The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Meadowlarkers 80: What Is Failure?

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

It's time to talk failure with Howard Bryant, Kate Fagan, and Amin Elhassan. After Giannis Antetokounmpo's comments after being eliminated from the postseason, 'failure' has been at the tip of everyone's tongue. The crew examines coaching and the need to be liked, the disrespect of the coaching profession, and how much time coaches deserve. What gets coaches fired? Change for the sake of change? Plus, how much of being a failure as a coach or athlete is about "where you end the movie?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. This is the Dunluba Tarshall with the StugatSpotcast. Welcome to Metal Lockers 80. Yes, that is AB. Howard Bryant here, along with Amin Elhas and Kate Fagga and our reliable team bringing an episode that I'm really interested in talking about when it comes to over these NBA playoffs,

we've talked about failure. We've seen the honest do it after the strange first round lost to the not really eight seed Miami heat. We've seen Joel and bead talk about it after losing to the Celtics and sort of a mocking way. There's always the looming Derek Jeter quote from back in 1996 when he would say, if we don't win the World Series, I consider the season a failure. And all of that seems to have come full circle here before we get started. Let's go really quickly. There's only one honorary captain in Metal Larkas 80,

just one. A wide receiver, I hope. And so wide receiver from San Francisco, Mississippi Valley State, his name is Jerry Rice. There are other eighties. There will be there. He's a class of one. Dr. Cruz. Dr. Cruz. Oh, thank you. I mean, yeah, that's right. That's a giant, but from the University of Massachusetts, we'll take that. UMS Amherst. We'll go from there. I mean, I want to start with you because I want to go to the 1980 Opus, the Empire Strikes Back. When it, Darth Vader's lust of capturing and confronting Luke Skywalker has turned him into even more of a murderous madman than he, than he was already being set up to be. Anyone who disappoints Glowdvater and the Empire Strikes Back is a dead man.

Exactly. They get choked. And it's the touchless choke, right? It's over. And he becomes more and more and more unsanely in his obsession. I bring this to the NBA playoffs. I suggest to you that Doc Rivers has a career 590 winning percentage in Philadelphia

three seasons, 653 winning percentage. He is winning percentage has improved at every single stop from Orlando to Boston to the Clippers to Philadelphia. Every stop he's been more successful in the regular season. He is a coach of the year. He has an NBA title. He has an NBA conference championship. A thousand victory club. A thousand victory club and was voted one of the top 15 coaches in an NBA history in 2022. Mike Booneholtzer is a two-time coach of the year. Mike Booneholtzer has an NBA title. Mike Booneholtzer has a 693 winning percentage in Milwaukee, 604 total. Monty Williams has a conference championship, a 628 winning percentage, and a conference final and a coach of the year as well.

All of these guys are out of a job. Don't forget Nick Nurse. And let's not forget Nick Nurse, who also has an NBA title and an NBA coach of the year as well. So all of these guys are out of work. And it's making me question as we move on as well to whether or not Joe Mizzoula is going to survive. Now he's not in that class, obviously, but same thing. Zero sum. You don't win. You're're out regardless. What are you what are you making of this of this wave and also of this Culture that has seemed to be it's been normalized. Yeah, I think all of those guys have different scenarios different situations Of course doc rivers was

inherited by his His cheap basketball decision maker, Darrell Mori. So there's always kind of an unease there. Monti Williams was on a team that was sold midway through the season. And there's always the feeling of I want my own drapes and I want my own floor plans and all that when you have a new owner. My good news is some would argue was on the cusp of getting fired the year he won a championship. And so that was never too far because once they think that about you, it's not like it's all erased, right?

So there are all different scenarios and situations, but I think a lot of it comes down to two very distinct feelings that permeate our sport and perhaps other sports as well. One is the old Janet Jackson line, what have you done for me lately? So it doesn't matter what history we have. It doesn't matter how much of a track record you have of being good at your job. Uh, if you didn't get me what I wanted now, then none of that else up matters. get me what I wanted now, then none of that stuff matters. The other part is the increasing difficulty that coaches are facing to, quote, get buy-in on the hard stuff.

And what that means is we're in an era where you have to deliver all the medicine with a spoonful of sugar to quote Mary Poppins, right? You can't give them the bitter medicine and if the bitter medicine is still bitter with a spoonful of sugar You can't give that to them either And so many of these coaches feel a hamstrung and handcuffed in that I Can't coach the way I want to because I've got to worry about people liking me, the people I coach, the people I work for, they all have to like me. And so that makes me a less effective version of myself.

