The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Duke, Lakers, Zion Williamson, and one and done players

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

Filling in for Colin, Doug Gottlieb talks about Duke losing to Michigan State, one and done college players, what to expect from F Zion Williamson in the NBA, and who to blame for Los Angeles Lakers horrible season. Guests include Evan Daniels, Stephen Jackson, and T. J. Houshmandzadeh. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Be sure to catch us live every weekday from 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Find your local station for the herd at Fox Sports Radio.com or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in, wherever you may be and however you may be making as part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlie. This is The Herd, whether you're watching on Fox Sports One, listening on Fox Sports Radio, the IHeart Radio app or the over. Are we at 10 million, 10 million subscribers to the Heard podcast? Sure, we'll just throw out a number.

Nobody's checking those numbers, are they? Somebody is somewhere. Good morning to you, Joy Taylor. How are you? I'm great. Good morning. Heard about a big interview over the weekend. Don't want to give it away, but if you read the Twitter sphere, you know college basketball, somebody very, very, very close to Joy at a very, very, very big interview, which apparently went very, very well.

It's a beautiful morning in Los Angeles. The sun is shining. Welcome, Doug. Good morning to you, Joy. So look, college basketball has something special that everybody else sort of wants, right? Right? Like, look, there's other things that college basketball has that people don't want. but the college basketball is a couple things that you want.

I heard this from a buddy of mine. I'll give him credit. His name's Saren Petro. He's a very talented radio host in Kansas City. And he said, and this is a great, if the bowl system was such a good idea, how come no one's ever copied it? Right?

It's a great point. Whereas in college basketball, like what do we have? In the regular season, you have these incredible student sections. And if you look around the country, whether it's college football, they've kind of stolen that from,

trying to steal that from college basketball, You get that when you watch foreign teams play. You get that in high school sports now. Teams have their own student section with their own nickname. That all started because of college basketball. But then the biggest thing that everybody wants in college basketball is we call it March Madness. We can say it's the bracket. We can call it the NCAA tournament, which is the technical definition of it is the 2019 NCAA National Championship tournament,

which will be decided in Minnesota, Minneapolis, a week from tonight. And the bracket is what everybody wants, right? The brackets, and people today are bragging like, my son, who's 10 years old, has Michigan State winning a national championship in his bracket. We'll get to bracket guy upcoming in the show. But we have this, this, hey, look, man, it's 40 minutes. It's one game. And we do make definitive statements.

And I've hated the idea of a definitive statement in a single elimination tournament. Like, your team loses a game, and all of a sudden your conference, as a whole stinks? I don't understand that. Or John Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats lose to Auburn, who was ranked in the top 15 to start the season, won the SEC tournament, and they played Kentucky twice, blown out once,

played them close at home, played him twice. Hardest thing to do in basketball is beat a team three times, especially in college basketball. It'll start to do it three consecutive times in the end. NBA. So you lose in overtime to a conference foe. And what's the immediate reaction? John Caliperi can't coach. Mike Schozyffsky, these one and duns, they just, you can't win with the one and duns. There are our first world problems with the one and duns. And a lot of times it's not just those players. It's all of the other guys that you recruit that think they're

at the same level. I mean, Duke has had this problem for the last 10 years or so. I mean, cry me a river, but if you, if, if you're not one of the top two or three, if you're not one of the starters for Duke and you see yourself as part of that recruiting class, then you're going to leave. You're going to transfer because you don't want to come out the bench because they're just going to recruit more guys over you the next year, which is what happens in Kentucky. They also run the risk of if they actually play too well and win a national championship like they did with, you know, going back with Justice Winslow, whether it was Justice Wendlow or Tias Jones. Had Tias Jones stayed at Duke for two years,

three years, or all four years, he could have won multiple national titles. If you have an elite level point guard, it raised the level of everybody else. Don't believe me, I give you Michigan State and Cassius Winston, or I give you Texas Tech and Matt Mooney. It was a two-time transfer. Older kids, very kids, very much. veteran kids, you're good at that spot. You're good. But today, the one and done is in the crosshairs of everybody in the media. And it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition, right?

Like, if you don't win a recruiting, if you don't win recruiting wars over the top prospects, let's not champion yourself. Let's not act like Roy Williams didn't want Zion Williamson. Like, he wanted him. and I don't know how much he would have played or if he would have started because he had two veterans in his front court. Roy Williams has an all-solar system, All-American, who's a freshman, who didn't start, and he may lose him as well. Look, the issue is not just emotional, but emotional attachment. Emotional connection is a big part of what allows teams to compete and to win.

You want to call it chemistry fine. In basketball, we call being connected. Right, connected to one another. Looking at each other and just knowing where the other person's going to be. But also just the idea of an emotional investment in a place. I want you to think about this for a second. Here's the difference between the Duke players and the Michigan State players. Or maybe the Kentucky players and the Auburn players.

I was ass driving in. I was on Dan Patrick's show and he said, what do you think Zion Williamson's doing today? I said, well, I hope he's going back, he's going to class, you know, maybe going to get some shots up, having, enjoying a day off. He had himself a great weekend. They just came up a bucket short.

One bucket short. That's it. One bucket from playing for a national championship in front of 70,000 people at U.S. Bank Stadium. But the thought is that he should be packing up his stuff. going to train for the NBA, removing himself from college. So if you think to yourself, what's the biggest difference?

Well, the biggest difference is as Kenny Goins hits the shot of the year for Michigan State, Goins is a former walk-on. It would have played at a mid-major level as a starter. Instead, bet on himself, and his dad picked up the tab and said, don't worry about it. Now he's on scholarship. But Kenny Goins, a former walker,

walk on hits the shot of the tournament over Zion Williamson, who's the player of the tournament and going to be the number one pick in the upcoming NBA draft. So what happens? One, Kenny Goins had he lost last night, would have gotten home and felt terrible, as Zion Williamson feels terrible, would have gone to class and would have been a hero, would have been a champion, and the question wouldn't have been, what are you going to do today? It's when are you going to get back in the gym? Because the emotional investment of all those guys is, I'm here.

I've unpacked mentally, emotionally, and of course, physically, I've never thought about packing up. Whereas the issue with the one and done is we're teaching players to not fully invest, not dig roots, just be a renter. Just come and stay and see what it's like, and the second you can get out, you get out. And look, I could go into the look at the NBA. When the NBA teams want to lose, what do they do? They just play younger players because they're not that well developed. They don't shoot the basketball as well.

Don't believe me that shooting is a major factor. Look at Kentucky's inability to make three-pointers yesterday with their freshman. Same thing happened when, you know, you go back to when Boogie Cousins was in college and they had Bledsoe and John Wall and they played a West Virginia team that had one borderline NBA player. They finished four for 32 from three-point range. You improve incrementally as a shooter. Your fundamentals improve. College basketball, basketball and generally helps you improve your shooting over time.

volume of coaching, volume of attempts. You also become a better teammate, a better team player. You understand rotations. You understand scatterports and all of that. But to me, the biggest part outside of the physical strength of older players, because physical strength did not keep Zion Williamson or RJ Barrett from playing for a national championship, those guys' bodies are ready for whatever level of basketball. it's in the emotional investment. Little things matter more to them because this is as good as it's going to get for

Xavier Tillman and Kenny Goins. And heck, maybe for Cassius Winston, he doesn't look like an NBA point card. He may play in the NBA, but is he really a longtime NBA player? Probably not. And so while Michigan State lost a one and done, Jaron Jackson last year and lost a two and done, when you got people that are completely invested, in the project. The project's usually better.

You ever done a school project? Right? You ever do a school project? There's always one person that might be super talented that sometimes misses a meeting. Don't worry, I'll get it done. I'll get it done. Tell me what you need to do. I'll get it done. But they're not fully invested. Which project is better? The slightly lesser talented group that always meets every Tuesday at 7 o'clock at the coffee shop to plan out for the two months leading up to the presentation,

or the more talented group that's got a bunch of things working and is worried about, you know, job applications and it's their senior year and they're, but they only have time for meeting. I can only meet once a month, and I can't be there from 7 to 8. I can get you at 7.30. I got a bunch of other things going. Which project's better? And all we have is the data to tell us that, yes, it's a single elimination tournament.

Sure, Kentucky lost in overtime, had a chance to win regulation in an overtime. And yes, Duke is a made free throw away from playing in overtime and maybe playing for a national championship. But Kentucky lost to an Auburn team that lost arguably its most talented player. Duke should have lost to Central Florida, could have lost Virginia Tech, and then did lose to Michigan State, who is without their second most talented player for the entire season for most of the season. like it's not like you're lining up and losing to the Milwaukee Bucks or to a star-studded roster. You're losing to what anybody would consider inferior competition in terms of their overall talent. Is it coaching? Sure.

Give it a part. Is it shooting? Absolutely. You become a better shooter over time. College basketball actually, wait for it, helps you become a better basketball player. But it is it in the connection, cohesion. overall investment in the long-term and short-term success of everybody around you? I think the answer is yes.

I don't think. I know the answer is yes. Those are teams that are advancing to the Final Four. Whereas great players, it doesn't mean they're terrible teammates. I mean this is not a bad teammate. R.J. Barrett's a little bit selfish, but he's not a bad teammate or a bad guy. Tyos Jones is a good teammate. But the connection in, hey, this is the best, this is the most important thing I'm going to accomplish in my basketball career.

And whatever else happens, as opposed to whether it's Duke or Kentucky or the Arizona team of last year, if this is just a stop on the way to start them, what would your level of investment be? How connected would you be with those around you? And that in and of itself is why the one and done hasn't traditionally worked. you got 15 years of data you got two national championships in spite of a litany first round draft picks and superstars we'll dig in a little later on the show

in terms of how do you fix it how much do you think Joy the one and done plays a factor in Duke and Kentucky both being home today I mean I think there's something to it I don't think it's a matter of dedication though I think it's more experience and being around your teammates

for an extended amount of time. I mean, that's the same, for the most part, in the NBA, too. It takes a long adjustment period. And I think the reason you can have a player come to a team for one year in the NBA and work is because they've likely been in the NBA for a while. And the season is much longer. So there's more time to adjust to playing with your teammates and learning the system and all of that.

Dedication to me, I don't think, should be a question when it comes to Zion. Zion could have easily set out the rest of the season just for protecting himself for the NBA, if that's really what he wanted to do. And while some people may have been critical of it, I think most people would have understood because we all saw how terrifying it was to see his shoe explode and him possibly put his future in danger

for playing for free for Duke. So I don't think that the dedication thing is as much as a factor as it is just experience and having a time to play together and learn the system. It's a team game. These things happen. And like you said, a ball bounces one way

and we're talking about this two weeks ago. So I don't think that it's necessarily dedication in so much as it is just the formula of getting players to work together and being in big moments together over years at a time and knowing what to do in those situations. Well, and I didn't use the word dedication specifically. I don't believe, if I did correct if I'm wrong. But I do like, look, take Texas Tech. Texas Tech has two, Tarika Owens is their center. And of course, Matt Mooney's their point guard.

they've only been on campus. They didn't get there until, I think, August this year because they're grad transfers, right? So they're older players, they're mature. They've been through the ups and downs and the rigors, and that's the experience factor that you're talking about. But I do think there's a certain level of disconnect with everything else that college players are able to accomplish that is harder. And look, we're just as guilty of it as members of the media. Look, of the things that guys do that I despise, why do you have to ask Zion Williamson

if he's going pro right after a game? What was accomplished by that? You're the guy who broke the story that Zion Williamson, who by the way, answered it like every other question, perfectly, right? Perfectly. But we play a role in this. We constantly play.

What are you, like, obviously it's being discussed. It's an elephant in the room. But can we not allow players to just, even if they're miserable, after losing game. Allow them to be miserable and not worry about the next thing. The next thing is the next thing. We're guilty of it. Parents are guilty of it. Hangers on, friends. And then that makes the players more guilty of it. And I think it becomes harder in addition to the skill that gets refined and the experience that can only be gained over time. And then of course the cohesion

with teammates. But I also think one and dones are are pretty clearly spotted at the grassroots level. Like there's a certain, not everyone is a one and done player. And I, I, I think that the more that guys start to develop at a younger age, they tend to focus on being a one and done when maybe they could use another year in college or not. But it's tough to tell a kid, hey, you have the possibility of being drafted or going to the NBA and taking your skills to a professional level, which is a dream, you know what I mean?

Or just stay in college to develop. Yes and no. Look, the reality of it is they all think they're one and done, even though the numbers are very, very slight. Like you walk in, I coached an AAU game in Lederra in Orange County. And if I walked in the gym and I asked all those kids like, how many you guys are going to league, they all would have had their hands up.

Like they don't understand the math of it. So yes, do NBA people? Do basketball people know for the most part who the five or six guys are? Of course. Everybody's done. And Zion has improved his stock by playing and showing us that he's better than anyone probably could have thought, had they watched him last year at this exact same time.

