like this is going to be the golden age of conspiracy bill. We're entering it. I mean, calls like that in the finals. Conspiracy bill was in rare form after the LeBron pretty much broken hand thing.

It's like, did you make it or not? Just give us an answer. Which was it? But, you know, the real problem with game one, other than J.R. Smith and counting on him

in a finals game, they don't have 12 good refs. This is something that people are deep embedded in the league. We know this. We know they don't have 12 good refs.

Two of the guys that refed game one were Ed Malloy and I'm blanking on the other one. Tony Brothers. So you only take 12 refs to the finals. I can't even remember how many total they have. But those are your top 12. And as soon as I saw those two guys, I said to the person I was sitting with, I was like, uh-oh.

Oh, no. This isn't going down to your seats for this one. And then they had Mark Davis in game three. Same thing. He's another one who's apparently a top 12 ref. But they've taken some hits. It actually reminds me of in the mid-2000s with the NBA talent pool

when it kind of dipped for a little bit. And suddenly, like, Paige Estiakovich was the eighth best player in the league. She said they didn't have enough players that were really good. And they've had some hits. Like, Monty McCutcheon retired. They've lost some of their signature dudes, Joey Crawford. All these dudes we complained about, but they were better than the guys we have now. So, you know, it's a problem.

And now you have gambling thrown into it. Can I ask you another meta media question? Yeah. Let's say Windhorse figures out after game one that LeBron's hurt his hand. He's walked into the locker room and that news comes out after game one. Do we read the following three games of the finals any differently? Is it brave LeBron doing his best soldiering on with his maybe broken hand? Is it what has,

is Skip Bayless going LeBron was so irresponsible bill to go into that locker room and with one punch throw his team's chances away. I saw that on Twitter actually. Selfish LeBron couldn't handle his frustrations. That was a take. I was actually just, I was handle his frustrations. That was a take. I was actually just freestyling. I think Skip had that take. You created a fake take

that happened. But I just like, I wonder how we read the rest of the finals. Because as it was, it was pretty much like they're doomed after they lost game one anyway. I think he made a real tactical mistake. If I were him, I'd get the news out the next day,

assuming it was a real thing. But it's a competitive advantage thing because he doesn't want the Warriors going after his hand, right? If they know... What are they doing though? But I mean, if they know he's hurt, then maybe Draymond...

But Marcus Smart had a broken thumb, like the whole... Or torn ligaments in his thumb the whole playoff. So it's not like people are like karate chopping his head. Do you think Drake would put it past Draymond? I actually think it would have been

a really smart move for him. That's what I'm, I just wonder. Because it's like, first of all, you lose game one, you lose it the way you do. You have no chance

in the finals anyway. We all kind of know at that point, you have to beat the Warriors five out of seven times. That's impossible unless there's like a bus accident or something

and guys are rolling around on some bus that flipped over. The best thing he could have done at that point is, this is my MJ flu game, but for the whole finals. Watch this. I have a badly sprained hand. Here are the x-rays. Look at this. Here are the hands together.

Oh, what split am I going to wear? Now he's taking all the attention off JR and he's gone that whole direction. I think that was a mistake. That would have been all we would have talked about for days. It's smart. That to me, that's the alternate universe scenario here. If we

read those last three games as LeBron playing through pain, rather than him doing that, as you say, right after game four, I just got swept. Hey, look, you know,

here's my brace. It's basically broken. It's a funny, it's a funny, it's just a funny thing to think about. I don't understand why he needed the brace. I don't know. Like,

is it a jammed wrist? I still like the contraption. No, a jammed wrist? I still, like, the contraption he was wearing. No, it's just like, what are you protecting? What are you holding? The season's over. Why do you need anything? What other notes do you have from the finals? Media Twitter slash NBA Twitter was just, I mean, really hated the Warriors this time out.

Oh, hold on. Let's hold that. I want to talk about that. First, we're going to talk about our friends at Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. They understand that a home plays a big role in your life and family. That's why they create a Rocket Mortgage, which gives you the confidence you need when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. It's simple and allows you to fully understand all the details and be confident you're getting the right mortgage for you. Whether you're looking to buy your first home or your 10th with Rocket Mortgage, you get a transparent online process that gives you the confidence to make an informed decision. Their trusted partners allow you to share your financial information with Rocket Mortgage at

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He'd gotten his comeuppance a year before, right? Right. Because he lost the first Miami series. We got over it. And then they had the 27-game win streak after the first title in the next season. Everybody's like, wow, this is amazing. This is one of the best teams we've ever seen.