It's no secret and it's no surprise that the three coaches that are long as tenured also happen to me, the three coaches coaches who talk to players any which way which Eric Spolstra Greg popovich and Steve Kirk and as Steve curves and seen as He's a easy-going guy, but also Steve Kerr Screams and cusses that Dremont Green Frequently because he knows that's how to get the most out of them. Greg Pavebis, demanding, Eric Spolster, demanding. And some of that ability to do those things comes off of,

it comes from a, almost an immunity of, I know I'm not gonna lose my job because I screamed at someone, right, demanded something of them that was more than what they were giving. Well, I think I mean mean the point you just mentioned there that those three coaches that you name checked

have reached this place of quote unquote immunity. And I think we're all acknowledging and saying that they've reached that place of immunity, that it means that they are able to coach better because they can make decisions based on what they see based on knowing players based on actually reacting to situations rather than reacting to a theoretical act dropping on their necks. And yet still, the premise of this metal-larger is being that coaches' ability to reach

that state of immunity is damn near and possible in this day and age. Like even somebody like Mike Bootenholz, like we said, you would think that 2021 NBA championship would buy him at least like three to five seasons to continue to work through. So I think that the overall premise still stands where it's where the question I'm continually asking is, if we see that longevity and a coach reaching a kind of immunity allows for better coaching and allows for teams to continue to gel, then how, I mean, I have some theories about this, but then the question still is, well, in a mean you're in this world deeper

than why or more franchises not chasing a kind of longevity, or not chasing is maybe not the right word, but committing to pursuing and more of allowing a coach to reach a state of immunity. It lets also not forget that the three coaches that we mentioned all have something that most coaches don't have. Number one, well, yeah, hardware, but number one, Eric Spolstra has Pat Riley. LeBron James tried to get Eric Spolstra fired, right?

But you get Pat Riley back there, who is in that camp of no, we're not going to do that. You've got Greg Popovich who's got the entire Spurs organization. You know, they're not looking at him like you're the problem. He's got that relationship that you need and Steve Kerr as well. Nobody cared about the Warriors franchise until they had this run. So they have gotten something. Now, you could make the argument that Doc Rivers left the Celtics. Nobody was trying to get rid of Doc and Boston. He didn't want to do a rebuild, so he left. So maybe had he stayed in Boston, he would have had that dispensation and he would have inherited

Jason Tatum and he would have inherited, you know, Jalen Brown, when the time came. But yeah, I think that what you have also, and I'm interested in where you're gonna go with this, I mean, is that I think that most teams, most organizations, especially at the ownership level, they all think they can do this. And they don't have the professional respect that you have to have for that job. They don't believe that that job is even that important.

I think we can argue this about which sport the head coach has the most important value in which one has the least. You could argue that to me, at least the NBA has the least because it's such a players league and it's such a best player wins game. Because the contract structure is so imbalanced, I think that the coach matters the very least in the end. More than baseball where I can have a computer just tell me, oh, my lineups and who to pull in the game.

Yeah, because there's no equivalent in basketball to knowing how to manage a bullpen. And so because you've got so much division to lay, but the biggest problem with baseball, the reason why I put basketball behind baseball in that regard is that in baseball, you're only running your best team out there, maybe 20% of the time, maybe. If your best player is Pedro Martinez or Justin Verlander, how many times during a season are you actually playing your very best team? The NBA, you play your best team every night for the most part. Well, the baseball, I mean, load management, right? But baseball, even your best player, if it's a picture, doesn't play the whole game. So you have to know how to manage that entire bullpen. And if you don't, that's your ass. You're done. You're fired.

I'm curious to see where the algorithms go or we can have tipping points on all right This is this many pitches this much torque. We have all the wearable biotech to tell And then managers are gone forever no, but Howard you're absolutely right it starts fundamentally with a disrespect for what these people do right and? And I'm not saying every coach is good. And I'm saying every coach is worthy of, let him cook and let's see where it goes. I'm saying when you have a coach, we believe in you and you have rewarded us

for our trust and belief with either success of the highest order championship, as we mentioned with a bunch of those names, or just success. Like, I think he's a good coach Jerry slone Jerry slone is a great example of that At that point The disappointment can only come when you think they're not doing their job

It can't be with the results and that and that that's a hard thing For a lot of people to hear because they think oh sports is a result based business Yes, I get it But if you believe in this person and you know they're doing a good job and you know Their processes are sound Then you just kind of have to stick with it But they don't believe in that stuff. They just think that this person is a caretaker for what's happening The other part is is the pressure of the players, right?