But the idea that, hey, there's a couple of guys and they know and they have their, no, I'm telling you, Joy, I've been in these locker rooms, I've spoken to the teams. If you ask them, 13 kids on scholarship, how many of you guys go in a league? They all have their hands up. And they all meet it. They all believe it. But you have to believe that you are at a superior level to compete at a superior level. Eventually, things sort themselves out.

But that doesn't mean they're all going to declare for the draft. A lot of them will. A lot of them will. The Lakers, we'll get back to this upcoming. The Lakers struggles this year fall on not one, but by my estimation, two people. Not sure if you've heard, but LeBron James has shut it down for the year. We will lay blame that's upcoming next in the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio,

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If you're watching us on Fox Sports One, you can see the chest and arms of LeBron James behind me. Photos of LeBron James in a Lakers uniform is the most you will see of LeBron James in a Lakers uniform. the rest of the year. I'm sure people are just pleased this punch if they loaded up and said, hey, April game between the Warriors and Lakers, kind of a rev up for the playoffs. Think about back in January or even back in November.

Man, how hot a ticket was that? Yeah, LeBron's not going to play in that. He's not going to play the rest of the year. Quote, after consulting with our team doctors and medical staff, we have decided to hold LeBron James out of games the remainder of the season. This decision will allow his groin to fully heal

and is best for the future of both LeBron and the Lakers. So the Lakers who, by the way, won last night in New Orleans. It was, I mean, anytime Javelle McGee is your go-to-scorer and you win an NBA game,

you start kind of scratching your head. It has been a remarkable year for the Lakers, remarkably bad. If I can think of a parallel in Hollywood, the only one I could come up with is Batman and Robin. Do you remember Batman and Robin? I'm not sure if you're big on the Batman series, but Batman and Robin had George Clooney,

had Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? Alicia Silverstone, Alicia Silverstone was, she was on fire at that point in her career, right? And Uma Thurman and Chris O'Donnell, So you pick who's who in this cast. But the fact is that Batman franchise was like the Laker franchise. You put Batman on it and it wins, with the exception of that movie,

which was a complete and total stinker. I mean, the cheesy Arnold lines were awful, awful. And the stench was so bad, I don't think Alicia Silverstone has ever really recovered. it took Chris O'Donnell like seven years before he was on a TV show that finally hit and he was on NCIS, right? Arnold Schwarzenger was his performance was so bad. He went into politics where there's plenty of really bad actors. And it took the Batman series like a decade before Christopher Dolan revamped it

and made it into an incredible new trilogy. But if you want to put the blame at two places, I think you actually have to start with magic. because he is Magic Johnson, right? Like his name evokes, if you even see him cheering for Michigan State, and you're like, wow, magic. Everything he touches, it works.

When he's with the Lakers, it just works. Well, there was the coaching thing. That didn't work. There was the late-night talk show that didn't work. But when he got involved with the Dodgers, two World Series appearances in a row. And whether or not you want to say the Dodgers didn't win those World Series, like let's just be honest,

getting to a World Series and two years ago getting to a game seven. I mean, they have been revitalized and revamped, but let's not give Magic all sorts of credit because it's not like he's down in AAA trying to figure out who's who and what's what and how to make the right decisions as to whether or not you sign a platoon, put a platoon guy in there or sign Bryce Harper this past off season. But Magic Johnson came back to the Lakers and said, give me a couple years and I will fix it.

And this was his plan. And I'm big on the butterfly effect. He has another the butterfly effect. Like if this doesn't happen, a bunch of other things don't happen. Just think about the meeting that he had with LeBron on July 1st of last year. In addition to the fact that whatever his plans were and however they were agreed to by LeBron James, he never brought his head coach. Like, who does that? Who thinks that's a good plan?

Who thinks that's a good idea? You sit outside and by his own account, he got there an hour early. In that hour leading up to it, you didn't think, hey, maybe I should text Luke and see if he can get in a car and drive up from Manhattan Beach and pop in on this meeting with us. Just to say hi because he's our coach. So you immediately tell LeBron James, who's a very smart fella, right? When you walk in to make a pitch and you don't have the head coach, what do you think LeBron James thinks? well, he's not your coach, so he must not be mine. Immediately, Magic Johnson is to blame for the litany of errors that the Lakers have made.

And then in terms of personnel, sure, I will give Rob Polinka some of the blame. Absolutely. He's the first time GM. But Magic's supposed to have the basketball knowledge. Magic is supposed to have the basketball IQ. He was the one who at Summer League said this was their plan to get these junkyard dogs, these veterans who guard. He watched all the playoff games, and he made an assessment.

And shame on us for listening to Magic. Because as great a player, Magic Johnson was. And by my estimation, and I grew up in Southern California, I watched all his games, I can tell you, Magic Johnson is the greatest Laker ever.

Like we can say Kobe Bryant now, but that's because many of us have forgotten how incredible magic was. It wasn't just that he was great. He was great. He had competitive greatness. He was great when greatness was called upon. In Boston Garden, you know, in Philadelphia, in Houston, in wherever it was.

I was there when Magic came back off of hiatus from HIV, when the preseason with the Lakers, and he took over the entire forum. He's the greatest Laker ever. But he's been a commentator on the NBA finals for both NBC and ESPN. In both times, he was awful. Do you know why? Because he's just, he's great at playing basketball, not at the other. parts of basketball. So I put a bunch of blame there. On the other hand, I read this article that

Dave McMendman has out there, and I put plenty of blame on LeBron James, because this is kind of the classic LeBron thing, where when things go right, LeBron gets the credit because, well, it's LeBron, and eight straight finals, and yeah, LeBron's the GM, and LeBron's got his, you know, Rich Paul as his agent, and they get their kind of guys, and they put together the team. What about when the roster goes wrong? He can say, hey, I was there for the three-hour meeting, then I got on a plane and I flew to parts unknown. But shame on you. If it really mattered to you, you would have stayed there and I'm going to stay in town.

I'm going to do a press conference. I'm going to recruit players. I'm going to get the right guys to fit with me. Otherwise, you essentially signed off on whatever magic wanted to do. And if what he proposed, you didn't think it would work, you should have spoke up then or forever held your peace. But he didn't. We can blame Luke Walton. We can blame the unluckiness of injury.

and say that if had Lanzo stayed healthy, it would have been better, and I agree with a lot of that. I agree with a lot. Should some of their younger players not be in their feeling so much? Of course. Of course. They were unlucky because they were unhealthy, and then they let all the pressure get to them,

and they didn't truly know how to play with LeBron, then they had to learn to play without LeBron, then LeBron being back, and some of that is just happenstance when you have injuries. but dude this started when Magic Johnson showed up at his doorstep without his head coach and didn't have a great plan and then continued on when LeBron said hey you know I don't love that plan I've always had this plan this is the plan that works for me and if you want me this is how we got to do it and even though we won't put blame on him for the the players that were

acquired we put blame on him for the players that are required because if he didn't like it at any time LeBron James could have picked up the bat phone and fix things, or at least tried to alter history. Look, like Batman and Robin, there will be another Batman. There will be another, they're going to try and revamp this franchise

and do it very, very soon. But oftentimes, like the butterfly effect, it starts with the first thing, with the first meeting, and the plan, and everything else goes from there. Let's get to Joy Taylor with the news. No, no, no, no.

Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So Ben Rothesburgers made plenty of head. headlines over the years and his weekly in-season appearances on 93-7 the fan in Pittsburgh, and that might be ending. According to Matt, um, Burtamame, I'm going to butcher his last name. I'm sorry, he's from fancited.com. He broke the news and said, according to multiple sources, Ruffisberger is expected to relinquish

his regular radio show in Pittsburgh prior to next season. He is hoping that it helps his standing with his teammates. I actually think this is a good idea. I think so too, right? Now, Tom Brady has his weekly appearance that he does on W.E.E.I. in Boston. But Brady is notorious for saying lots of things that don't mean anything at all. Rathusberger is kind of the opposite. This has been the genesis for a lot of the relationship breakdowns in Pittsburgh.

Rathesberger's weekly appearance because he's called out teammates and he just kind of says things that you, as an organization, you just kind of wish that he wouldn't. because it may not be outwardly disrespectful or something that he doesn't feel, but it's like this is just kind of causing problems for everyone. Well, there's also, and look, Eli Manning has his own in New York, and he's called out players in the past as well, and sometimes gently so. And like, look, in Ben Rothsberger's defense, there have been plenty of times when he's called out himself. Like, look, I got to be better. I didn't play well.

But the fact is that when you say anything negative about a teammate or about a performance, it gets amplified, and it's Pittsburgh. it's the Steelers, it's Ben Rathesburg are saying it. So this is smart just because, like, look, what is the win there? There's no win. Well, like, what's the win? There's no win. You get, you get, you get a comp car?

You get some more money? Like, you're making a ton of money. You do need a comp car? I think for someone like Brady or Rathusberger, it's a way to kind of reach out to the fans. It's not, like, Twitter, Instagram, or something like that. So I can understand wanting to do it, having some availability. But, like, for Brady, it doesn't do anything because he never really says anything revealing. And for Rathesberger, it's just an opportunity for him to step in it with his teammates.

Because like you said, what's the win? There's no win there. These are all pretty much conversations that should be had behind closed doors. And if you're going to go on and say things that are going to cause problems in the locker room, it's not helping anything. Yeah, I, you know, you can, it's interesting though. You've been in Pittsburgh long enough. The fans already like you. No, I know. It's interesting, though, that like he is not, and maybe this is just knowing yourself, that he doesn't, he doesn't have the governor to not, to be Derek Cheater, right? To say nothing, nothing interesting at all. But that's just not the Pittsburgh way.

Mike Tomlin is great at the mic, but he'll say what he feels. It's not like he goes up there and says nothing. I mean, we almost always have a sound bite from him. So it's not, it's really not the culture there. I also think it's players are a little bit more in their feelings now than they used to be. And when they hear things, it bothers them more, especially skill position guys. They're split out while. And also, if you're not winning, it kind of adds to the frustration and your patience goes down.

So 16 years ago, LeBron sparked the biggest bidding war the shoe games ever seen. He eventually inked a $90 million contract with Nike, as we know. And Zion Williamson, who spent much of his due career being compared to LeBron, might eclipse him. Nick DePaul of ESPN report that some believe Zion's first shoe contract would be over $100 million. He said as many as six brands will look to sign him, including Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, New Balance, Puma, and ANTA. The expectation is that he will sign his deal before the May 14th draft lottery when the draft order will be set. Quote, in my lifetime, I think it's going to be the biggest bidding war ever done. That's former sneaker executive Sony Vicaro.

I would put them all on go. This is really not that surprising. I mean, the market has gone up tremendously over the last 16 years. And the sneaker game was big then. Not necessarily. Not necessarily in terms of the market going up. There's a lot of, there's basically rich and poor. right and then there's guys that choose to wear the Chinese sneakers or whatever but there's

there's not as many big time sneaker deals no no I don't mean as far as as as many as the big deals like mostly everyone every major star has a general market has gone up so and but this doesn't surprise me I mean we all were just discussing Zion shoes the moment that the shoe exploded like what his contract is going to be huge everyone's paying attention to everything that Zion does I agree I think here's a here's a very interesting part to me one of the things that hurts LeBron is his shoes are built for LeBron. Right. LeBron James is 6-8, 260, 270 pounds, whatever. Right.

And so you're basically, it's like David Robinson's old pumps. Like those were cool shoes, but they're built for David Robinson. So most guys aren't built like David Robinson. It will be interesting if they can create a shoe that is comfortable and fetching and yet is built for Zion Williamson, which is going to have to be reinforced with reinforced steel. No, you're right about that because LeBron's shoes are very big. They give you like an extra inch and a half. Yes.

Just putting them on. Yes, I know. You're a sneaker girl. You're a sneaker head like I am. They are giant shoes. Gigantic shoes. That is an interesting point. I do think they're going to have to be crafty with that or make a couple versions of them.

I don't know. But either way, he's going to get a huge deal and they're going to sell a bunch of them. So finally, you were just talking about this. The Lakers wrapping up their disappointing season and a lot of their frustrations being blamed on the young roster. And they, the young roster, believe that LeBron should take some blame too. according to Dave McMenneman. And an open, what became an open forum, several players spoke up.

Players focused on LeBron's inconsistency, body language, inconsistent body language throughout the year. He caught to the critique, telling his teammates that, in essence, cutting out behavior like slump shoulders and sideways glances has been something he's tried to work on his entire career. This was a meeting, a team meeting,

where this was discussed. I find it very interesting that this actually happened, because it kind of felt like they were completely disconnected and it was almost like, is anyone having a conversation with anyone about what's going on? And apparently they did have a conversation about it. I don't want to overly criticize LeBron because I do not feel like this is all LeBron's fault. What's happened with the Lakers?