And then the Ray Allen shot, and they pulled that second title out two in a row. I still don't remember people going, this sucks. Why did LeBron have to play with these guys when he did? This Durant thing is, I don't know whether people just don't have more narratives to talk about, but it doesn't seem like one of the five most interesting angles to me from this finals.

I covered a lot of the ones I thought were interesting before you came on about, is Durant a top 15 player right now? How many titles can the Warriors win? Is Curry and Clay the best shooting backcourt we're ever going to see in our lives? And then the big thing to me, which I talked about right before you came on, was just about the bullseye used to be LeBron. And now the Bullseye is this Warriors team.

And all these other teams in the league are now like, how do we get past this team? This is the new narrative. I think that's right. I think all this stuff's more interesting than, oh, Durant. Are people just tired of the Warriors? Is that what it is? They're just bored because they're so good? I think some of this is, we are speaking here from the epicenter of NBA

triumphalism, right? Like the NBA we're happy with, you know, we cover the NBA like crazy here, right? 365 baby. But the thing people said about the, the, the, the two people who were against that said, you know, at the beginning of the season said, you know, what's going to happen at the end of the season, it's going to be LeBron versus the Warriors and the Warriors going to win the title. I know what's going to happen. the end of the season? It's going to be LeBron versus the Warriors and the Warriors are going to win the title. I know what's going to happen. And then that happened, right? So I think some of it was kicking in. People just being like, damn it.

We had two great conference finals. They were awesome. And they almost lost. If Chris Paul doesn't get hurt, they lose to the Rockets. I think people get mad at inevitability when they see that. Now, of course, it wasn't inevitable, right? Chris Paul doesn't get hurt.

The Rockets don't go for 27 and whatever that was in Game 7. But I just think people are just like, they don't like when the Warriors they don't like that. They just get, ugh, you know, get pissed off. And weirdly, KD is the focus of it. Nobody's mad at Curry.

I didn't see people mad at Klay Thompson. Nobody's mad at Curry, Klay, or Draymond for recruiting KD. Or Draymond for doing the Ric Flair eye gouge of LeBron in game one. Which is- Is that intentional? I never got a good look at that one. I think the question about flailing arms, whether they're intentional and whether you're just flailing and then you're kind of responsible when you flail, right?

Draymond and JR are two of the best flailing appendage guys in the league. They're my flailing appendage all-stars. But I feel the way the world, I mean, people kind of turn on the Warriors a little bit last year too. Yeah.

But I feel, and you've talked to KD about the bad guy thing. Yeah. He'll turn, embrace the heel thing. I think it made this season really hard for them. I think what they thought

when they won the title it would let up and it didn't. And when you just had that bullseye. I also think basketball is different now and it's certainly more popular than it was five years ago. I think in a lot of ways, LeBron's decision

just increased combined with social media and all the stuff that was going on, just increased that magnifying glass, the, the, you know, and the light goes through it and the heat just every day.

And it's tough. And I think it wears these dudes down. I don't think it's something like Larry Bird had to deal with in the eighties. He went away to French Lake for the summer and you didn't hear from him for four months. The players get scrutinized. Like pretty much no players in any other sport.

And LeBron's the first one. Though weirdly, I think the league doesn't, isn't quite yet scrutinized like pretty much no players in any other sport and lebron's the first one though weirdly i think the league doesn't isn't quite yet scrutinized right you know we talked about the way they get treated differently for their political stuff the anthem stuff you know the ref stuff i think like if that happened the nfl and the super bowl we'd have be having like a six months conversation about the refereeing you know and all and all that stuff. It's true. Or like even stuff like the Sonics leaving 10 years ago, just getting stolen. The crime of the century, right? That would have been like Bud Selig

actually contracting the twins. Right. Right, that actually happened. Howard Schultz is running for president now. I'm ready to oppose his candidacy with all the Seattle people. You've got the stuff to use against him. This is the Oppo research file.

This is what this guy's made of. Can you imagine if Trump started tweeting about the Sonics? He should. Howard Schultz's great crime. Trump is great at going after whatever your weak spot is. Remember Key Arena. Yeah. Hey, Sonics fans, I'll make sure to defeat that guy for you.

But yeah, I think the scrutiny of it is definitely a little different. I just think it's way more 24-7 now than it was. It's funny because we've had a website basically this whole decade, right? Grandland launched in 2011. And when we launched, the finals happened. I remember I wrote a couple of columns about the 2011 Mavs. And then we just had this lockout right after. And we're all sitting there for six months.

You weren't working for us yet. I was there, but I was in Brooklyn. Yeah, you were contributing pieces. You contributed, but you weren't official. We didn't have Brian Curtis on the full team yet. But we were looking at this lockout like, fuck. What are we going to do now? What happens if the season gets canceled?