And so how did you brought up a great example of the Miami Heat when they signed LeBron James of Chris Bosch, the big three, the famously started the first season, nine and eight. And it was wonder what's wrong. And LeBron, as the legend has, it went to Pat Riley. And it's talking to him about kind of struggles of the season and at the start of season. Then he says to him, don't you ever get the itch? And at that moment Pat Riley leans across the table, stares him in the eye and says, I never get the itch. And that was all an allegory for like, don't you want

to come down here and take over and take us a promise because this kid, this video coordinator, doesn't know what he's doing. And Pat Riley in that moment took a stand that took Eric's bolster from on just another one of these guys another one of these names on a carousel to where he is now one of the top 15 coaches of all time and what many people who's going to the Hall of Fame. They are coaches of Hall of Famer. No, he's

yeah, I mean the top 70 and NBA at 75. He's the one of the 15 best coaches of all time along with Doc Rivers on that list. That pretty much cement you. If you're on the NBA 75 list, you're in. He's had the names on that list, a Red Holtsman and Red Arbock and Phil Jackson and Pat Riley and Eric Spolster is mentioned with those names. He's done. He's he's cemented forever. But that only happens if he gets that buy-in from his superior at the time Which forget about a LeBron James? How many organizations in this league?

They just entertain them great player, but it wouldn't call him on the running for a great spirit of all time If he walked into breast evens office and said don't you get the itch about Joe Mozilla? You think Joe Mozilla's last in that? You think Joe Mozilla's surviving that? Anthony Edwards, if he walks in to the office of Tim Connolly in Minnesota, and says, don't you ever get the itch? These guys don't have, they're an endangered species.

And by the way, that's why coaches coach scared. That's why coaches play it safe. And they say, I'm just giving it to my best friend, everybody just fan out. And it was like, oh, that's so unimaginative. Yes, it's unimaginative because they don't feel like they can afford the risk of imagination. Right. Well, yeah, like, I'm I don't know. I'm sure we're all watching Ted Lasso, right? Or maybe not. But where in this third season, he just all of a sudden, he thinks he's invented total football and he just revamps how a sudden, he thinks he's invented total football, and he just revamps how they're going to play

in the middle of the season. It's like this pure indication of taking a massive risk, and I know this is a scripted series, but a massive risk that ends up paying off. And one that, as I'm watching Ted Lasso, I'm like, this would never happen in professional sports, because there are, I can count on one hand and we've mostly named them,

the coaches who have the longevity or the promise of longevity enough to actually coach in a way that you would think, oh, this is what coaching actually is. And I mean, to your point of like the theoretical Jason Tatum walking into Brad Sivin's office and and saying don't you get the itch Then the underlying question is like Shouldn't there be like a legitimate reason in those moments because this is to the larger question that we're talking about like

Is our sports culture in some way broken our men's sports culture broken because if All of what we're saying it's's coming to women's sports too. I mean, we could talk about Becky Hammond, right? Like, that's. It is coming to women's sports as well. Like this, we can get off on that tangent in a little bit. But like, the way I look at all these coaches is,

for the most part, it's like a movie. It's like, where did you choose to end it? Like if you had given certain guys more time, then they have, then either, you know, they're either gonna shit the bed or they're gonna do something really astounding and reach the promised land. And it feels like if you're an owner in this day and age

and you're looking around and you're like, what would be bucking the trend? Bucking the trend would be like committing yourself to a coach for five to seven years. If you're truly doing your research on the front end, then if a star player walks in, unless they have a really good reason, like here's why so and so needs to be gone,

because they don't work hard, they're not there. This makes no sense in a legitimate way versus I'm not vibing with him. I assume most of the time, and I mean, I don't know if it is. It's like, I don't think players are coming in with like, here are the 10 point reason why this coach isn't working. And maybe sometimes it is.

I think sometimes, so I had a great conversation with Andrew Hawkins on his show earlier this week. We were talking about losing the locker room. This is off the heels of Joe Mazula telling the press that he lost the locker room, which was staggering to hear. And I asked Hawke, hey, have you ever had a coach who lost the locker room? What was that like? And then we got into this conversation of players having innate ability to tell when

someone's full of shit, when they don't know what they're doing, right? Which is very different from, I don't vibe with you. And he said, he brought up an example. He said, for football players, when a coach comes in and starts talking about, tuck your shirt in, take off that airing. Don't wear it like, that automatically erodes

a great amount of trust, not because they're not letting me do what I want to do. It's because, hey, we're trying to win football games. You know, we're talking about what I'm wearing. Like, that right there is a red flag to them that this guy doesn't always talk about. So that does happen where players, where lose trust in the coach, because the coach is demonstrating, he doesn't know what he's doing. But then there are other times where it's like, yeah, coach doesn't get me the ball enough. Coach isn't giving me the right amount of minutes.