I think it was a matter of the way the roster was constructed. I think that the injuries played an incredible part, if not 99% of the issues that the Lakers had this year. Because I don't know who can win with three of your starters out. There's a lot of other things going on. But this is kind of disappointing coming from LeBron. Like, LeBron has been wildly considered for most of his career to be a great teammate. And he does get emotional. He does show the frustration on his face.

So he does have these body language things, which I don't really like to get into body language. Because I feel like it's so pretentious of us as the media to say, like, oh, that body language is not positive. Like, you don't know what's going on really in that situation. Are they just frustrated together? Are they frustrated with each other? we're kind of playing armchair psychologist with that, but clearly

this was a thing. Well, look, if it was just body language and it wasn't the things that he was saying about Anthony Davis or about his own teammates. Or the way he was playing or the fact that he looked disengaged, like it's all part of the, yeah,

they saw it, we saw it, he wasn't engaged, he wasn't into them. He just wasn't. And he was, he, LeBron was doing what immature people do, what my son does. You know, My son, you know, grounds out to first base. And he goes and sits down at the end of the bench. And he takes off his helmet, takes off his gloves.

And you're like, look, dude. Nobody cares. You can't let your emotions rule you. Correct. And when you're LeBron James, and you know the camera's on you, and you know the team is struggling, you have to be the guy going, we're going to be fine. I'm into it.

Let's go. Instead, and you can, and Lakers guys will tell me he's always sat at the end of the bench. I get it. I get it. But you know what they can do? They can move the throne chair down a little bit, and he can sit closer. You have to adjust. How you always do things doesn't work.

It doesn't work at the beginning of your life. It doesn't work at the end of your life. You have to adjust how you do things. Or you're just going to be alone. That's the way it is in every aspect. In business, in your private life, like you have to adjust things. And sometimes you just have to manufacture positive energy for the people around you. And it's going to end up benefiting you as well.

You just can't be ruled by your emotions. And that's really what happened here. Pete Carrillo, the former longtime Princeton coach, said, be a light bulb, light up every room that you're in. You're completely, completely accurate with your comments. That's Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by.

The Herd Lie News. The greatest coach in the history of college basketball should be remembered this weekend. Will he? We discuss next in The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial people,

calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations

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And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free, Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now.

Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive?

the largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness.

professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going from the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ledecki.

The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light. up and smile. That means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Welcome in to the heard i'm doug gotley filling in for colin cowherd joy taylor alongside hope you're having a great

monday as the final four is set and of course following the final four you got masters and tiger played well this weekend we'll get to that upcoming got a jam-pack show for you stephen jackson join us next hour so too will t j hushmanzada let's welcome in evan daniels joins us he's college basketball insider for fox sports he's director of basketball recruiting for 24-7 and of course host the sidelines with evan daniels that's a an award-winning podcast. I gave it an award because I'm going to be on it a little bit later on today. I watched Texas Tech.

And one of the crazy things about the Elite 8 is everybody forgets the Sweet 16, right? I don't. You don't because we watch the games. Texas Tech so thoroughly embarrassed and demolished Michigan, who's a tremendous team with an incredible coach? They had 16 points of the half. And it was like, can we just run the clock? They wanted no part of Texas Tech's defense.

and their expressions, the mannerisms, the style by which they, many of the things they do are like Bob Knight because Bob Knight coached at Texas Tech and he had an assistant coach who just so happens now to be the head coach at Texas Tech who's, you know, who five years ago was coaching Division 2 basketball, then took over Arkansas Little Rock 1 30 games. So I guess my question is here, this. Chris Beard's coaching in the final four. Incredible turnaround story at Texas Tech. But does it give you're 33 years old?

Yeah, 33. When I say Bob Knight, what comes to your mind? Indiana success and outbursts. The video of the chair thrown across the floor, the audio from the locker room against Purdue, but obviously the success at Indiana and the three titles. I also think, though, that, and again, you're in this kind of generation, because his last, I don't know, five years or so, six years were on TV,

where he was grumpy, not really engaged in it. He had an incredible personality. He won three national titles. He won the Big Ten like eight times, and that was back. They had no tournament, right? Went to five Final Fours. He was the winningest basketball coach of all time when he retired. All time.

And yet we don't discuss him now. Shishvsky is a protege of his. Chris Beard is the embodiment coaching style-wise. of what he does, I kind of think that's one of the things we should recognize with this Final Four. Is that crazy? No, I don't think that's crazy at all. I was actually texting with a buddy during the games yesterday, and he kept saying

how much this team reminded him of old Bob Knight teams from a fundamental standpoint, and this team is ridiculously fundamentally sound, just with everything they do. And I was talking to an ACC head coach yesterday, and he was raving him just about how hard they play and compete on every possession.

But it's just the little things, like the jump stops, the face cuts, the close outs and they just play so hard and compete. And I thought Mark Fuse said at best. He called him Hansy. They were all over the place. Yeah. They play the right way and super aggressive. All right. Zion loses. Kenny Goins hits a shot over him. RJ Barrett misses a free throw. Correct if I'm wrong. RJ Barrett was seen coming into the year as the most clutch non-college player we had seen in a long time, correct? Yeah, I won a gold medal, U-19 against a Calipari coached team for Canada basketball.

He was the guy heading into college. He was the guy that was supposed to be the number one pick. And he's still going to be a top three pick. But yeah, he was the ultimate alpha coming in, for sure. Did Zion help or hurt himself by playing in college basketball? He helped himself a great deal. He helped himself from a developmental standpoint. He got in shape.

He developed his body. But his game developed too. I think across the board from a basketball standpoint, he got better. and his work ethic improved. And I think from a brand standpoint, he helped himself. He helped himself from, you know, he had followers on Instagram and Twitter prior. But that was just for dunks. I think now it's a he is must-see television.

It was I have to watch his eye on because I want to see what he does next. All right. So the one-and-duns, we've only really had two teams of one-and-dunz win national championship. Duke had one, Kentucky had one since the one-done era. Does this change how coaches recruit? I don't know if it changed. changes. I mean, they're going to be forced to change soon enough because I think by 2021 or 2022, that rule is going to change. But if you look at the recruiting rankings over the last

10 years, four of the last five, Duke has had the best recruiting class. And then five of the previous six, Kentucky had the best recruiting class. And I think the thing about winning a national championship is I don't think you win a national championship with just one and done players. And I think that's basically been proven because even the teams that were freshman laden, the Kentucky title and the Duke title, while they had Kentucky had Anthony Davis, they had Mark

Cis Teague, they had Michael Kidd Gilchrist, but they also had Darius Miller, who's still an NBA player. And the Duke team had Quinn Cook. So those teams had senior leadership and experience to go with those really gifted freshmen. It's just hard to get those guys to stay around, right? It's hard to get guys

that want to come off the bench or want to be ancillary pieces to the star young freshman and get and then get them to kind of mesh together. The only one seed remaining is Virginia. Are we bearing the lead because they had a miracle win against Purdue that they should be the favorite to win the whole thing? Well, I think they are the favorite. I think sometimes we're forgetting, like this was a team.

You could make a case was the number one overall seed coming in to the NCAA tournaments. All the metrics had them, number one. They're probably the second best defensive team in the country. You can make a case. Them are Texas Tech. They're both there. But I think they're a team that just has so many. quality piece. I think Tony Bennett has done a good job of identifying roles for each of those

kids on the team. And like, Mamidi Diakite, I don't think he gets enough credit. One of the more underrated players around the country, and he really helps him just from a rim protection standpoint. He's quick off his feet. He's athletic. But yeah, I mean, that game was tremendous, and it's like any of these other games. Virginia, if something doesn't go exactly right at the end of that game, they're not there. If Kenny Goins doesn't step out and make a three, Michigan State's not there. That wasn't even the play. Yeah.

That wasn't even the play. Check out his podcast. The sidelines with Evan Daniels. Evan, great stuff. Thanks so much to join us. We'll see you up at the Final Four. I don't hate a lot of people in the world, but there's one guy I hate more than anyone,

and today's the day I hate him. Find out who it is next. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial, calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we

don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're a friend?

free. Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey.

I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness. professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin, and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that.

Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel like you don't feel like. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ledecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face like, up and smile. That means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do

anything. I can, like, I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. What up? Welcome in. This is The Heard, wherever you may be. And however, you may be making this part of your day. Thanks so much alongside the super talented Joy Taylor. I'm Doug Gottlieb. Filling in for Colin Cowherd. You're listening to us on the IHeart Radio app, Fox Sports Radio or Fox Sports One. Thanks so much for making us part of your day. Man, we have a great show for you. LeBron James shut down for the year. How'd you like to be a Laker season ticket holder? Stephen Jackson is going to join us up coming in 15 minutes Also, in the things you won't believe

The Cleveland Browns are the favorites To win the AFC North Right Cleveland Browns Was this? No, it's April Fool's Day but not April. I actually find April Fool's Day to be quite annoying I do, I don't, I don't, I like Halloween but I like funny costumes on Halloween. I'm not one of these guys that's like,

oh, scare the pee out of me on Halloween. I just not. Like, I understand there's lots of emotions in life and you have to feel them. Fear is one that naturally you will develop and have to overcome. I don't need additional fear. So the people who pull the, like the funny,

I don't know if you guys saw the Cam Newton, April Fool's prank, where he offered up that he wanted his entire team to remain celibate so they could focus on the season and then said it was April Fool. like, that's funny. That's nothing I'm scared of.

But finding somebody's inner either insecurities or deepest fears in exploiting them just to go like, got you, April Fool's doesn't seem like a cool deal to me. I don't know. I don't know.

Are you a big April Fool's person? I used to be when I was younger, but now it's like, they could go either way. Not everyone appreciates a practical joke. Yeah, there's, you know, look, there's a line there. There's things that are funny and there's things like, oh, okay.

And usually to get to really do a good April Fool's joke, you kind of got to do that line. Yeah. So it's just, it's not worth it. And I don't really like, I don't really like practical jokes being played on me. So I like to be fair to everyone. Do you know anyone who does? I really like to be made to look like an ass. No, but like some people like a joke and they're like, oh, you got me.

Like I'm going to get you back worse. Yeah, I like these people that are like, well, I, I got a fake woe's tweet on April Fool's Day. Like, all right, all the dudes doing is grinding trying to find stories. is literally all he does. And then you throw a fake Adam Schaefter out there. And you're like, I'm sorry. Fake Grews tweet isn't actually a bad one. Well, about fake Schaefter, fake Scheptie.

But then, you know, you can't get mad and people don't take you serious anymore after that. That's very, very true. She's Joy Taylor. I'm Doug Gottlie. I found this when I was driving in to work today. Collinsett is on the Fox Lot. Is it still called the Fox Lot? I think it's still called the Fox Lot.

And it's in the heart of the West Side. of Los Angeles. And yes, this weekend was just perfect. Like, I hate to brag, but I'm going to for a second. It was amazing. It was amazing. Like 75 to 85, depending on where you were in Southern California, wispy clouds, light breeze, like you couldn't. And we complain about all the rain we've had in Southern California. It's not the snow and the cold or whatever. I was watching Sunday night baseball last night in Philadelphia.

I don't know if anybody watched that. That looked cold. That looked miserable. You know, one of the players for the Phillies actually had a full face mask on. You got to hit, he had a full, like robber face masks on. Like that does not, that's not the experience that I had this weekend. It's a different world. But because of traffic, like there's always traffic. Like, man, how much better would Southern California be if there was just a couple less 100,000 people? I've thought this in New York.

If you're in New York and after a snowstorm, people stay inside. It's quiet. and you realize like, wow, the buildings are cool, the streets, some of them are cobblestone, really a unique city with the architecture, the new, the old. How much better would New York be? Look, I don't want, I don't want anybody to die. I just want to spread us out a little bit more so that we can enjoy some of these places that we live a little bit better. But there are people I'd like to not die, but go away.

Go away in sports. And by go away, I mean, like, look, there are just certain people and this is a day not just April Fool's Day this is a day which to me the number one guy or girl or person needs to go away all right let's start with other people

there's the we sports fan for example and this especially in professional sports college sports I'll give you a little bit of a pass because you might have grown up in a college town you might have gone to that school I don't still don't love it but the we sports fan We got a bunch of cap space. We are going to draft Kyler Murray.

We got a tank so we can get Zion Williamson. Man, we got to trade some guys so we can get Anthony Davis. We? Who is a we? Are you practicing every day? Are you breaking down tape? You are paying money to see somebody else perform and paying money to wear their jersey. We guy is usually Jersey guy and we're kind of done with you.

Like, you're a guy who everyone else, no one will say it when you're in the room. But when you walk out of the room, you're like, did he really just say we need to resign Dak Prescott? We? All right, here's a guy, golf round guy. You're familiar with a golf round guy. Well, you know, I played TPC Sawgrass at one time with my buddies

and we're on the golf tour. And you know, the 17th, the Island Green. You know, I was thinking seven iron, but I decided the wind was at my back. I would hit an eight iron. And you know how that thing lies. And I just like, like, I, I don't care.