It really did seem like there was a chance they might cancel the season. And I remember that's when Jay Kang and I wrote one of my favorite things that I wrote for Grantland, that crazy alternate basketball league where we made up all these teams and had an expansion draft. Yeah, I remember that. We had logos and uniforms. It's spectacular. And we came from that. And it really seems like the moment the league came back, which was that December, the Chris Paul, that trade,

all that, that, that entire, all that fiasco happened. Right. So that was December, 2011. So Chris Paul canceled trade, goes to the Clippers. Now we have Lob City. We have Miami and LeBron at the peak of his powers. We have this OKC team on the rise. We have the old Celtics kind of lingering.

And it just kind of took off from there. And then it goes, we have great playoffs, great finals, the draft, the heart of trade. And then that's how the NBA became the NBA. Then Miami in 27 game winning streak. We go all the way through the finals. And just ever since then, you could feel Grantland changing as we were doing it. We started hiring more basketball people. And it was like, this stuff's getting traffic every time we read about it and buzz.

And we're starting to really have a corner here. And the same thing's happening with the ringer now. I mean, LeBron being in the finals for eight straight years. I mean, just think about it. Journalistically, think about that, right? He is the organizing principle of NBA fandom and NBA media, right? Pro LeBron, anti LeBron, GOAT debate. That's a stupid thing.

And we just keep having the whole, the decision, everything. I mean, it's like he has just- MJ or Leon that started what five years ago yeah and he's just been the he's that guy to have that guy and there's nobody there's no comparable brady is semi-comparable but nobody's that worked up about brady right besides like i would say deflate gate right i mean there's not like a no but he's just one part of the league le LeBron figured out this way that when he leaves, you're going to feel it. And really the last guy you could say that about was Jordan. When it was like, oh, Jordan's not going to... We're going to have an NBA season without Jordan?

And it happened twice. It happened when he left for baseball. And that was like a really loaded NBA season. There was a ton of great players and it fell off the whole year because there was no Jordan. We had no Bullseye that year. And then when he left that next year, it was like, oh. San Antonio, Indiana, Utah.

That's when it got really boring. Shaq and Nick Van Exel. For a couple years. It was a little rough for a couple years. Yeah, we just didn't know. And I think the league has much more talent now. And if LeBron said, fuck it, I'm out tomorrow. We'd be like, all right, we've got the words. We've got this Boston team. We have Philly, we have Giannis, we have Anthony

Davis. Like we'd, we'd make do, but you would feel his, it would just feel weird to have the NBA without him, which is a real achievement. I think only a couple of guys have ever really russell bird magic jordan um lebron i don't even think kobe ever reached that no and and none of them had the scrutiny that he does you know just thinking about speaking of media moments the dan gilbert non-handshake yeah that everybody was looking at i mean just just imagine like if jordan's backstage stuff was filmed like that and just beamed directly into our brains like this just it would be so – Jordan would have one of those after every game. Jordan and Jerry Krause after the finals, what would that handshake have looked like?

Tommy Alter, Bulls fan who's traveling with me for the finals, he said that the difference between MJ and LeBron is that MJ wouldn't have punched the wall, he would have punched J.R. Smith. That kind of sums it up, right? Well, it's like with Steve Kerr, right? It's like we have actual evidence that he would have done that, right? Yeah.

LeBron is a much... Yeah, he's a much nicer guy than MJ was. Absolutely. But in game one, that incredible Hulk, the green, was starting to come out a little bit. I also feel LeBron has gotten more comfortable with the press.

Yeah. I feel Jordan was very comfortable first finals run the first three runs three finals and then all the stuff happened and then he was good but cautious kind of for the rest of his career he tightened up he became he got so big you know that he was just being crushed where LeBron has been in that since he was 18. You know, Jordan always had the charisma. I think it took him the, he wasn't that articulate the first couple of years for where he landed. Like if you watch him on Letterman as a rookie, he's, he's clearly like, how do I present myself in this format? And then eventually just became the master at it.

LeBron was always good at this. Yeah. He just knows how to play the game better. So he just became the master at it. LeBron was always good at this. Yeah. He just knows how to play the game better. But like, if you see that there was a, I was looking on YouTube, he got interviewed. I think they're in the 2003 playoffs. He hadn't been drafted yet. He was at a Tracy McGrady game and they interview him in the stands for five minutes. It's like 18 year old LeBron.