And that's the stuff where, or even simpler than that, like what happened in Miami. Like, we're not winning. ¡Vamos a la gente aquí! Pero lo más aterrador es no saber en qué confiar. Uy de las personas que os piden que mireis, si queréis seguir convido. Birdbox Barcelona, estreno en Netflix el 14 de julio. Te atreves a ver. Let's look at it this way.

Let's do a quick little detour here. What gets coaches fired? Losing a locker room is absolutely one of them. That's maybe it's number one. In a partnership league, the NBA is a partnership league. It's not football where the coach controls your money, where the coach really does have a lot of say the football NFL head coach is the most powerful coach in American sports. And that guy has to have the buy-in from everybody. So you can't lose a locker room, but in a partnership league where the contracts are guaranteed, where the players have enormously more power than you, where you are the low-hegging fruit. So if there's an issue here, you're the first guy to go because you're the easiest guy to replace, then you've got to be able to communicate with those guys, right?

You've got to be able to reach them in some way where you aren't so exposed. The second thing that gets coach is fired is a lot of things that don't necessarily have a lot to do with you as a coach, for example. You know, as you were saying with Doc or also with money Williams, when the person who hires you is no longer there,

all bets are off. Nothing, you can do, there's nothing you can do. You're not my guy. I just want to bring in my guy. That's that. And then there's the other thing, which is results and on the results side, I always counter how many teams in any league are actually trying to win. There's really only a handful of teams in every sport league are actually trying to win. There's really only a handful of teams in every sport

that are actually trying to win any way that this organization is committed to winning. Most teams ain't trying to win any way. They escape goat to coach. But the second piece of results is the reputation that you've become a playoff loser, which is where Docker versus that right now. So here's Docker versus every single year. He's going to win you 60, he's going to win you

60% of the games, right? That is success in my opinion, but now it is, well, he can't win in the playoffs. And you can't win in the playoffs now. Suddenly, it doesn't matter if you win 68 games. It doesn't matter if you win 59 games. It doesn't matter if everything you've done is precisely what a successful coach is supposed to do. Now you've got a stigma attached to you that you can't win the big one. And there is a guy that we all know and pretty much love who has been that guy for his whole life until last year. And that's Dusty Baker. Dusty, every single team wins. Every single team goes to the playoffs.

Every single team has a chance to win a championship. All of them, he's never managed a team that hasn't gone to the playoffs. In baseball, that's saying something. It's not some 39-win NBA team where you get to meet the playoffs as an eight seed, pre-play-in game. You've got to win. You had to win your division for most of Dusty's career. And so, and I think Dusty, I know, Dusty has won a division on all of his teams. And this juxtaposes with the idea that people say winning is hard and

that winning is a, you know, when you get to the playoffs and baseball, especially it's a crap shoot. Well, if it's a crap shoot, why are you kicking me out the door when I don't win the 9% chance I have of winning a championship? You know the reason why Howard, it comes down to because the people who are making the call, which is usually at ownership level

because I believe GMs are just doing what their owners are pressured them to do, they don't know what they're watching. They don't know what good coaching was like. What bad coaching was like, I've heard, I watched an owner complain that our coaching staff wasn't coaching. He's like, what do you mean, what are you talking about?

I was like, well, they're not standing up and yelling. So like in this owner's mind, like you have to be like, who's yours? You have to flip the table. Flip the screen. Flip the paper. The thing in your hand, and screaming a guy's yelling,

like to him that's coaching, but that's not coaching, right? Like that's performative for the most part. And so when they don't know what they're watching one, and number two, they don't know what the problem is. The easiest thing is just, it's chain for the sake of change. Oh, I mean the need for a slot. Yeah, and that's an easy thing to hide behind

in part because not many people can quantify exactly what we're looking at. It's not like a player where he's averaging 35 points a game. Clearly, it's not his fault, right? But the other thing also is it's easier to divest yourself of a coach than it is of a player. Like even if you know the player is probably the problem.

So it was very clear that money Williams was going down one because of the way they've lost really big games, but also because of the D. Andrean thing. It was like which guy is going to win that battle? We know who's going to win that battle. I mean, a lot of this comes back to discussions we've had in previous episodes of just like the role Luck plays in sports. Because for coaches, like, I, I, I, I, you can almost think about it, like, you know, if you think about it, like playing Blackjack, everyone at the tables eventually gonna get a, a, a Delta Blackjack hand.

Mm-hmm. But it feels like in coaching, when you talk about Dusty Baker, you don't want yours to come too late because then you won't still be, people will have fired you. You won't even be at the table anymore. And often if it comes too early right in the beginning, then people will chalk it up to just like, oh, beginners locked. Exactly. Exactly. Let me stop you right there to that point. Okay. You just said a mean that boot and holds it was close to getting fired and then they went to champion and show. The Boston Red Sox were going to fire Terry Frank Hona and he was down three games to nothing to the Aggies. And now he's going to the Hall of Fame.