I don't. Golf is something that I like to experience on my own. I definitely can't experience it through your eyes. I play golf, but not a golfer. And you know what I really don't want to hear about? I don't really want to hear about your trip to Ireland in which you played in the muck and the rain and then went and drank a bunch of pints. Doesn't sound like an enjoyable trip. And because I wasn't there, I can't get it.

Golf round guy. Man, I shot a 79 really today. Really, really had the driver going. You can go away. Little League Dad. Now, I'll admit it, I can be this guy occasionally, right? You don't know love until you got your own kid, and you don't know joy in sports until you see your own kid perform on a sports field. That said, keep it to yourself, right? Here's my videos of Slugger getting a single. Here's my videos of my boy pitching. Look,

he's the next Clayton Kershaw. Like, dude, he lobbed that thing up. The other kids swung and then ran to third base instead of first base. I get it. You love your child. We all love our kids. I get it. He's playing sports and he doesn't have, you didn't take a video of him playing Fortnite. Congratulations on winning the Fortnite battle for one day.

But Little League Dad, we don't care. Go away. Fantasy football guy. I play a little fantasy football, but I will tell you that every season runs into the next, whether you do a keeper league or you have, I don't even know when you redraft every year, whatever league you do,

you get multiple leagues. And if you happen to be lucky enough to have a backup running back who happens to get the ball around the goal line twice in a game because of some odd circumstances, it doesn't make you some sports savant above everybody else. Congratulations, you paid attention on Thursday to the waiver wire so you knew who was available

and you watch all the different TV shows and you happen to pick the right guy who happened to catch the touchdown pass. That was really meaningless because your team was down four touchdowns and all of us turned the game off. Only you kept the game on because you like fantasy sports. Fantasy sports, vacations, those are, you can tell us about it, but we don't care about it. But the number one guy or girl or grandma or grandpa or even kid that, frankly, in sports, you need to give it a rest.

you're not smarter than the rest of us, is multiple bracket guy. There's nothing worse than multiple bracket guy. I filled out 15 brackets and bracket 2B has Michigan State and Texas Tech and Auburn and Virginia. And so I'm in the money. I'm the smart one. Volume brackets doesn't make you smarter. Heck, look, I play college basketball for four years. I cover college basketball for 16 years.

I grew up going to Final Fours. My dad's a former coach, my brother's an assistant coach in college. I can quote you more chapter and verse on teams and styles. And you know what? I got one Final Four team. So look, luck does play a factor.

And maybe you nailed it. Maybe you paid attention to matchups and you had some algorithm and you finally figured out. But multiple bracket guy does not own a piece of that argument. Right? like this is this is not the SAT that you get to take as many times you can so your score can slowly improve and you can take test prep this is you get a piece of paper you fill out a bunch of names and maybe you're so like like somehow you're a genius now because one of your 15 brackets

Virginia happened to come from three points down with five and a half seconds to go and send it to overtime like get over it congratulations if you won your pool congratulations if you picked one two three or all four final four teams but if you did it with multiple brackets we have no respect for you zero in fact that was my opinion is so strong my beliefs are so steadfast

that I'm going to need to reconfigure it two three four five fifteen times over life is not a choose your own adventure book choose your own adventure book do you ever have those as a kid you know and people choose your own adventure you'd read a chapter at the end you would make a decision as what you could do and you'd do your change to page 40 page 50 or page 60 you don't get

to read page 40 50 and 60 and then make a decision no no no no no choose your own adventure if you believe duke was going to win national title and they lost they came up one bucket short like all right doesn't make you the worst person on earth but multiple bracket guy forget about little league dad and golf round guy and we sports fan fantasy football guy oh is there ever anything worse today than the guy doing the victory lap. Kind of like the camel on that commercial. What day is it? What day is it?

The hump day commercial, which I love. But there are men, mostly, it's like mostly a guy thing. Women win it, but women don't gloat and rub your nose in it nearly as, but they have class about it. Guys do not. Hey, however many brackets it takes, buddy. Survive in advance. Read them and weep.

I don't think I've ever spoken to. someone who's bragged about having multiple brackets. Greg Toohey, would you like to hop in on this? Because we were in a meeting today, and I saw Michigan State circled as a champion. And I said, whose bracket is that? And Greg Tooie, you said that's my bracket. Doug, what is wrong with wanting to give yourself the best chance to win? Well, because that's nonsense.

You fill out one bracket, and those are the ones you predicted. You can't just continue to fill out brackets, and one of them is right and then brag about it. it doesn't even make any sense. It defeats the purpose of filling out a bracket. What if you have multiple friends that offer you to join their pool and you... So you put the same thing. You put the same one. I mean, you can switch out the earlier rounds

if you want to, you know, have some fun. But like your final four should be your final four. I don't think you can switch out. I think you go with the bracket. That goes to your bracket. You know, if you want an alternative ending, but you can't sit there and claim like some sort of bracket superiority when you got 15 kicks.

Yeah, when you did four different brackets. You just go, hey, I was lucky. Hey, I was super, super. I'm with you on this. I'm not with you on the we guy. I think that's a fan thing. Like you can't. It's kind of obnoxious when media members do it, although I am guilty of that, so whatever, I'm obnoxious. But we guy doesn't bother me so much. Because you know, you got to have some loyalty if you're a fan, you know, some level loyalty. That's my team. But we, we, we, no, my team. Literally. They don't think they're there, they're participating in the meetings and stuff. And fans do play a part in the environment in places.

It's why home field or home court advantage. You with me on golf round guy? I don't play golf, so I'm sure. So if somebody comes up to you and says, yeah, I was out at Sherwood yesterday, and I was on, immediately, you're like, I wish I had a hearing aid that I could turn off. Yeah, I mean, that does nothing for me. Little League Dad. Little League Dad, you know, I don't know.

I kind of understand it. I don't mind people who are proud of their kids playing sports. It's when they get too involved. They start screaming at the reps. They start screaming at other kids or start fighting with other parents in the stands. That's obviously ridiculous. But, you know, being proud of your kid playing sports is fine. Fantasy guy.

I'm fantasy. fantasy guy. Do you brag about your fantasy team? Yeah, I'm fantasy guy. So you are, you're two of these. I'm obnoxious when I lose and I'm obnoxious when I win. Fantasy, you're a fantasy guy. These are things that I've learned about.

And I tell people all the time, like feel free to talk to me about your fantasy team. We can discuss. Because that's the thing about playing fantasy sports, right? No one cares because nobody has your team. Right. Nobody cares. It's like your vacation. It's like your kids.

Like, you don't really. You really shouldn't talk more about your vacation other than we had a good time. Is there anything more than that? Or I got to, if you ever go, let me know, I got a great place for you to stay. I got a great place for you. Right. Recommendations. Like, that's fine.

Recommendations. I do not want to see a slide show. And you're like, no, no, no, I just send you a couple photos. Like, do, no, no, no, no. Don't care. It's going right to delete. Right to delete. I will think less of you.

And I will go who dis on my text back to you. LeBron shutting it down for the year. Right move or wrong move? Stephen Jackson has the answer up coming next. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the iHeart Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game.

This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never. make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests.

I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses.

Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing,

growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free, Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back.

Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from Indembourg, entirely different worlds. Just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know.

Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the Aihar Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them

and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it.

An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning.

It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts for wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Thursday, the countdown to the Cup continues on FS1 as Alex Morgan and Megan Rapino lead the U.S. Women's National Team against fellow World Cup contender, Australia. Catch all the action Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern on FS1 and the Fox Sports app. You might not be able to get a new car with your tax refund, but you can make your car feel like it's brand new.

All it needs a great paint job. Come into Mako today and get your dream paint job during their tax season. sales event. I'm Doug Gottliebillion for Colin. This is the hurt on Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports One, along with Joy Taylor. Let's welcome in Stephen Jackson, NBA champion. Of course, played 14 seasons in the NBA. Let me start with college basketball before we work our way back to LeBron because we did just see Zion Williamson. And you and I have discussed, this you've discussed it on air on how you would have gotten play at Arizona and win a national championship. What's your takeaway from the Zion Williamson experience, watching?

you can play it too. Well, first I want to send a shout out to Nipsey Hustle family. We lost a we lost a pioneer in our culture yesterday, so I want to send love to him and his family. John Williams is special. He's very special. Something we never seen before. I think to be 280, 40 plus inch vertical, been able to dominate in college every game, even though they didn't win. He was dominant his whole time. I think this kid is special. I think the sky has the limit for him. And he's going to take over the NBA similar to what LeBron did. What is he in the NBA? What is he?

I think he's a power forward and three is sometimes. He can play center in this league now too. Small ball five, right? Small ball five, definitely. But I think what he needs to add is a mid-range game. And one thing about when he gets to the NBA, everybody's athletic, everybody's tall. Everybody can block his shot. Everybody can jump with you.

He'll have to get a mid-range game and add some more offensive moves to his game. He can't just, won't be able to overpower everybody like he did in college. Yeah, I believe the stat I saw was. was zero pull-up jump shots the entire season. Right. Like he was either catching, shooting, or he was going. Right. But he does have, I'll tell you what, he does have a good post game for a young guy.

And, you know, one of the things that so many of the small ball fives don't have is they become, you know, face-up shooters, they can guard post players, but he can actually score. If one-on-one in the post, he's really agile for a man of his strength. Just the athleticism. Yeah. And like I said, but it's not just vertical. Like he moves laterally really well. Yeah.

And like you said, I think the thing. the move against UCF when he spunt and got the N1 on the seven foot. You seen how he was able to stop and go into a second move. He has a lot of stuff that you can't teach. Why do you think the one and duns, the two schools that have produced the most one and Duns, Duke and Kentucky, have not had more success in the NCAA tournament? Good question. I think a lot of these kids are still young that first year, so the college is different to them.

That's just like being in the NBA your rookie year is going to be different to you. But I love the fact when it was when kids can go out of high school. I mean, you can get a job and work at McDonald's at 16, 17. Why you can't go play a game, you can go to war and kill yourself at 18, but you can't provide and play basketball a game. So I think guys, they should kill that rule. I mean, if you were physically able to play the game of basketball at 18 and go to the NBA like LeBron did like Kobe did, I mean, like a lot of guys did,

I think you should be able to. I don't think it should be forced to go to college. Well, there's two different parts to that. First, I mean, actually could go out. You could go to the G League. You've always been able to go to the G League or go play overseas. And obviously, it's a collectively bargain upon rule. It's an NBA rule, as you know, not a college basketball rule.

Just like working at McDonald's, though, same paycheck. I understand, but I'm saying people hold the NCAA accountable for something that the NBA and the NBA PA agreed upon. No question. Right. They're like, well, it's an NCAA. Like, no, it's not actually an NBA rule. And the problem is not the NBA rule.

Right. The problem is not the LeBrons and the Kobe's. The problem is all the other dudes that think they're LeBrons and Kobe's and are really not. Well, you can't say that because I was the second to the last pick. I didn't go to college. I was the second to the last pick and nobody expected me to make it 14 years. So you have some guys that people expect not to make it and make it. But at the same time, it has a lot to do with the people around them.

You know, I was blessed. I came into the league with Stefan Marbury, Johnny Newman. Sherman Douglas, my second year was Steve Kerr, Tim Duncan, Danny Ferry, Steve Smith. So I played with great coaches and around great guys. But when you have a lot of these guys, let's say a kid like Devin Booker, he's more mature. I'm not using as example. If he came into a league as a young kid on a team like Phoenix that wasn't winning, it would be hard for him because he has no veteran on the team. They're not winning.

So everything is being nitpicked. It's going to be harder for him to succeed. But when you put a kid like that in a good environment, on a good organization that's used to winning, that knows how to mentor him, it's a different situation. Stephen Jackson joining us here in the herd. All right, let's get to some NBA stuff. The Lakers have decided to shut LeBron down.

First thing to me is, that's a tough sale to your season ticket over. Not only you're not going to see LeBron in the playoffs, but you're not going to see LeBron the rest of the way. Is this a smart decision to shut him down? Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you? Okay, so you let him play. pulls the Achilles or anything in the last four or five games,

what are you going to tell your fans going to the next season? The season is really shot. You really don't have no hope. Rest him, start building for next year. It don't make no season, no reason for him to go out there and get hurt. You're not playing for anything. Who's to blame in the pecking order of who's most to blame for this, what can only be deemed as a disastrous season?