He looks like a baby. And he has like this really good interview with the sideline reporters. Oh man, seeing Tracy McGrady. It's like, oh, this guy had it when he was 18 in every respect, had more advantages. But now I think, I think he's one of the best interviews ever because he doesn't really say anything, but makes you feel like he's saying stuff. There's a lot of smiling. There's a lot of calling reporters by name.

Yeah. Thanks, Rach. Thanks, Brian. Yeah. Thanks, stuff. There's a lot of smiling. There's a lot of calling reporters by name. Yeah. Thanks, Rach. Thanks, Brian. Yeah. Thanks, Rach. Oh, yeah. Hey, Rach. I feel Jordan needed Nike commercials to bring his voice out of him.

When I think about Jordan talking now, I am almost always remember it in a commercial rather than actual Jordan. Of course, in those days, that's what we saw more. We didn't have postgame press conferences like we do now. It was controlled. When I think LeBron now, I just think of actually lebron talking after a game right like you know him him saying something funny to the press and talking about political stuff like i just think i hear his actual voice rather than voice filtered through widening kennedy nike ads he he's done a nice job

of feeling like he's giving you stuff but i I'm never 100% sure that he's ever giving us stuff. What about the photo recall stuff during the playoffs though? LeBron, what about those six turnovers? And here, watch this. I'm going to go through the six turnovers. I mean, that was pretty phenomenal, right? When I did my podcast with Larry Bird six and a half years ago, I asked him about that

because I always said that about Larry Bird. I think that's just something certain guys have. Larry Bird, we could be with him right now and be like, game one of 1984 against Cleveland, third quarter, you got hot, what happened? And he'd be like,

oh, I remember they'd set me up on the right. I did that little jump hook. I think it's like, it is some form of genius. I think LeBron's a genius. Like I really do. I think it's some, it's like, it is some form of genius. It's form of genius. I think LeBron's a genius. Like I really do. I think he's a basketball genius and that bird was,

and I thought magic was. But you don't have to share that, right? You, somebody can ask you about it and you say, oh, you know, I just, you can blow that question off. I mean, there's a little showing off, I think in that answer. Yeah.

There's also like a, let me write you a column for you. Here you go. Yeah. I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff. Somebody I was talking to compared it to like Tiger Woods talking about his round after his round. Well, on one, you know, my approach was off. And he gives you all this detail.

Actually, Tiger probably wouldn't do it. Let's do this beef. Let's say a Rory McIlroy. But like he's given you, he's just filling up your column. Right. Here's a bunch of details. And here's what I actually think about those plays yeah you know that like he's happy to talk about that stuff and i think a lot of athletes are kds durant was pretty

good at that at moments like that during the playoffs too durant you have to be a little more specific i think with the ask you know and he's also a lot moodier than lebron is lebron his manners just hardens the most moody oh my my God. Harden's just like, I fucking hate you guys. His funk was like. I wish a bomb would hit off you. His funk was infecting everybody at the podium and everybody in the press conference. He was staring people down.

We did. Jalen and I did a thing with him for Nike in like 2012 or 2013. It was after he got traded. It was me, Jalen, KD, and Harden. And the way he handles himself in press conference makes more sense to me after spending that three hours with him. Because I just think he's a super mellow dude

who doesn't want to really talk. And he's just a quiet guy. He's not one of those like, oh, the cameras are off. Here's my personality. He was really nice. He loved Jalen. It wasn't like he was, but it's just like there, there, there wasn't a lot of personality there.

I don't, I think he's just a nice guy, you know, whereas Durant there's clearly, as we've seen in the podcasts I've done and some other stuff, like he really has some thoughts on stuff, maybe too many thoughts. Sure. That almost go walk him down these rabbit holes that people get mad at him. He sees it as a chance to get that stuff out. Also, LeBron preemptively declaring that nobody was going to the White House no matter who won the finals was kind of an amazing moment.

It really was. That's the thing. LeBron snuck in these awesome, awesome moments that no athletes are doing and people take them for granted now. I think he has gone, I would say, way further on the political side than I expected. That was interesting because that

wasn't people criticizing, oh, you're just saying, you're just jumping on whatever causes are out there. But that was kind of like, oh, okay. We've decided that. There's no way the Warriors are going to go anyway. I'm just going to declare this on behalf of everybody right now. I want to talk about NBA versus NFL, but first it's the heart of wedding season. I wish the Black Tux had been around when I went to like 25 weddings in my twenties, high quality rental suits,

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The NFL is more popular. Yes. That's where we are right now. Unquestionably. What was that thing about the Pro Bowl that had better ratings than all but any couple of playoff games? People love football. I will say, though, I have no evidence to back this up. These are the best kind of proclamations.