Sorry, Kate, go ahead. No, I mean, exactly. And like that, it's again, it's back to the, it's all about where you ended the movie. It's less about, in my mind, like, the ability of that particular person to be a successful coach. I think you probably have a lot of guys and women out there who can win a title, and yet it seems like we end up telling these stories that it's about them and their failures

or their inability's character weaknesses to win the big one when actually it's just like most things in life about timing and luck. And it seems like the perspective that owners take is that, and I don't, it makes sense when you've got billionaires that they think they can control this thing. And they're not willing to accept that,

actually, if it is about patience and timing, I would be more suited in the long run to give fewer people a longer runway. But if I'm a billionaire and I'm never told no, then I'm always gonna exert my willpower on this situation and believe that all the changes I make can get me what I want quicker because maybe that's what happened on the business side.

And so it seems like that's the perspective that the whole coaching carousel has is the way those owners seem to look at it. What do you think it mean? Yeah, I mean, I think definitely the billionaire I never get no plays a huge role in this right because they feel like I invested all this money and It's the thing that I've you know encountered all my life Not only as a consumer, but also as a business person probably is

When I put down money when I make a decision I get the results I'm looking for. And now for the first time, I don't feel that control. Someone's got to pay someone. It's just somebody's fault, right? If we invested in a R&D project at my company and, you know, like a digital music player that also has a radio on it and we'll call it the Zoom. And you guys told me this thing would compete with the other guys over there, that iPod thing and then it fails, typically in corporate kind of environment I was like, well someone's gotta pay.

The guy who came up with this idea, the one sold this idea. And sports is not quite as straightforward as that, even though they treated us such, even though the job security is probably worse in that regard, because of that feeling. But it really comes down to I think that the refusal to accept A, the role of luck, and B, the refusal to accept, I don't know what I'm looking at.

Right? And we see this in the NFL. The greatest coach of all time, Bill Bellicin, one would think, oh, he had an illustrious career that started in New England. Nope. He was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and it didn't work, and they thought,

hey, he's the problem think about that this guys The greatest coach of all time, but there was at least one franchise This said he's the problem. Well, and at that point in his career. Maybe he was and was not allowed to grow That's who and didn't grow and wasn't allowed to grow into the job then a little bit later He kind of does know what he's doing. And you know, he's a football family guy. Of course, he knew what he was doing. Let's not forget the other considered to be greatest coach of all time, Vince Lombardi. If you read David Marinus' great book, when Pride Still Matter, the biography of Vince Lombardi, one of the

things they talk about was that Lombardi was a master tactician from Monday to Saturday and on Sunday was the most useless guy on the field, right? Was the most useless guy on the sidelines. And so I think that there's also that idea of Billy Bean and Moneyball where he's telling Art How, the performative piece of this, to stand at the top step of the dugout because you look more presidential, you look more literally, you look more, you look more like the leader of men. All of these things are cosmetic.

And also, let's not forget the owners who are listening to the fan base and listening to talk radio and the public is making a decision for them when the public Doesn't necessarily know what they're watching. I remember one day being in Fenway and It was like a Wednesday, I don't remember a night game or whatever and somebody knocked on Terry Frankona's door And then when he and I were talking and Tita was like, okay, I'll be right back and he goes in and there was some Whatever issue with many Ramirez and then he sits back down and he says close the door and said, okay He closed the door and he says you know what?

You guys can kill me all you want about whether I know how to run a bull better or not You can kill me about the in-game decisions I make but from seven o'clock to ten o'clock Those are the most peaceful hours of having this job to 10 o'clock, those are the most peaceful hours of having this job. This bullshit, and he points at the locker room, this is the actual job. I'm a babysitter. I'm trying to hurt all these cats together. I'm trying to figure out these egos. I'm trying to get these people to get along. This is the job. That's not the job. That's the easy part. And so it's very interesting now that we're here.

And when I say here, what I mean by that is that professional, that lack of professional respect, that you lost in five games to the heat, therefore you've got to go anywhere on your way out, anyway. And why are you on your way out? And once again, I think it's important, as we're talking about this from an NBA standpoint, it is a partnership league. The players have more power in this sport than any other sport. And so I think what's really interesting, Kate, when I think about this, this, where we are, I think about it in terms of the empire and capitalism conversations we have, that production, production, production, production,

and that there is no understanding of how hard it is except when ownership holds its tries or is asked to be held accountable. Then all of a sudden it's really, really complicated and winning is hard and all of that. But when it comes to that position, we are very easy in calling people losers and calling people failures.