Who do you put up top? Who do you put beneath them? How does it go? Are they all in the same boat? You can't point the finger at magic You can't point the finger at LeBron You can't point the finger at Luke You know everybody's

Everybody's a part of the blame You know the young guys didn't develop like they thought LeBron he walked into a rude awakening He didn't know the West Conference Was this deep and this good Luke Walton I've been said it but he's not the coach for these guys So a lot of stuff you can't just blame one person

A lot of stuff went wrong And you know that's why the season It ended up the way it did See, I start with the premise of Magic screwed up at the initial meeting because he didn't bring Luke. Like, look, if you're not going to bring Luke to the meeting, then you should have fired Luke then. Right. If you're not going to bring him to the meeting, he's not going to be part of the sale for your team. You've essentially told LeBron like, the coach doesn't matter.

Right. And LeBron's a smart dude. Like he senses like, wait, Luke's not here. He really doesn't matter. And anyone reads the situation. And then, you know, the personnel they picked. Right. Right?

Like, I'm with Joy. Joy, Joy, Joy's right. Injuries played a major factor. They were playing well. They were top seven in every defensive metric. They were a playoff team. And they were getting more and more cohesive learning to play with LeBron James. We can't undersell the injuries.

But even with, without the injuries, like, look, they let Brooke Lopez go. And they thought, you know, Javelle McGee and Tyson Chandler, who's just washed. Like, you know, like then midseason even, they trade away Zubach. who was their best big guy, he's only 21 years old and rookie control contract. Like, the personnel has been a major, major factor. Yeah, and this is the

first year we've seen LeBron go 28 and 27. You know, his record, his record on a court. And, you know, like you said, injuries had a lot to do with it. You can't expect your season of goal the way you wanted to when guy, you don't know what guy's going to be in the lineup. You know, and I think not having

Lanzo ball had a lot to do with it too. Sure. You know, but like I said, people keep that same energy. It happens. People have been waiting all this time to bash LeBron to have something bad to sail about him. This man had been in the finals his whole career. But, you know, he just came into a rude awakening.

The Western Conference is a different monster, LeBron. You got to know that. Lost in all of this, because we're so focused on LeBron, there's a lot of talk of the MVP, is the thunder have gone from a team that, you know, I thought had a chance to maybe not beat the Warriors, but maybe the best chance to stretch out the Warriors. Right?

You got a superstar player in a Russell Westbrook. You got a superstar player in a Paul George who was playing at an MVP level. You got a big physical team. They can place. They have a small ball lineup as well. And they got Dennis Schrooter, who was a starting point guard last year, kind of off the bench to come in and change and change what they look like in the fourth quarter. What's happened?

To me, I was at their last game against Golden State. At last home game, to me, they, first of all, they don't have any shooters. The team is not that good to me. When they were rolling and winning those games, you got two players that was just dominant. Like you said, Paul's having an MVP year. During that time before All-Star Break and right after All-Strake, when they was winning all those games,

him and Russ were dominant. When those two guys aren't dominant, the rest of the guys, they have no shooting. They have a guard on their team that they're paying $80 million that gets hack-a-shacked. Are you kidding me? So we got shooting forwards getting hack-a-shacked in the NBA now? This is what has come to.

So they have no shooting. Ferguson can't really shoot. He's an athlete, but he can't really shoot. Their third best player is Stephen Adams. And he don't really want the ball. He want to do the dirty work. So the team is talented. They have two talented players than Russ and Paul,

but when they're not going, it's impossible. The team is not good. Stephen Jackson, NBA champion, 14 seasons in the NBA and always giving us that stage wisdom. Jack's great stuff. Thanks for having me, man. Let's get a joy, Taylor, with the news. No, no, no, no.

Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Oh, Steve Nash is sticking up for his godson after his game against Michigan State. RJ Barrett went seven for 17th from the floor, but he did have seven turnovers and that big miss from the freezer line with less than 10 seconds left. So Nash took the Twitter to rave about Barrett and said RJ Barrett, yes, is my godson, is a next level playmaker at his age, 18, and size, makes every read pass. This is one skill that is easier in many respects due to the rules at the NBA level, but so damn valuable. blown away at the reeds and deliveries he made repetitively.

So he's backing RJ Barrett up. I don't think that RJ Barrett necessarily had a bad game. Obviously, the seven turnovers is rough, but he was Duke's second highest scorer in the game with 21 points. He's incredibly valuable. And I think that RJ Barrett translates to the NBA pretty seamlessly. He obviously has some more development that he needs to do

and he's very young. But I don't want to judge RJ Barrett's entire time at Duke an entire basketball career thus far based off of what happened in this game against Michigan State. Oh, I think that's fair, but like, look, when they lost to Gonzaga in November, 9 of 25, when they lost to Syracuse and Zion didn't, I think Reddish didn't play, 8 of 30, 4 of 17 from 3. You know, and then, you know, when they lost North Carolina, 10 of 27.

Look, I like RJ Barrett. I do. I think he's a talent. But I do think I think this Nash is The whole I every read was like Stop it with the every read Every read is not going to shoot the ball

He did give it a qualifier and that it's his God's sorry And here's the problem with R.J. Barrett is He's only really played this way Which is he's only been the guy with the ball in his hands To make every read and every decision Which is great if you're James Harden good And you can make all those shots and make all those reads but if you can't, guys will turn on you, right?

Because they're like, look, dude, he's going to shoot 30 times and make eight times. Like, no, no, no, no. It doesn't work for me. So I don't know whether or not he's a good enough shot maker to shoot the volume of shots or good enough pass. Do I agree with Steve Nash, the idea that, hey, the court's going to open up in the NDA and there's not good spacing. And they didn't have good enough shooting. Like, sure. But they were running ISOs and giving him space.

And his decision on Reeds, more often than not, was to shoot the ball or turn it over. some of that is spacing, but some of that is on him. I mean, he's going to go down from a scoring standpoint as one of the best in Duke history. I mean, he averaged 22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds of 4.3-6 per game this year. I hear everything that you're saying. They shouldn't have enough shooting to allow him to be him as what Steve Nash is saying. Right. And I just think that, I mean, he's going to be a top three pick. Third pick. Yeah. In the draft regardless. And he should be.

He has a wealth of experience thus far. And he had a great season. So I don't, I feel like everyone's kind of coming down on him because of this game. And I just, just pump the brakes a little bit. Don't ever react to the moment. We're going to talk about this at the top of the hour. But it is interesting to me, what we saw this weekend, the reaction, RJ Barrett, the reaction to Zion Williamson, and what you'll see in the future only sells why college basketball is the right fit for all of these guys.

I'll get to that topic. Okay. So LeBron will sell the rest of the season, but apparently he wasn't his choice. He had been getting regular rest in the Lakers after they were officially eliminated, but now he will miss. the remaining five games of the year. Madge Johnson said in a statement, after consulting with our team doctors and medical staff,

we have decided to hold LeBron out of games for the remainder of the season. This decision will allow his going to fully heal and is the best for the future success of both LeBron and the Lakers. You really think that he would not play if he wanted to play? I think he does want to play,

but I also think his injury was more severe. than he let on, which is kind of frustrating because at this point in your career, if you're LeBron, do you really have anything to prove as far as fighting through an injury in what was widely considered as kind of a experimental year with the Lakers? I mean, I think we all kind of undersold the expectations that they were actually going to have. But, you know, the trainer putting out that he should have been out for six months and he really was only out for six weeks and, you know, you believe what you want when it comes to that. But I do think his injury was more severe. And I it was obviously his most severe injury of his career thus far.

Why force him back? For what? To try to make the playoffs? Listen, the issue is not forcing him back. The issue is this is why, and I know Colin offered up, well, why don't you trade him? He's that valuable a commodity. You can't sit him in games because he's that valuable commodity.

Like, it's this still a business, and he is the lead in this play. And you can't, I understand now they're like, know it's not worth it to them for the future. But at some point, the customer is going to sit there and go like, hey dude. I don't know what an extra five games does. A couple on TNT. As far as his body goes. And there's three home games.

Nothing. Right. He was mailing it in still averaging 27, 7 and 7. Right. So to me, it's not so much about these last five games as it was as a complete mismanagement of the injury to begin with. If you really need to sit out the last five games of the season, he should have never come back. He wasn't ready.

Correct. Or what you shouldn't have done is leaked the story to Chris Broussard that if it was the playoffs he could be playing. Right? That's what they said. Like if you're injured or you're hurt, if you're hurt, get out there. You know, and ice up after train. If you're injured, don't come on the cord. But don't give me this like, well, it was really more severe than he's

letting on. Because people are talking on both sides of the north. They're like, well, he's still averaging a bunch of points. I would agree if anybody's say doesn't look the same and that an injury lasts longer because you're older, like that's totally reasonable. And groin injuries, any of that soft tissue stuff, that's tricky stuff. Totally understand that. But manage it properly. And like you said, it's okay to come back and not be exactly 100%,

but you're able to play. But then why set out the last five games of the season? Like, what is those extra five game going to do? It just means that you mismanage the injury from the beginning. I think that there's one last thing that is really interesting to me is we all assume that they're going to put shooters around them next year, and maybe Anthony Davis with them next year, and it'll work. But you're making the assumption that what worked with LeBron at 30, 31, 32, 33,

it's different when you're 34-35. Just is. I still think he does need shooters, but you're right. His game is adjusting. Finally, many assume the Giants would move off of Eli Manning this off-season, but it seems like the end is not near. The Giants seem intent on not starting a rookie,

which means they need a veteran to start again in 2020. They don't draft a quarterback for the future in this year's draft. And according to S&Y, they're not kidding about bringing Eli Manning back in 2020. Yes, really, the key people in the organization don't think he's done, and they feel they saw a ton of positive signs in the second half of last year. They really do want him around to rub off on the next Giants franchise quarterback if they can make it work. I don't really know what the Giants are doing in this situation.

I really felt for Eli with the McAdoo situation when they benched him at the end of the season and mess up that streak. I don't feel like it was all Eli's fault what was going on there, nor did I think that benching him was going to save the season because the season was clearly over. They weren't going to bench him. Not last year. I know. They were going to bench him. They were never going to bench him.

They were going to bring in other quarterbacks in the second half to see what they had. And he said, like, let's not get it twisted. Eli Manning had a power play. They said, hey, we're going to bring in these other quarterback from Gino. And they had the other kid from Texas, Davis Webb, Texas Tech and Cal. And he's like, no, no, no. If you're going to bring somebody in to finish the game, I just won't start. Fine. And they did that for one game.

And everybody. What? What did you need to see from Gino's? myths. And like, that's the part, that's the point where you want to bring in Davis. I was on Eli's side in that situation. I'm saying, but that's past. Like, we're past that now. We know what Eli is at this point. Like, it's, it's time. Apparently, we do, but they don't. It's from saying, I don't know what they're doing. It's because they're all scared of Eli. Either, either they're all, this is all just, just, they're all dangling a carrot over here for us to pay attention to and they really do have a plan. Or they just really do not understand

what's going on with Eli Manning. And I, I feel like it's, it's kind of a disrespect to Eli Manning's career because I feel like Eli doesn't get the credit he deserves. He did win two Super Bowls and beat Tom Brady and his prime and both of them. Yes. But it's like we've reached that point. Yeah. Look, I think they're probably handling it right just because they don't want anybody to know that they're either going to, you know, either going to draft one or they're going to trade for Josh Rosen.

That feels like the only two possible options. And everyone's scared of saying something bad about Eli because the second you do, that's not having to been back to do. That's what happened to, you know, you lose your GM, your coach, your quarterback coach, your offense, according. They're all gone because they all said like, hey, maybe Eli's the O'Dell Becken Jr. Right? He said, you know, maybe Eli's a little bit of the problem.

Now he's in Cleveland. I wouldn't say anything bad about him either. That's Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurd-Lie news. Ah, guess what time it is, kids? It's NFL over under time.

Guess who's the favorite to win the most games in the NFL, even though? they've had the most departures in the NFL. We'll get to that next in the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise.

Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete, the athletes, the... themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok.

podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations

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I saw this that came out earlier today, which is NFL win totals for 2019. Now look, this is sports radio fodder 101, is it not? We don't even have the NFL draft yet, but free agency is generally settled. We don't know where Kyle Murray will go. We don't know where Nick Bosa will go. We don't know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But it's still fun nonetheless. And there's several curious ones, right? Like the Cleveland Browns have the highest win total of anybody in the NFC North at nine games. That's above that of the Dallas Cowboys. Pittsburgh Steelers also have nine games.

So technically Cleveland and Pittsburgh had nine. But in terms of talent, Cleveland would seemingly have more as Pittsburgh tries to reestablish their culture. But look up top there. That's the New England Patriots. And, look, Vegas is generally smarter than the rest of us. They use analytics and data, and they've been doing this for basically 100 years, trying to figure out how do we nail about right every team's total? You know, for the last 30 years, really, there's been so much data they've been able to accumulate

that more often than not, Vegas knows. They can't account for a massive injury, especially a debilitating one at quarterback. Or maybe the dysfunction within locker rooms or the turnaround in certain locker rooms like the Cleveland Browns had last year when you made a coaching change, an offensive coordinator change in automatically,

and then a soft spot in the schedule, and the thing just turned around. But it feels like the analytics go out the window when it comes to the New England Patriots, doesn't it? Granted, so far the day. dolphins have been at least underwhelming in terms of what we think the product will look like on the field.