Thank you. So the draft ended April. Now it's mid-June. I would say this is the quietest six NFL weeks I can ever remember. I think you're right. What have we heard other than anthem stuff? It's Trump maybe once or twice. Gronk, was he getting traded for like a day? Brady no show.

Brady skipped the OTAs. Just nothing. It's really, really, really interesting to me. We talked about having two websites during this decade. And I've talked in the past about how the NFL was this 12-month-a-year sport for us at Grantland and how that slowly shifted. Now we're in a situation where the NFL is basically gone for two months now. Which is weird.

Me and you now belong to the NBA. Which the NFL stepping aside is definitely weird. ESPN, little sneaky move. The jump took the NFL live spot. I'm pretty sure they flip-flopped them. The NFL live, when I was there, we wanted to do a show like the jump. It was one of my passion, like behind the scenes thing at ESPN.

Like, why don't we have a daily show? And I knew Adam Silver was really passionate about it. Every time I saw Adam Silver, we would always talk about it. And then when I finally got on Countdown, we're like, man, this will pave the way to the daily show. And ESPN just never wanted to do the show because they always, well, I mean, we have an hour of the NFL every day. How are we going to have an NBA show?

It's like, people love the NBA. Let's go. And it took them a couple extra years and they did the jump and the jumps ratings are pretty good. And they flipped it with the NFL. There's no way they did that six years ago. But more importantly, I just don't think, I just don't think the NFL, I think it's like a nine and a half month a year sport now. Yeah. Free agency is now like three weeks, four weeks. Draft is a monster. People love the draft.

The draft ends. Everybody does their grades. Now it's first week of May. Now what? What are you talking about? The NBA always has this if the nfl operated like the nba it would get into may i'd be like where's odell beckham gonna go where's it what playoff contender oh i heard he's gonna team up with kurt cousins and they're gonna

go to new orleans together like that those narratives are gone. We don't have those. I've been on 10 straight, 10 different email threads and Slack things about, whoa, could this go there? What if Dame lower decidedly put like the NFL just doesn't have that. And maybe that's just a product of where we are with the media now and Twitter and just us loving potentials and hypotheticals and trade machine and just where we are now.

But the NFL doesn't really fit into that. How much of this is floated by the fact that the best player in the NBA will have, in a couple of weeks, have changed teams three times in eight years? I mean, just imagine- Some of it. Imagine if Brady went New England to New Orleans, then back to New England, and then was about to go to the Cowboys or something like that. I mean, that would just be the big, and he's like,

I'm going to bring all my friends, and we're going to go win a Super Bowl for this other team. I mean, that would be just mind-boggling. I think part of the problem is, imagine if Jordan had changed teams in the 90s. I mean, it would have been just like, what the hell, in his prime. Right. I mean, he's just been like, and he'd done it like three times.

But one player can't really have that kind of impact. Yeah. I guess the closest we came this decade was Peyton Manning. He was a free agent after the Colts. Yeah. And even he was so broken down. He's broken down, but it was still like, this guy's got something left in the tank. If there's anything left, you're a contender.

Yes. So we had, it was like Denver,, you're a contender. Yes. So we had, it was like Denver, it was Arizona, a couple other teams. And that was probably the most similar we've had to these NBA situations like we have this summer. And that was a big story. Like I remember Peter King writing about it. I remember thinking he should have gone to Arizona. He goes to Denver.

His plane flights were tracked when he went down and worked out. Yeah. So that's the one example we've had this whole decade of that. And that was cool. That sustained the NFL for a couple weeks. In general, we don't have that. How many times has that happened in the NBA? KD, Kyrie Irving, all these guys that have changed teams.

This year, we might have five. We might have LeBron change teams. We might have Cleveland blow it up. Kawhi. We have four teams in the top six of the draft that might want to trade down. You know, the NFL, I mean, in the NBA, the finals ends early. And normally with the league, you'd be like, oh, fuck. Oh, man.

Wow. We really missed out on that TV money in those three games. In the NBA, it's like, all right, here we go. Off season. Who's going to play? I mean, we were talking on our Slack today. I wanted Charks or Connor to write a piece about what's Terry Rozier's value right now.

Like, what is it? Is he an above average point guard? What can they trade him for? That'll be a piece on the ringer this week. And guess what? I'm reading it. I want to know what his value is. We would never be like, hey guys, I need to know what his value is. We would never be like, we'd never be like, hey guys,

I need to know what Jarvis Landry's value is. Nobody cares. It's like Jarvis Landry, now he's on the Bears. Oh, okay. But I think part of the problem with football is it's just a merry-go-round every year, except for like the Aaron Rodgers, Brady, whatever, Roethlisberger.