And on that, I would like to pivot very quickly to the honest question when you honest talked about failure. And we've seen what happens when, you know, is it a failure? What do, you know, how do we, I, how do we look at this? I, I look at where we are right now. In terms of player empowerment, we are in the work balance generation, work life balance generation.

We have female athletes today, especially the tennis players who, who have children without announcing their retirements. They don't have to quit anymore. They can decide when they come back. They make so much money now that they can manage their careers in ways that Martin and the Rachel Over and John McIron

and the guys couldn't do because they had to play to win and they had to win to make money. And so now we're looking at Janice coming out and saying, hey, you know what, have some perspective. It's not failure. And there's pushback to that. But I sort of liked what he said because what he was really asking for

was us to look at this zero sum and critique it a little bit better. Is, did you view that as a cop out or did you view that as, yeah he's he's kind of right and We tell our kids to respect the journey. We tell our kids that the the journey matters and that the you know that there are different ways to Appreciate what you're doing Or is it at this level you guys one 58 games and you crashed out there for or Amen failure

I'm I was right there with what Yannis was saying, because I think often about there's a video of, actually, Jamel Hill and interviewing Kobe Bryant, I forget in what forum. And she asks something like, you know, when was one time where failure led to a different better result for you? And he was like, well, actually, I've never failed. And then you went on to explain, you know, his perspective

that like, well, if I didn't succeed in that one instance, that wasn't, again, I'm using this theme as like the theme of the episode for me. Like that wasn't the end of the movie. Right. So you have to watch the whole entire movie. And that's the way I think of it. In the same way, like one of the people we were talking about, like leaning up to this metal lockers, at least for me, is James Harden, whose stories, up to this point, is terrifyingly sad to the point

where when we were watching Game 7, We're in the film deck. Exactly. It's terrifyingly sad to the point where, when we were watching game seven, and I was trying to explain to Catherine, my wife who doesn't watch a ton of NBA, like what the James Harden's story was. You know, like here's an interesting thing that will make you care about this. I'm like, okay, James Harden,

like he is notoriously going to perform poorly in this game. And so if he starts performing poorly, that's the storyline. But if he rises to the occasion and leads them to a game seven victory, it will be rewriting his script. One, she immediately bought into that storyline and understood it completely. But when he did play poorly, she was tremendously sad for him because of everything we were watching it in Philly, everything that seemed to mean about who he was as a person, that even though I mean,

you might know this more intimately, but it starts to mean that you must not work hard enough behind the scenes. Instead of it being luck that he hasn't gotten his blackjack dealt to him yet. It means that he has, he has missed a crucial part of the preparation at of just laziness or apathy. That is what it seems to me. Do you believe, I mean, in the idea of a loser, like I remember once, Mike Tyson was fighting

Alex Stewart. I think it was like 1990 or 90-1, whatever it was. And we were all in college and we were watching this fight. And one of our friends was looking at Alex Stewart and going, oh my goodness, look at him. He looks petrified. He looks terrified. And he did. He was fighting Mike Tyson. Of course, he looked terrified. And I was talking to my dad about this and my father was like, that's all insane. They're professionals at that level. They're not afraid. This is what they do for a living. And now we're at these different stages where we are at this level, where you look at players and you ask our players playoff challenge. Well, let me jump in here, I mean before you answer that because like one story, I recently

read Caric Outcher, Olympic marathoner, NCAA champion runner. And she tells the story of her first Boston marathon, which she set out to win. She pulled ahead of everybody with like seven miles left. And her coach had told her like, don't go out to, don't ever take the lead. Like, you can in the last couple of miles, you come from behind and win it. Just don't set the pace and burn yourself out at any point. But she went, because the pack was going so slow, and she went.

And, you know, in the Boston Marathon, there are, you know, there's little drivers where the photographers are ahead of you shooting. And a photographer actually says to her after she pulls away and she spends a few miles running a very fast pace. And the photographer actually, and I don't know if this is kosher or not, says to her like, care, be careful, your pace is too fast.

And to your point, Howard, of like, she's a professional, right? She's a professional marathoner. She's an Olympic runner. That doesn't mean something like that won't get or can't get in your head at certain moments. And so I think this notion that like, oh, well, they're a professional. This is what they do.

I'm like, no, they're human beings. They're still people. I don't fully buy into that, right? So to finish the carousel story, she actually backed off her pace. And she ended up not winning the Boston marathon. And she felt like if that moment had not happened and she'd kept that pace up, she very likely

could have won the Boston. And so I think it's an interesting anecdote about like, doesn't matter who you are. These things can worm their way into your brains and live. I mean, do you believe in the concept of the losing player? James Harden is going to the Hall of Fame. James Harden had two 40 point games in that seven game series against the Celtics. James Harden is an MVP player. James Harden is a first ballot call for me.