But the jets should be better with Levyon Bell. They couldn't be worse in terms of offensive weaponry. The Buffalo Bills, one would think, would be better now that Josh Allen's in his second year and they continue to try and rebuild around him. More than anything, what are the Patriots going to look like?

So if we take out the Super Bowl, a Super Bowl which Tom Brady scored through for one touchdown pass, one. We have to remember they lost their left tackle. They lost one of their elite defensive players and defensive end, Trey Flowers. Oh, yeah, and they lost their Hall of Fame tight end. Oh, did I mention they lost their defensive coordinator and their replacement at

defensive coordinator? Now, this is a little bit like Nick Saban who says, look, I don't just poop out running backs or poop out players. They don't just poop out defensive coordinators in New England. But we also got to remember that Tom Brady, faded at the end of last regular season. He's not alone. Philip Rivers did.

Drew Breeze did. And Tom Brady did. Those older quarterbacks look like older quarterbacks once you get into December. They don't throw the football nearly as well. And the Patriots prepared for this with Sony and Michelle as their star

running back. I get it. But the idea that Vegas, with all their analytics, all the numbers, they know, well, you know, everybody's somewhere between, you know, six and 10 wins, except the Patriots who should have first-place schedule, a more difficult division,

a year-older Tom Brady, a new left tackle, replacement for Trey Flowers, and, oh, yeah, by the way, no Rob Grunkowski. I got we really sure that that's the one that, that's the team we expect to win the most games. They didn't win the most games this year. They didn't win the second most games this year.

Did they dominate the Chargers? when they got them on their home field? Sure, absolutely they did. And if you want to make the argument, A, they haven't won fewer than 11 games since Tom Brady was coming off of an ACL injury. That's a fair point to make. But just like Joey and I discussed,

LeBron is not the same at 35. Tom Brady's not the same in his 40s. Nor should he be expected to be the same. And then you take away, albeit an older weapon, but one that was still very well respected and one that he counted on in key situations. and was a good blocker and Rob Grancowski,

you just think that that's that easy? As long as they throw Brady out there, as long as they throw Belichick out there, as long as they're in the AFC East, you can put them down for 11 wins. Now, if you get 11 and a half, go all in on the under for the Patriots. I'm not going to sit here and call time of death

and predict gloom and doom, but it does feel like that would have been a great time for Tom Brady to walk away, walk into the sunset, right, right off into the sunset, excuse me. and he didn't. And what happens when guys stayed too long? Tom Brady's staying too long reminds me of pickup basketball.

You play pickup basketball, won't you, Joy? Not really, but... Have you... I have played pickup basketball, yes. Okay, and what's the rule when pickup basketball? When guys start taking off their shoes and somebody goes, hey, let's run one more. You're like, man, wife saw me, I gotta go,

and everybody, there's like nine guys. and they're like, yeah, yeah, I'll run one more. How about you, you run one more? And you're like, all right, I'll run one more. What happens to that last game, usually terrible and somebody gets hurt. That's what happens. So no one to walk away. Right.

Brett Farr. Brett Farr was done. He was on the tractor. He threw a pick in New Orleans. He was like, done. And then Chile says, hey, get on the team playing, go down to Mississippi and don't come back unless you got Brett Fav on it. And they bring back Brett Fav on what happens?

dude had never been hurt so badly, he couldn't play football. He gets hurt, and the dome in Minneapolis, literally, not figuratively, literally collapsed. Literally. Running one more back?

Not smart. Go out on top. You hit the game winner, and it might be your last game. It is your last game. Somebody always gets hurt. Always gets hurt. I would take the under.

And by the way, the Seahawks at eight and a half, take the over there. Russell Westwood, Russell Wilson's our quarterback, they'll win. And they're trending up, even if the division's more difficult, if Jimmy G. is anything close to what we think he is. All right, coming up next, why college basketball won even when Zion lost.

This is The Hurt. Be sure to catch live editions of The HARD weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. What up? Welcome in. This is The Horde, wherever you may be, and however you may be making it as part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlie, filling in. for Colin Cowherd. What a great Monday show we have for you, live from Los Angeles, alongside Joy Taylor. On the IHeart Radio app, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports One. T.J. Hushman Zada will join us.

We'll ask Kim if he thinks it's as ridiculous as I do, that the New England Patriots, who had some key departures, still pick the most wins in the NFL. I guess nobody wants to be that guy to declare dead. before they're actually dead. Maybe they're smart, maybe I'm stupid. I don't know. Plus, whoosh is an avid Lakers fan. We'll ask him who's to blame most for the Lakers' disastrous first season with LeBron James. I want to start with this.

So Duke loses, Carolina loses, Kentucky loses. Or maybe it should be pointed out that Michigan State 1, Texas Tech 1, Auburn one and Virginia one. And look, we could get into the Virginia thing, which is really fascinating. The do you foul up three points? This is the one reason you don't foul up three points. As Purdue goes from finally making it to the final four to once again coming up short against one of the members of the Bennett family, 2000,

long time Purdue head coach Gene Katie came up short against Tony. Benny Bennett's dad, Dick Bennett in the lead date. Now it's Tony Bennett, who ends the season of Matt Painter, who of course played for Gene Katie and is now the longtime coach of Purdue. But I believe the whole experience, especially the NCAA tournament, was an absolute win for college basketball. Because all of the things that you are told by members of the media and people on social media about what players don't get, what they do receive, isn't actually the reality of it.

Think about it. How many of you had heard of Carson Edwards? And it's hard for me because this is what I've done for 16 years as a professional. It's what I did for five years as a college athlete. It's what I did when I was a kid. I would have always heard about Carson Edwards. I just would have.

But how many of you had heard about him before he put on a performance? of the ages in both the Sweet 16 and the lead eight. Had you? You know, did you know that he's from Houston, Texas, and he played AAU basketball with Deerrin Fox? Like, man. But you learn these stories.

You learn about these players because of the platform that their teams are put on to play in the NCAA tournament. And why do you watch the tournament? College basketball has been going on the whole year. It hasn't just started. It started November. because of the bracket. Because for one month out of the year,

we care because we want to win our bracket. And then we're used to Duke and Kentucky and Carolina, which if you're a fan of those schools, you root for. And if you're not, you hope that they lose, as long as they're not in your bracket. Zion Williamson actually embodies that. Could he have gone to the NBA out of high school? Yeah.

Yeah. Would he have been a lottery pick? Maybe. Last year this time, they had the McDonald's All-American game. And a friend of mine is a former college head coach turned NBA scout. And he said, we walked out of the gym after watching the McDonald's practice. And we thought, I don't know. He's kind of overweight.

All he does is dunk. Don't think he can shoot. He likes to pass and seems like a great kid and a good teammate, but he doesn't play hard all the time. Now what's the image of him? He plays hard, great teammate. Improving shooter, trimmed up his body. He is without any question going to be the number one overall pick, even if John Morant, for example, or R.J. Barrett may be better and more refined prospects,

or maybe just they're the type of players that we see starring in the NBA, handling the ball every time down the court. The way the NBA game is played, for the most part, whether it's Janus or James Harden, is Russell Westbrook, one guy dominating the basketball, making plays for himself or for others. That's John Moran. That's R.J. Barrett. That's not as much Zion. And I think Zion's going to be great because his role is going to be different,

but it's one that's valued. But his stock has skyrocketed. Joy shared a story with us earlier from Sonny Vicaro. And look, Sonny Vicaro is an advocate for paying players. He always has been. And he's been a shoe executive at three different places, been a part of the grassroots. culture and Sonny's done a ton for me and my family during my lifetime.

But I, and I agree with Sunny and he knows the business that the kid's going to get a ton of money. But he's not going to get a ton of money. He wouldn't have got a ton of money. They come straight at a high school. He just wouldn't. The reason that they go to college is Zion Williamson. And by that, I don't mean to be like Zion Williamson. It's because of what college affords you.

It gives you a stamp that's going to allow you to get. get a better first job. It's the same reason that Hollywood millionaires are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kids into SC and into Yale and to all these schools. Because they know the hardest thing to do is just to get in to be a part of that culture. And in basketball, to be a part of Duke or Kentucky or Carolina. Like, that's gold.

Because every game you play is on TV. The coaching is better. The preparation is better. And when you perform well, or even when your shoe falls off, it makes national news. They have all been able throughout the entire one and done segment of the sport. For the last 15 years, they've all been able

to go straight to the pros. You're like, well, you only make, now you can make six figures in the G-League. Now you only make $35,000. Hold on. If your name, image, and likeness is worth a bunch of money, you could have had a, you could have had a shoe deal in the G-League.

Do you know why you don't have a shoe deal in the G-League? Because nobody knows you are. because you don't have the promotion of college basketball on TV in the NCAA tournament or late in the regular season. You just don't. I'm not saying that a kid in Zion is not more valuable even than his scholarship. I think his scholarship is actually way more valuable than we're giving any credit. Like just getting into Duke, forget about the $70,000 post-tax a year his parents would have to pay.

You know, if he wanted to get, forget about all that. like he gets for the rest of his life if god forbid something happens he can go back to duke and get a degree and and crush the rest of his life like so many of the dukees do but even if he is the one exception whose name image likeness far exceeds that value the hundreds of thousands of dollars of value i would put into just getting into school the hundreds of thousands of dollars to putting him through school the training you get there forget about that he's won in 4,000, 5,000 Division 1 players?

Ask yourself this. Had you ever heard of John Moran? Have you ever heard of Carson Edwards? Have you ever heard of Jared Culliver? Have you ever seen him play before? Of course you hadn't. He plays Texas Tech. Unless you're a Big 12 guy like I am.

He hadn't seen Texas Tech play. Maybe you watch them play Duke or Lose here and you're like, eh, looks good, fine. As Zion Williamson signs the biggest shoe deal of any player ever out of college? You know he has to thank? Nike for having a shoe that fell off of his foot when he planted against North Carolina. It was the biggest game of the year. There was nothing else on. It was on national TV. It was against North Carolina. The second we stop underselling, it's North Carolina, it's Duke, it's the NCAA tournament, it's Kentucky, and that's why people watch

and the bracket, the second we start to realize that it's a great platform. And they all win. And Zion has won by playing and competing and playing well. And even the guys that didn't play that well still kind of get a pass, right? Like RJ Barrett, that wasn't his best game. He had seven turnovers. He shot a high volume, not a high volume it makes. He missed what would have been a game tying free throw.

The punishment for having what some people would consider a disappointing season for RJ or Barrett would be he went from being, without any question, the number one overall pick in the draft to the third pick in the draft. The whole thing works. including if you stay in college. We've made it so that if a guy stays, somehow there's something wrong with him.

PJ Washington stayed in college. Now, Kentucky didn't win a national title. Won't play in the Final Four, but he made himself into the best player in the SEC. He dramatically improved. People ask all the time, like, why can't you win with one and duns? Because you're going to get better, the older you get.

That's what it works, because you have more experience. the more you do something. I mean, I hope they have burned the tapes. But if you go back and you listen to the first time, forget about the first time I host a radio show, first time I ever sat in for Colin. I'm sure it was horrendous.

Whether it was this place or the other place, the more you do it, the better you get, the more comfortable you get. The more comfortable to get, the better you're going to perform. So the reason that only two one-and-done teams have won a national championship, I mean, could it be more obvious than older players, more experienced players?

Sure, more connected players as well. The system has worked. Players benefit from the system. And the greatest percentage of guys benefit in the rest of their life and even the basketball players. They haven't been hurt by it. So whatever NBA people are trying to tell you, whatever fans are trying to tell you, whatever social media is trying to tell you, the fact is Steve Kerr, who was a former college player, played in the NBA, coaches in the NBA, was a GM in the NBA and covered the NBA.

You go back seven years ago, you Google search it. He said, look, they should be staying two years. We're going to work the opposite way. We're going to have kids coming straight out of high school. it's going to work the opposite way. We have more kids playing in the NBA, which does it hurt them? No, but doesn't help the sport.

The sport is better when you have a bridge between high school and the pros. And you have men that, whether you agree with every one of their training methods at all, or all of their offense, or all of their defense, the fact is that for their entire professional careers, the only people that they've coached in their lifetime

are 18 to 22-year-olds. that makes them experts at it. So they understand how to develop people, how to develop relationships, how to develop teams, and how to develop basketball players. And we're taking that out. Look, the G League has better players than college basketball. It's not close. Go look at the rosters.