The quarterback stayed in place. Everybody else just moves around and then everything settles. And we had the surprise teams every year. It's like, oh, the Rams are good now. Oh, okay. And then it just moves. Yeah, I think it's what's fueled the NBA offseason.

And it's also kind of the weirdness of the league, right? I'm all for players changing teams, doing whatever they want. Like more of that, that makes me happy. I want them to have more agency in their lives to just go out and do what they want. On the other hand, it turns lots of teams into kind of notional ideas of teams

rather than actual teams. Like as a Mavericks fan, Mavericks have been an idea of a basketball team since they won the finals. Mark Cuban ran and said, oh, we're not signing everybody else because there's some payment. We're like, oh, great.

Mavericks have just been like a hypothetical since then. They're not a team. And now you're going to trade the number five pick because you don't want to rebuild. And I just have no, I just don't know. What does that even mean? That's what I mean. So there's like, there's NBA teams that are genuinely good and real. And then there's teams that are just like Zach, they're a Zach Lowe column of a team. What if they did this and this, and they traded this expiring? And it's like,

this isn't even a thing, you know? I'm glad, I'm glad you brought up Mark Cuban, by the way. You could argue since he won the title, he's been one of the three worst owners in the league. I mean, just to me, that's- Because you're talking about all these basketball decisions and really none of them have worked. They're only real,

they basically wasted the last five years of Dirk's career. The only real kind of shit they have is Dennis Smith Jr., who I don't even know if he's going to be an all-star. We don't know. He might be a good stats, bad team guy. And then on top of it, you have just this reprehensible office situation and all these stories that have come out about the culture of the Mavs, really staggeringly crazy stories.

And there was somebody named Pants DJ. Pants DJ. Pants DJ. What's the thing, Bill? Pants DJ. Go research Pants DJ if you haven't read that story. But I don't know whether he's got a million different things going on. He won the title.

Maybe he took his eye off the prize or what's's going on but that team is super dysfunctional it's somebody who was there i know shoemaker you know is like a is a mavericks fan yeah i was there from mike isolino infinity war oh yeah i mean they were given that sixers team that had the all-time lowest wins total run every single year yeah and I would go to reunion arena and get the opposing teams autographs. Like I wouldn't want Walter bonds autograph. You know, I want that one. What Lafonzo Ellis.

That's what I was aiming for. That's how desperate I was to see them win a title. And then Mark Cuban and them go, you know what? We're not going to run this back. We're just gonna, we're just gonna try to outsmart the rest of the league. I just like,

what, what? What? You finally had success with this awful franchise that, to Cuban's credit, he made into a real franchise. Yeah. And then we didn't bring anybody back.

And then every year, it's like trying to attract free. Their biggest thing was free agents they didn't get. Yeah, DeAndre Jordan. Yeah, but imagine if they'd gotten him. Now everybody's like, well, even if they had gotten him, they wouldn't get. Yeah, DeAndre Jordan. Yeah, but imagine if they'd gotten him. Now everybody's like,

well, even if they had gotten him, they wouldn't have done anything. They've really drafted poorly during the entire Cuban run. Like, poorly. Like, flat out poorly. And it's the nature of Dirk. By the way, now that we've talked about this

for long enough, there's a guarantee that there's a MavsMoneyBall.com thread about how wrong... What's the thread where the Cuban has those assassins that come after media people who question them what site is that i don't know what it is yeah but yeah it's one of those sites they come he's got the train snipers ready we're ready

the draft picks dirk's a nice guy the other guys other superstars wouldn't be that nice cuban drafter and they said get me out of here right this team sucks you're tearing it down get me out of here, right? This team sucks. You're tearing it down. Get me out of here. I want to win titles. Dirk, remember when Dirk came back overweight after the championship? Yeah.

That's Dirk, right? He's drinking the whole time. He is happy. He was so happy to win that title and he is good to go. He's like, I want to live in Dallas the rest of my life.

And he is the biggest basketball. I mean, he is such a big, to crack the Cowboys Rushmore in Dallas. Think of how big you have to be. And Dirk has kind of like, it's still like Aikman, Irvin, Staubach, Emmitt Smith, but Dirk has got a job like seven, maybe. You know?

That's amazing. Cuban, I think, did an incredible job the first 12 years. In the last six, no. Just no. I think a lot of the advantages that they probably exploited last decade, a lot of the teams do now. Well, at the end of the day, their best move was Don Nelson drafting Dirk Nowitzki.