He's not a kind to maybe one day get their Hall of Fame. James Harden is arguably one of the top 15 or 20 scorers in the history of the game. Do you believe in the losing player or is it simply what happens by the end? Go ahead. I Think that winning on a team level starts with players who prioritize things that Impact winning I If I believe in winning players if I believe that Jimmy Butler is a winner, when Jimmy Butler was acquired by the Miami Heat, I went on Levittar Show and I said, and they were like,

what are they doing? They just locked up a bunch of money for a guy who wasn't even a superstar and I said, the guy is a winner. And they're like, what is he ever won? And I said, see, for the fans, winners are the guys that won the championship and won this, you know, award. And inside the sport, winners are the people who do the things that, I guess, you could be summed up with heat culture, for example, right? Like that, you know, working hard, that you're going to push yourself and push your teammates, that you're going to do the things required of winning and it's not just things that appear on a stat line.

Just suppose Jimmy Butler and his approach with another guy who played for the Miami Hassan Lightside who when the heat acquired Hassan Lightside and he started his career in Miami with a bunch of double doubles and you know seven block games and stuff like that. And my first appearance on Levitard Show, Dan asked me, how was this guy playing in Beirut and like at the YMCA and why did no one pick him up? And I said because he's, I didn't call him a loser at the time,

I call him because he's an asshole. But pretty much like Hassan Whiteside is a guy who is very gifted, very talented, and is capable of putting up types of numbers that if you didn't watch, you didn't know. I just say, how did he do last night? This guy had 20 and 10 and six blocks, he had a great game. But when I tell you, he does not do the things that impact winning. He does not sacrifice some of that stack chasing in

favor of doing the the little things it takes to win and and by the way that stuff gets More and more razor thin the higher up you get so James Harden is a guy who is incredibly talented and on everything You said is correct and also maybe there are some things there that He's not he hasn't closed the gap on there are some things there that he's not, he hasn't closed the gap on. So for me, that is, it is a thing. It is a thing that some guys who are winners and some guys who are losers and some guys who aren't losers, but also haven't maximized all of the things

that are needed in order to be winners. And some guys who have and they just haven't, well, they're playoff challenge, but let's face it, pressure is a real thing. So, and so this is the part that I want to circle back to Yannis on. It's very important. It is a failure.

If Yannis had lost in the finals to a peer of a team, then yes, those things apply, I think. Yeah, man, like there's a lesson in all of it and there's a journey and, you know, there's only one winner every year. Yes, that's the part where people get ridiculous, right? Just because we lost here, does it mean we're losers?

Does it mean we're not winners? It just means man, we got beat by a better team. Or the problem is, Yannis was in a position this season where he was on the dominant team, the better team versus a team that people point out was 10 minutes away from not even making a playoffs, because they were down in their last playing game to Chicago in the fourth quarter. When you lose to a team that you should be way better. That is a failure. Can this failure go on and be like in Kate's example, be a part of the end of the movie?

And this is not necessarily the end of the show. Sure. Indiana Jones was captured by the Nazis and let them get the Ark of the Covenant. At that moment, Indiana Jones has failed. Now, he figured some stuff out. He keeps his eyes closed, his marion's keep your eyes closed, and the ghosts come out of the arc and kill all the Nazis, and Indiana Jones wins and prevails. Sure, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a failure that happened, right? The success would have been,

if Indiana Jones had just stopped the Nazis from getting it in the first place. Or if Rocky had retired after a club or a laying knocked him out. And if Rocky had state retirement, right? That would have been the success. That would have been the success. Yeah, exactly. I think like, I think within the NBA, there must be, you know, very specific knowledge of what you're talking about here.

I mean, which is, who is a winner who's never won? Who are the losers who happen to win? Who does the work, yeah. And then there are, like, and I think what's hard is when you're like even one layer removed, a lot of that gets muddled. Where you just assume so and so was on a winning team. Therefore, they are a winner. Or so and so was a winner, but if in some because of luck, never quite won the big thing. When you saw James Harden in those seven games, I believe in everybody clowned me on

my group chats. I was like, I think he can come up big in this game seven. Why would I think that he wouldn't be? And they're like, uh, yeah, right. And he ended up laying a gigantic egg. And it was so inexplicable, except for maybe one thing. Okay, A, he may have had something else on his mind or he's not a winning basketball player because the way it wasn't like he went after a championship and just happened to lose, he was disengaged.