They're loaded with guys like, man, whatever happened to, that's where they are. But you don't watch the G league, do you? Have you ever seen a G league game? And if you have, you watched for five minutes, they're like, I can't take it. I can't do it. Why? Because you don't associate with the name on the front of the jersey. They're not playing for anything in particular, and they're not playing for anybody who you actually know.

Even if eventually those G-League coaches are going to be very good NBA coaches, and those G-League players are going to be very good NBA players. Why we're trying to rid ourselves of a system that clearly and obviously works and continues to perform for players in either avenue of being a professional basketball player or just being a professional life, I don't understand it. Yes, schools make money off their athletes. They make money off their students as well. And they make money off of their former students

in the form of donations the second they walk out the door. Coming up next, did John Gruden win the Killeel Mack trade? We'll ask T.J. Hooshman Zada. He joins us up coming next. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week, within the IHeart Radio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever,

you'd like. You might not be able to get a new car with your tax refund, but you can't make your car feel like it's brand new. All it needs is a great paint job coming to Mako today. It's your dream paint job during their tax season sales event. He is a former pro bowler. He played 11 season in the NFL and he's got one of the great personal stories of all time to make it to the league. He's T.J. Hushmanzotti joins us here in the herd along with Joy Taylor. I'm Doug Gottlieb. T.J. I want to start with the Patriots. The over-unders came out for the national. Football League, right? That's the, all right, do you think a team's going to win more or less than this? And the team with the highest over-under, 11 wins, is the New England Patriots. They factor in that, yes, they just won the Super Bowl, but they didn't have home field advantage throughout.

And they lost their starting left tackle, Gronk retired, and they lost Trey Flowers as well. And Tom Brady is a year older. Am I wrong to think, and they lost not only a defensive coordinator, they actually lost two. Flores is gone, and then Greg Shianu suddenly up and left the team after a couple months on the job. Am I wrong to think, we're buying into New England, we have no idea what they're going to throw out there. It's every year, right? For me, as long as number 12 is under center, it doesn't matter. Gronk was hit or miss throughout the season, showed up in the playoffs.

But for me, as long as they have Tom Brady on that team, they always have a chance. for me, that over-under is about right. Yeah, I think the problem with it to me is we're forgetting that Tom Brady was not great, was maybe not even good at the end of last season. And he's not alone. You know, you look at the Chargers and Philip Rivers late in the season. He had some arm strength issues. Drew Breeze, even playing in a dome, he had some arm strength.

Like the older quarterbacks really struggled coming down the stretch last month and a half. They have a ton of draft picks. They're going to find guys in a draft that, one will help them that will contribute and they always find a way. Until the season starts, they're going to have to show me like they did last year where they didn't look like they were playing well and so I picked against them. They're going to have to show me that before I pick against them. Tom Brady threw for 3,100 yards last year, right?

Like it was not, I just, my thing is like- That's not great for Brady for sure. No, and in this NFL it's not. And then you look at his production at the end of the season. Remember his last, you know, he struggled against Pittsburgh. He struggled against Buffalo. He did have four. Then he had four touchdown passes against the Jets, you know.

But he made plays when he had to. You go back to the Kansas City game. That throw down the sideline to Gronk with Eric Berry covering him. Yes. Great throw. Same thing against the Rams of Grunk down the scene. Great throw. So he made plays when needed.

But he also threw two and what would have been three interceptions if D4 didn't line up upside. Like we do, like we only remember the end of the movie. We don't remember any of the meat of it. And the meat of it is Brady is not the same Brady. The meat of it was they won. And so he touches the ball every snap. And so you can't, they've shown, they've earned enough respect to where if you say they're going to win 13 games,

okay, they got to prove to me that they can't. This reminds me, we'll get to LeBron in a second. This reminds me of LeBron that had the 48 and a half was their win total. We'll see how that worked out. See how that worked out in Vegas. I want to ask you about the Kille-Mack trade. When it happened, when it happened, I was the only guy seemingly saying,

I love it for the Raiders. It wasn't just trading away Killeille Mack. It was he wanted a huge deal. And they didn't get one. They got two first round picks that everyone said you'll never get two first round picks for defensive players. Never going to happen. Then he gets two first round picks and people continue to make fun

of John Gruden like he's a complete idiot. He knew he didn't have a good team. And he got three first round picks for two players who are good, but two players who wanted to get paid and he wasn't willing to pay them what the going rate was, actually above going rate for Kliolmack. Now the Sloan Analytics Conference

came out and gave one award for the transaction of the year, and it was to him. And Gruden finally talked about the trade, and he said, here's the, here's a quote. If we did come up with the money to make the MAC contract happen last year, we wouldn't have had any of these men we're talking about right now. We wouldn't have had those three first-round picks we're talking about. Like he goes through, look at the guys. So in hindsight, and we don't know who they're going to draft, did John Gruden win that trade? Oh, yeah.

When you can get Antonio Brown, Trent Brown. Lamarcus Joyner, Burfic, Tyrell Williams. Of course you wanted. I would prefer those players over just Khalil Mack, me personally. And you add in the first round picks. But he could have still signed Kalil Mack and added one or two of those players had they chosen to do so. They didn't have any money. There's always—

There's always money. Yes, there is. There is. You can get around this salary cap. That's an excuse that the front office people, oh, we don't have enough money. oh everybody's operating under the same set of rules. You have enough money. It's just a matter of do you want to spend it on this guy?

And they just choose not to do it. That's what goes on the majority of the time. But I will say the first round picks, they got two for Khalil Mack and all these guys in free agency. Yes. It's not even close that the Raiders won this. Not close. Ben Rothensberger and Joy Report, this is part of the news.

It appears that he's going to cancel his weekly radio show, a radio appearance. Good move or bad move? I believe that's a smart move on his behalf. If he's not able to filter himself, if he can't do that to himself, then it's a smart move. I had a radio show in Cincinnati for four or five years,

did it once a week. And obviously, I'm not being asked the questions that bends being asked, but you just have to say a bunch of things without saying anything, not throw anybody under the bus. So if he can't do that himself, I think it's very smart.

Why do these guys do it? Like, what is the, why, like, he makes a ton of money, right? You don't make a ton of money doing the Wiki Radio thing. You get what a year, like a free car. They'll give you a car or they'll pay you X amount for the whole year. What is the win in doing it? Just connecting with the fans and that's all I can think of. You connect with the fans, but there's people within the organization that will come to you

and ask you to do it. You don't just say, oh, I'm going to do the radio show. you go to the head coach, you go to people upstairs and you say, what do you guys think about this and they'll give you the go ahead to do it. Last thing, you're an L.A. guy.

We're going to call it Barstow, close enough, right? I mean, I'm kidding. You're an L.A. guy. I don't know. Do you guys, didn't you guys get the paper? This is an honest question. Joy, do you get the newspaper? No.

No? Do you get the paper? Now? Yeah. Come on, man. Nobody gets the paper now. I'm just asking. Before, yes, not now.

I used, that was my thing with my dad. Like, this is how I grew up. a sports fan. I used to get the paper. Or you're not getting the paper now with your son. No, I probably should though. No. I mean, he gets up and he watches Fox Sports One and he's like, why are they

why he's Skip not like LeBron? I still read. No, I didn't see you don't. I think people read more now than they ever used to. You just find it online. It's online. I'm just asking you got, what was the last time you got a newspaper? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I've never subscribed to the newspaper, but

like I'm sure I bought a newspaper back when the internet was. Okay, you've never subscribed ever. Have you ever subscribed a paper? No. I have before. I think it's interesting because I didn't see this but

some of our staff did and I saw it Dave Coelho who helps book this show. I saw he tweeted this yesterday. So in the Sunday paper in the L.A. Times they have a pull-out section and it's the calendar section and it was LeBron James

and it's a cool picture. It's a really cool picture. but it's LeBron James and it's talking about all of his production company. But in his glasses, it says Hollywood, right? And this is yesterday, which is the day that they announced they're shutting down LeBron James for the rest of the year. And of course, this is coming off of Colin Coward,

who is the ardent defender of all things LeBron James. Suddenly, I believe it was last Thursday going like, I'm kind of dumb with LeBron, he's gone Hollywood. And now there's actually a photo of him. with Hollywood put on his glasses. How would you characterize LeBron James' first season in the city you call home? It wasn't very good for the Lakers.

Expectations were high. I was one that, hey, we're going to the playoffs this year, and it just didn't happen. You did drop a Wii, by the way, I wouldn't put that. Yeah, I'm a Laker fan all the way through and through. Are you going to call him a wee guy? Huh? You're going to call him a Wii guy?

He is kind of a wee guy. Yeah, like, I just don't like that. I don't love the Wii stuff. It's a habit. You can't help it. I've been rooting for the Lakers when we were winning. Sidel 3, Nick Van Exel. I love that team. That's my favorite team.

That's my favorite team. It was the non-magic. They got two games to none on the Phoenix Suns, and Nick Van Exel was nasty. It was killing people. Yeah, I've been a Laker fan my whole life. You want to prove your Laker fan under me? Sadale 3. Do you like to go right or left to shoot?

Oh, come on. I don't remember that. He's a righty. I'm going to say left. He always went left. If he goes left, it was in. If he goes right, no shot. Okay, anyway.

So who do you put the, the, blame on. It has to fall on LeBron. You're the best player on the team. When things go well, when you beat Golden State in the finals, with Kyrie Erie hitting the shot, who I thought should have gotten an MVP, but they give it to LeBron because you're the best player, that's okay.

But when things go bad, you have to take the majority of the blame. Injuries, now, if they don't have the amount of injuries that they have, I believe they're in the playoffs. But they had them. And so you have to put the blame on LeBron. Well, my thing is, and Joy, kind of disagrees with this. There's a story about how they had a players-only meeting and they talked to him about his body language.

And for like one game, he had good body language, putting his arm around guys, but then he kind of went back to his body-body language. And that story in and of itself as a micro on the macro, which is whether it's throwing the ball off the backboard or looking disengaged when Luke's talking or not having bad byd language or sometimes just kind of being out there defensively and kind of being lost. Or the commentary, like it's all a little a factor of, look, I'm not saying that it's super easy and not incredibly frustrating. You don't feel like you're with a coach who you vibe with or players that you fit with. But that doesn't, when you hit adversity, like it displays exactly the type of dude you are.

And instead of being the, hey, we're going to be fine. I got this. The commentary, the, the, the, the Biden language, it was all negative. And the team went south because of it. Man, that's frustration. Like, people got to understand. He's a human being. when things don't go as planned,

he's allowed to be frustrated. And if his body language shows it, what's wrong with that? That's frustration. That's a competitor that's upset that things aren't going the way he hopes or that he wants. And that's just frustration.

Like, dude, you're a professional athlete. If my body language affects you, something is wrong with you. My body language should affect me, not you. Yeah, but that's not the way it works in basketball. It's just any sport. That's not the way it works in. Why is it just bad?

It should be. Any sport. It is, in football, if a quarterback comes over and a quarterback is sitting by himself and dissing not listen to the coaches and is totally disengaged with what's going on, that affects people. But see, it's a completely football and basketball, they're completely different. You just said it's any sport. But you have to communicate.

What I'm saying is a quarterback's not going to sit by himself because he has to communicate with the coach about what the defense is doing, what we're going to do the next drive. In basketball, it's give the ball to your best player, go make something happen. No, it's not that simple. No, you have to communicate where you're going to be, what you're doing. It's the exact same thing. That's practice. No, it's in games too.

If you're telling players what they need to do in an NBA game and defense, you're going to lose. You should already have exactly rules that. TJ, I love you, okay? You know, we're friends off microphone, but you could not be more wrong in front of this. Yes, you have rules. You have to make adjustments in terms of how we guard in ball screens, how we garden different actions. Where are you going to be when I do this? When I zig, you've got to say.

There's engagement. When you're the best player on a team, when you're the best player on earth by many people's estimation, then yes, your Biden language does matter. The idea of my Biden language shouldn't affect you. That isn't the way it works in basketball. I'm not saying. It's not everything, but it's a huge portion of leadership. And when LeBron looks like he's frustrated, he's down, he's disconnected, of course the rest of the young players are going to follow his lead.

That's what happens in basketball. That's what happens in sports. Now, is this, like I said, it's frustration. If he's doing this every game, it's a problem. I'm sure it's not every game. If it's here and there, I don't see it as a big deal. But if it's constant, of course it's a big deal because these young players who idolize you, they look up to you.

And so they see this and they say, oh, man, this is a guy that I look up to doing this. Now, if it's every blue moon, it's not a big deal. But if it's all the time, it is. He's T.J. Husmanzada. He is a wee guy. But I'm a Wii and team team TJ. TJ great stuff, dude. Let's get to Joy Taylor with the news.