I mean, Dirk Nowitzki, that was the move, right? They let Steve Nash go right before his two MVP seasons to sign Eric Dampier for like 80 million bucks. Remember that? Right, but it's like, at the end of the day, Cuban getting Dennis Rodman to live in his cabana did not make the Mavs into a real team. The thing that they get credit- Dirk made the Mavs into a real team. They get credit over anything else for understanding the value of threes with Dirk. And kind of crafting this goofy contender in 2011 that was built on rim protection, Dirk, and threes.

Those three things. And it was incredible. It was an incredible run. It never should have worked, but three things. And it was incredible. It was an incredible run. It never should have worked, but it worked and it was amazing. And they toppled LeBron and Wade. But, you know, there's a couple what-ifs during that run.

What was Miami up? 15 in game two? That sounds right. Yeah, something like that. Game two is an unbelievable... I need to take over NBA TV for a week. There's a whole bunch of games I want to... that just aren't on TV enough.

But Game 2, Dirk, them laying the smackdown in Miami after Dwayne Wade, they were like, they need to make a three in front of their bench and talk shit to them. All the Mavs got mad. It was great. It's kind of hard to believe the Mavs won the title. You do need to do that, by the way.

It seems like yacht rock. Yeah, need to do that, by the way. This means like Yacht Rock. You know, you need to just take over. Yeah, I want to program it for a week. But yeah, if they don't win that title, Cuban's legacy as an owner would be really interesting. Be like super inventive, ton of entertaining teams, but couldn't pull it off. Paves the way for .com guy

to buy his way into the NBA or professional sports total. I mean, he's real. I mean, I guess like Paul Allen. He's the only owner that is a rings culture guy. He won a ring, so it stands off. If he had won a ring, he'd be like, where's Cuban's ring? He doesn't have a ring yet.

Wow. That's interesting about Dirk cracking the hallowed Dallas ground. I mean, I'd want to talk it over with a Dallas person, but I would say if we did it right now, just the fact there's a Maverick in the top seven. Brad Davis and Ro Blackman, we're not top seven guys. And I'm trying to think, there's no Ranger, right? I think Nolan.

I was going to say Nolan, Nolan and Dirk, Staubach, Aikman. The triplets. All three of those cowboys still. Irvin too. Oh my gosh. Maybe the fan favorite. Really? Yeah. I mean Aikman was the most admired but I think Irvin is the most

just loved. Just purely loved because he's just such an amazing character. Maybe I'm just extrapolating for myself. When they were ripping off Super Bowls, were people complaining about it back then? I don't remember that. Oh my gosh, Dallas.

It's before free agency. Remember, free agency happens in the middle of that run. That team is disassembled by free agency. They have so much talent. But they know, it was Cowboys are back, right? It was like, that was amazing. I was in on it. The problem was the Buffalo Super Bowls

where they tainted their legacy, just Dallas kicking. They caught the last two Buffalo teams, right? That's right. It was three and four. Just a walking carcass. Even their fans weren't excited about it. Is that the one where Daryl Talley got in a fight

with Magic Johnson's bodyguard the night before the Super Bowl? Oh my God. Didn't that happen? I don't remember. I think so. So much sports has happened. It's clogging my brain. Can I ask you some LeBron betting odds?

Yeah, please. Decision 1.0 ESPN. 2.0 the pin of Lee Jenkins. How does 3.0 get delivered? Wow, you're giving Lee Jenkins that, huh? 2.0? No, I said, well, the second- Oh yeah, because, you're giving Lee Jenkins that, huh? 2.0? No, I said, well, the second- Oh, yeah, because it was written by Lee Jenkins.

Yeah. We've got to give it to Lee. Who else? Sports Illustrated. What's number three? My guess would be three is on ESPN again, but as a documentary. What? This is news?

No, it's not news. I'm just guessing. I think they have a media company they have not had a lot of hits with that media company and the best asset they have right now is lebron james in this free agency i wouldn't be surprised if he dragged this on to like august 10th what does he care? Past summer league? Yeah.

What's the whole point of like, we've seen this happen before. LeBron determines all these other dominoes that fall, but he has to decide what he's doing first. All right. Guy loves attention. Maybe he's filming something. Why not drag it along?

The first time he did it, I think was July 10th, maybe, or July 8th or something for the decision. The second time was around July 9th, July 10th. I think he drags it along this year. Why not? Go away. I already know he's going away, I think, in the end of June, but he's going on some trip. But you basically do it long. You do an uninterrupted kind of thing. Still long game. Filming him in the plane on the way back from the finals, flying back home.