Yeah, and that's and that's what you were taught my earlier Howard. You started to mention this this concept of pressure and some people aren't performers. I've been a person who defended James Harden for much of his career pointing out that in Houston, he played an incredibly taxing style of play and he was playing 82 games when everyone else was low-managing and he was playing 40 minutes a game And all of those things and yeah, it's natural. You're tired by the time we hit April, man, June You're exhausted. You don't have anything left in the tech where everyone else was resting and conserving their energy and and all that and I looked at this season and I said wow. He's taking a step back

that. And I looked at this season and I said, wow, he's taking a step back. Uh, he's, he's done the right things for what the team needs to do. And as a result, he's also expended less energy. This is the time where now he's going to have the best playoff of his life. And he started with game one. He's amazing. And we're like, there you go. It's happening. And then as the series wore on, he reverted back to something that he's done not only as a pro Ladies in gentlemen, but think back to the 2012 NBA finals think back to the 2008 and 2009 NCA's as Arizona State he took Arizona State to the Dance and when he got there He just there's something that just was like and at the time I wrote it off as well

He's not gonna kill himself. he's trying to get drafted. Like, this is none of this matters. A.S.U. is not good enough to go on a deep run. But when you take a step back and Kate, to go back to your nails, you want more time and watch the whole movie, this man has a lifetime of, in those moments, not coming up and meeting that meeting. And of course, the question is whether or not you can redeem by winning once. Yes.

And that's the, so quick story. I know we only got a few minutes left. But like, so when I was playing at Colorado, we always, I don't know why, but our conditioning test was a 5K. And the first four years I was there, you'd run the 5K. And it was an honor system.

Like it was a 5K laid out, but it wasn't like an actual race where there were people at every turn. And the first four years I was there, I never saw a teammate cut a corner. And my last year, I saw a couple of my teammates literally cut a corner on this 5K race. And it just so happens that that was the season where we just like tanked out of the NCAA tournament.

And I wasn't surprised because I had literally been watching people cut corners. And I think that I project that experience onto somebody like James Harden, where there's a part of me that's like, maybe I haven't seen the home movie, maybe this is a redemption movie, maybe he's never caught a corner in his life.

And he goes home after all of these failures, and it's just like, what more can I do? I care, I work hard, I don't know this, right? I'm just saying, that is that the movie I'm watching? Or am I watching the movie of somebody who is getting the results they deserve. Are you watching Bump Bailey in the National?

And in the National? Is it Bump Bailey? Right. It's just that. What am I watching? I can't tell. The funniest thing, the last thing I'm going to say is Kate, you asked, is it something inside?

And there are guys for sure that you watch and you just know Josh Hart was a player in LA as soon as you saw him play you knew this guy's a winner he's about the right things they're the the Lakers are terrible at the time but I said this guy is going to be a guy who makes good teams better he's not gonna make a bad team good he's not good enough talent wise but he's about the right things Jalen Brunson was another guy who watched him in Dallas and like this guy He's not gonna make a bad team good. He's not good enough talent wise, but he's about the right things. Jalen Brunson was another guy. He watched him in Dallas and like,

this guy gets it. David West was a guy in Indiana. He was an all-star and then he famously turned down a $12 million option to sign for Minimum in San Antonio and everybody called him a loser and every bad word in the book. Oh, and he gave up all that money because he's just trying to ring chase Or whatever David West is a guy that was known in this league

He's about the right things. He is he is a winner even if he hasn't won anything He ends up going to Golden State and helps them win there and was a big part of their success And Golden State even though his stats aren't gaudy and I don't know how many starts he had, but he was a winner. These guys are there. Exactly right. You know, absolutely right. On that note, I will say we will fare well for metal lacquer as 80. I will say two things.

One, the Los Angeles Lakers were swept in the Western conference finals by the Denver Nuggets, but if you watch the bronze James' performance, there's nothing about that that would make you say he was a loser. He was a guy who just, he was trying really hard not to get swept. That was, oh, you know, he left it all out. He left it out there and you can't, and that's all you can ask for. In fact, if indeed, you know, whatever happens happens, you know, pretty fascinating performance. That's a great counterbalance, right? Like James Harden went to a game seven. LeBron James happens happens in a pretty fascinating performance. That's a great counterbalance, right? Like James Harden went to a game seven.

LeBron James got sweat, but I think all of us would sit here and say LeBron left nothing left in the reserve tag. He gave everything he had to try to even he got a single victory, whereas Harden, you don't walk away feeling like, well, he gave everything he had. Exactly right. We will be here next week for Metal Lockers 81,

Kate Fagan, and Mina Hassan. See you later. Thanks, Y'all.