No, no, no, no, turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So we got a wee guy story already. She said she's an obnoxious fantasy sports fan. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of a wee guy too. I talk about the Steelers that way and the Dolphins that way. You say we? When the Steelers, when the Steelers two years ago when it should have been a touchdown,

but the catch rule, did you? go like we got screwed that play or do you say? I mean, I don't know if I used exactly that vernacular, but I felt it the same. And when you grow up a fan of a team, it's almost a habit, right? No. It is. Don't look too much. It's okay. All right. So Steve Nash is sticking up for his godson after his game against Michigan State. RJ Barrett went seven for 17 from the floor with seven turnovers and obviously that missed the free throw line with less than 10 seconds left. Nash took to Twitter to talk about Barrett and said RJ Barrett, yes, is my godson. He's a next level playmaker at his age, 18

and size, makes every read and pass. This is one skill that is easier in many respects due to the rules at the NBA level. It's so damn valuable, blown away at the reads and deliveries he makes repetitively. I think everyone's kind of overreacting to RJ Barrett's game. I mean, he

averaged 22.6 points this year, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game. I know this is what we do like we just react to what just happened and seven turnovers is not the game you want to have in that moment. but I mean we've been talking about R.J. Barrett and Zion Williamson all year. Zion obviously is going to be the number one overall pick

if for nothing else his dominance, his star capability. I mean, we're talking about his potential sneaker deal of $100 billion. Like, Zion is going to go number one overall. But I really, I've liked RJ Barrett all year, and I really think that once he gets to the NBA level, we talked about it earlier, the spacing is going to be totally different because the 2.9 rule, they're not going to be able to sit back in the paint. Duke doesn't have great three-point shooters, so the spacing is. is going to be completely different.

He's going to be with NBA level coaches who are going to, and development plans and eating. His body is going to develop. He's going to look at games differently. He's going to have a different development plan. And he's going to develop a lot. He has a skill, he has,

through his basketball resume already, I feel like a direct translation to the NBA. Oh, I think so too. I think the question for R.J. Barrett is going to be he's never not been the best guy. and had the ball in his hands to make the decisions. And in the NBA, you've got to be really, really good to do that. And is he that level of good?

Well, I don't think he's going to come into the league that well. But I think that he's going to develop quickly. Look, I agree with the premise you're saying the spacing is different, and his skill set up more for a program for a college game. And look, I think he's selfish. I do. I know he can pass, but he chose not to a bunch. Some of it because they weren't great shooters,

but even before they had established themselves as not being great shooters. he showed himself to have a selfish truth. That said, you don't average 30 a game in the NBA unless you're a little bit selfish, okay? Let's just got to be honest, right? You got to... Right, but he's not going to be asked to do that right away either. No, that's my question is, how does he fit in with any secondary or tertiary role? Whereas Zion, I think immediately, because he's not a primary ball handler, I think he'll fit in a little bit better early on.

With the distributor. Right. Now, look, RJ, you know, if he's given a team like Trey Young's given, where you play a huge volume of possessions and you just give him the ball and you play 35, he'll develop quickly and he'll put up big numbers. Does it help you win? Can he make a higher percentage of shots? Can he become a better shooter?

He's not a crazy great athlete, but he is really hard because he's so long and angular. Like I generally agree with the premise he'll be a better NBA player than he was college player. He's a very good college player. but some of the selfishness, some of the decision-making, and the lack of pure jump shots a little mechanical, do give me pause as to whether or not he'll be a star in the NBA. That's going to come with experience also. Yeah, developing fluidity and a three-point shot is hard.

Yeah. Well, I mean, look, KD came into league. He was a volume shooter at the beginning of his career. He averaged 28% from the three-point line at the beginning of his career. He averaged more turnovers and assists his rookie year. So it's all about development. So LeBron will set out the rest of the season. We just discussed that.

his choice. He had been getting regular rests from the Lakers. Come on. You think LeBron's sitting there going like, no, no, no, I want to play. I think the LeBron wants to play. I do believe that he wants to play. I think that it's at the point, well, basically Magic Johnson said, after consulting with our team,

doctors and medical staff, we decided to hold LeBron out of the remainder of the season. This decision will allow his groin to fully heal and especially the future and success of both LeBron and the Lakers. Now, obviously, the draft pick thing could be thrown out there as a theory, but it's not going to affect the percentage too much of them getting a higher job pick. It's also so that he can rest, which to me is just like, okay, you mismanaged

this injury. If he's been playing all this time and it's really an injury that you need to sit him for the last five games of the season, then clearly you mismanaged the injury. I mean, right? Like, those other two. I don't think it has anything to do with that. Look, the stories of shutting LeBron down have been out there since they started to get close to being out the playoffs. You had guys that are connected. Right, but like for what? Because you obviously have because he doesn't want to play because the games don't matter, Tim. I don't know about that. This has been a really rough season for LeBron for his, it's a ding on his resume.

And I don't think that. Agreed. And so that's why he said, there you go, he's hurt. He's hurt. He's hurt. This groin. And I'm not disputing that the groin doesn't hurt. But like, look, don't leak out a story to Chris Broussard saying, hey, you know, if this is the playoffs, he could be playing.

The playoffs, he could be playing. Well, I do think you have to decide what it is. And if it is an injury, then clearly it was a bigger injury than everyone thought it was, which already felt like a big injury because it's LeBron and he's never heard. But you can't say he could be playing if it was the playoffs. He probably would. He'd probably push through it.

But I'm saying that's the point. You should have shut him down for the rest of the season earlier then. Well, they don't want to get caught. I mean, the NBA has already fined them for tampering, right? And now they don't want to find him for sitting a healthy player at the end of the season. Are he's clearly not healthy? I don't believe that LeBron. I think he wants to play.

I don't think he wants any part of this team. I think he's good and done. All right. So we got the wee guy out of the way. way, I'm the annoying fantasy football guy and Tom Brady is the annoying April Fool's Day joke guy. You said earlier you're not a big fan of April Fool's Day jokes. Tom Brady's officially on Twitter today and his first tweet was, I'm retiring in my spare time. I'll be tweeting.

And then he followed up with was this a bad joke. So he gets it. It's April Fool's. Let's make a fun. April Fool's I'm retiring. You got to do like that tweet and then wait. You can't do a tweet and then say, April Fool's in the same tweet.

He's not even good at this. I mean, I can't tell if he's being cheeky from the beginning. Like, he actually could have really got everybody, but then I guess he probably doesn't want that backlash. Because he could have written a really, like, elaborate. It was 39 minutes later, he said, was this a bad joke? Yeah, but I mean, that's

not how he's retiring. Like, no one took that seriously from the beginning. Right, not good. He's just, Tom Brady's not good at that stuff. He's going to put out this, this video montage of all the moments. Like, it's going to be a big deal. Did I, were you working when I changed my vote on who's the greatest quarterback ever? I'm not sure.

Who did you change it to? Tom Brady. So you do think Tom Brady's, yeah. What was the issue? Well, I've always thought that Aaron Rogers is the better quarterback because he does everything you're supposed to do as a quarterback. Oh, and then you realize that we all play for championships? Yes.

Right. Yeah. That's a good move. And then I said, I've just, I don't know how he does it, but he does it. And he's done enough times to where I'm like, I give up. I think you can have a conversation about different. skills, Aaron Rogers, you can talk about Damarino, you can talk about Joe Montana.

There's John Elway, there's obviously a plethora of incredible quarterbacks over the years. But at one point or another, the amount of championships you win and the consistency of winning that you do has to matter. That's Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by.

The Hurd-Lie News. You're right. That's why I changed my vote. Smart. You're absolutely right. Coming up, right now there are some things happening in sports that are so crazy. You'd think They're an April Fool's joke, but they're actually 100% real. We will prove it to you. That's next time.

Doug Gottlieb. This is The Hurt. Be sure to catch live editions of the HARD weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHard Radio app. MDrive is the supplement I use every day. You should consider it too if you want to feel stronger, have more energy and drive. Now is the time to start taking MDrive. Learn more and visit MDrive for Men.com. Refind Your Prime with M Drive.

Alongside Joy Taylor, I'm Doug Gottlieb. Happy April 1st, happy April Fool's, which leads us to the best for last. It's almost the end of the show, but that doesn't mean we're phoning it in. Nope, we grind to the very last segment. It's time for best for last. It's April Fool's Day, and so if you're on social media, there's lots of fake stories out there. and what I thought we would do would be if you were asleep for the last year

and I propose these as stories, would you think they were an April Fool's joke? You'd actually think we're 100% kidding if it was April 1st last year. So let's get to it. I got a good list here of seven stories. I guarantee that if you think about it, you would not believe.

You ready? Number one, LeBron James won't make the playoffs. Think about it last year this time. He had seven consecutive final strikes. Then he had an eighth. He had missed a playoff since 2005. 2005. It's 2019 now.

He hasn't had a losing season since his rookie year. If you told somebody even four months ago, hey, LeBron's not going to make the playoffs. Regardless of the team, you would think they were an idiot or a liar. they are neither. All right, here's one. The Clippers are the best basketball organization in Los Angeles. College or pro. College or pro.

UCLA's coaching job has been open for three months, has not been filled. USC and UCLA finished seventh and eighth in the PAC 12 this year, which was down. The Lakers missed the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year. Most people believe they'll have a new head coach and mostly new players next year. Meanwhile, the Clippers are 47 and 31, currently a sixth seed. They made the playoffs seven of the last eight years, and most people think they're getting Quay Leonard. But if you would have told anybody, like, look, I grew up in Los Angeles. We used to have scavenger hunts where people would say, like, all right, you got to go find anything Clippers and bring it back. And no one would win.

Because it was impossible. And now it's impossible to not admit. that what used to be in April Fool's joke is now a reality. The Clippers are, in fact, the best basketball organization in Los Angeles. Here's one. Auburn is a better shot at winning a basketball national title than football. First Final Four in their school's history. By the way, Bruce Pearl, won Division II National Championship, took UW Milwaukee to the Sweet 16, Tennessee to the lead eight,

and now Auburn, he has a Hall of Fame resume. Meanwhile, the football team finished fifth in the SEC West. Not the SEC, the SEC West. Three and five, eight and five overall. Meanwhile, Auburn, all they've done to get there is be Kansas, Carolina, and Kentucky in consecutive games. First team to do so since my boy, Miles Simon's 1997 national champion Arizona Wildcat team.

That feels like an April Fool's joke. All right, how about this one? A big 12 team could win a national championship. based on their defense. Texas Tech held Michigan to 16 points in the first half, and it felt like six. The holding teams to 59.2 points per game, third best in college basketball,

and they beat Gonzaga, who had been averaging 88.8 points per game. Big 12 is known for offense in football, and Chris Beard's defense has got them to the final four. Here's one. A college basketball coach was under five, last week for yelling at his player.

That actually happened. He was yelling at Aaron Henry when they played Bradley two weeks ago. Now he's making his eighth trip to the final four. Like, ask yourself, a college basketball coach

yelling at a player over the last 20 years and it became a national controversy that felt like an April Fool's joke. All right, last two. You go back two years ago and if I would have told you, Tiger Woods is going to win another major.

You would have said, that's an April Fool joke. He lost in the quarters of the World Golf Championship in match play, but he beat Rory head-to-head, had some amazing shots. He's the third favorite to win the Masters, the second favorite to win the U.S. Open at Pebble, where, of course, he's lapped the field before. And he's the second favorite to win the British Open behind Rory, who, of course, he just beat match play.

He's going to win a major. Remember, even after the car accident and Elyn, when we think golf club on him. He still finished fourth at Augusta. That place is built for his game, and he can play it blindfolded. But two years ago, you would have thought that's an April Fool's jump.

And here's the last one. The Cleveland Browns are favorites to win the AFC North. According to CG technology, Cleveland's projected to have nine wins. Pittsburgh, also nine wins. Baltimore, eight and a half wins. Browns haven't won the division since 1989. 1989.

Last time the Browns won more than seven games, 2007. I mean, I get it, Baker Mayfield. Even now with a rookie head coach who was a run game coordinator last year, it still seems preposterous. Look at that talent. Look at the division. Look at how they finished. And Vegas says, take the Browns.

All these would have been, that's the best for last. What's the most surprising to you? LeBron. Cleveland's actually pretty close. It's close with Cleveland and LeBron for opposite reasons. Yeah, who's going to be our punchline if Cleveland becomes really good now? I'm sure someone will be up there. New York Giants are making a push.

They are making a push. They are making a push. Miami kind of making that push too. Miami's kind of been that way. But yeah, they're doubling down on that. Too good weather. Buffalo did make the playoffs last year, but that sounds like the exception as opposed to the rule.

There was a reason that they were jumping off of RVs onto tables, the Bills Mafia, lighting themselves on fire, because that was more entertaining than the product. I'm back tomorrow with Joy Taylor. Chris Bruchardo, join us. Matt Barnes will join us. And new Fox College football analyst,

Reggie Bush will join us. That's all tomorrow. I'm Doug Gottlie. This is The Hurt. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. And every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories,

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