You film like some stuff in the car, talking to his family about the decision. We've seen the really terrible version of this already with what Chris Paul did last year, which everyone should be ashamed, including his pin that they ran that. But it was basically like

Chris Paul knew he was going to the Rockets the whole time, but tried to turn it into this three episode series about what am I going to do? Is it family or loyalty? And then just him having conversations with people in his life. It's like, hey, it's Bob Iger. Bob, what should I do? On the one hand, I got family. On the other hand, I got loyalty. What should I do? It's like, we know you're going to Houston the whole time. This has been the decade of guys trying to make documentaries about their decisions. None of them have been good.

None of them. Wade and Bosh still have dozens of hours of their summer 2010. They filmed it. Nobody took it seriously because everybody knows that that was decided ahead of time. Right. But yeah. So that's how you think it's going to be? We should have done this with you. My decision? We should have, instead of signing into a new contract, we should have just done the decision and we could have filmed a parody of it. It would have been great if I typed in bob.iger at disney.com. Need some advice? Can it bounce back if it wasn't his email? World Wide West?

Oh, wait, wait. Robert.Iger? Let me try this one more time. You'd be like, Bob Lipsight's here. He's going to... Bob, I actually probably would have called you. Bob, you were in this position in 1972. Yeah, exactly.

You walked away from the Times. The Esquire was courting you. It was family loyalty back then. There's this website, Bill, I don't even know the name of it. Should I go? Should I go? Should I do this? Yeah, this is all absurd. I'm going to enjoy

all of it. It's great. It's great content. It never ends. That's the thing, right? It is the best. The best player in the league is changing teams. Let us not overlook how monumental that is. How spoiled we are in the league is changing teams. Let us not overlook how monumental that is. How spoiled we are in the trade

rumor time of our lives. This is just like a thing. 16 we had. 14 the best player changed teams. 16 Durant changed teams as second best player. Last year the best player sidekick decided he wanted to get

traded and then paul george got traded carmelo got traded and all that shit happened and this year there's no even more stuff will you quickly plug your awesome pocket by the way i should tell you this story tommy kyle and i driving from the final saturday morning we had to drive to detroit to get the hell out of there on a direct flight to LA. And we, and we, I hooked my iPhone up to the car.

Cause we got a car service, hooked it up to his thing. And we listened to the entire press box. Oh my God. And Kyle was Kyle. It became clear. Kyle had never heard it about 10 minutes in. Kyle's like,

this is really good. Do they do this every time? And I was like, no, I'm not positive. You heard it, Kyle. That's really funny. He's giving me every time? And I was like, no, I'm not positive you heard it, Kyle. That's really funny.

He's giving me compliments about it all the time. He maybe heard it like three times. Is that the one where I sound like Harvey Fierstein? Yes. My voice was just destroyed. You're like, I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?

Let's talk about the New York Times. David. Press box every Tuesday morning. Yeah. With David Shoemaker. We talk press. We. Yeah. With David Shoemaker. We talk press. We talk media. We talk sports media.

We talk everything. You were talking about the Eagles not going to the White House, but then it drifted into another topic that I got excited about. Do you remember it, Wes? No. Didn't you talk about Clinton? I can't remember, but it's a really good podcast. It's on the Channel 33 pod.

Lots of people can't remember this podcast, but they all sort of notionally like it. We're putting that on the poster. No, the problem was I'd had three hours sleep and I was so happy that the coffee was kicking in and you guys were having an intelligent conversation. It was great. There we go.

Yeah, the press box. And then on Channel 33 as well, we have jam session every other week and we have the big picture of Sean Fenton and Damage Control with Justin Charity and Kate Nips. And Sean actually recruited Shoemaker and I to do the rewatchables Jurassic Park, which comes out this week.

Oh, yeah. Did you tape that yet? Yeah, it's taped. It's done. It's another Harvey Fierstein, but we soldiered on. Jurassic Park, you, Curtis, I mean, you, Shoemaker, and Fantasy. And Fantasy. It's really good. It is incredibly nerdy and it's really good.

Great. All right. So check that out. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to check out ZipRecruiter at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to HBO. Don't forget our courtside show that we filmed is going to be premiering on June 19th. There is a little trailer on the internet that you could probably find somewhere, but it's a week away. I know the finals will be done by that point, but I think we had some cool wrinkles for this that you might enjoy. Thanks to Hotel Tonight. They help you book amazing deals at great hotels up to 100 days in advance and top destinations

up to a week in advance everywhere else. Whether you need a sweet deal in a nice room for today, for the winter or beyond, start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels download the hotel tonight app right now thank you thank you I don't have feelings within On the wayside On the front side of the river I don't have feelings within