The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, LeBron James, where Colin was right & wrong

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Colin explains why it was better for the Bulls to not go for a 7th title, why he feels Scottie Pippen was portrayed correctly in the documentary, his issues with the Michael Jordan-LeBron James poll, why he doesn't agree with Channing Frye, and where he was right and wrong over the weekend. Guests include J.A. Adande, Jerry West, and Doug Gottlieb. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Ah, here we go. We are live in Los Angeles on a Monday. This is The Hurt. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio and FS1 right here in studio. Joy Taylor is joining me one hour from now where Colin was right, where Colin was wrong. Jerry West joins us next hour. Can't wait for that.

The logo. It's great to have you in this weekend in California. People now a little bit, sort of kind of on the beaches. Looks like mostly families to me. We're all going to be okay. Hopefully, right, going forward. Joy, how are you down my neck of the woods this weekend? I was a little stroll around Manhattan Beach.

Yeah. Beautiful place. It is. Played some tennis this weekend poorly, but I played it nonetheless. Got some sun. Well, it was beautiful. It's raining now, but it was a beautiful weekend here. So let's start with this.

The 10-part MJ documentary is over. I loved it. It was a walk-down memory lane. I can't think of anybody in sports outside of Tiger Woods. I'd probably watch a 10-part documentary. He's had enough controversy and greatness, and there's a combination of stuff. What made Jordan so fascinating is there was controversy.

He was fighting his GM. There was the Rodman Factor. Not all great teams are fascinating. I'm not sure I could watch 30 minutes of a one-part documentary on the Tim Duncan Spurs. I'm not sure I could get through it. I don't want to watch a documentary on Alabama football. just great. They're not fascinating. I can watch a five-fart documentary in the Miami Hurricanes or Pete Carroll's Trojans. Not all documentaries are fascinating. Michael's was. One of the takeaways

and one of the things that's frustrating for fans, and I've always had this belief, leave a party too early than late. Nothing but more cocktails and more dumb comments in trouble the later you stay at a party. Come late, leave a party. Leave early, make an appearance, have some fun, shake some hands, leave early. You don't want to be the last guy around the keg, okay? You don't. And to me, the bulls left at the perfect time, 98. Now, there's a lot of people, Michael Jordan at the end saying, I wish we could have come back

for one more. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is perfect. It adds to the mythology. One of the cool things about Michael Jordan's legend, there's a lot of what if with it. Not with bird, not with magic. You know, not with LeBron in Cleveland.

It's kind of pathetic. It unravels. It is time. But there's a lot of what if with Jordan. Ooh, six for six, but what if he didn't play baseball? Ooh. He could have got eight for eight. What if Jerry Krause didn't break him up? Ooh. Ooh.

Michael and the Bulls left the party just a little early. And it adds to his shoe sales and mythology. The following year, Pippin was not going to stay because Houston was offering him a contract of $80 million. He wasn't going to stay for 14 in Chicago for one year. Rodman was getting older and distracted and less consistent. Tony Koo-coach was not the kind of player Michael was ever close to or could rely on. If you go back to it, the 98 season, never forget this. Phil Jackson figured it out too.

Phil Jackson told Jerry Krause, I'm not rebuilt it. I'm out. Phil Jackson, who came off great in this documentary, he's like, boom, clean, out, six. Is that the Spurs dynasty had arrived. So in 99, the year Michael says, I want to come back for one more year. The Spurs went in the playoffs. They swept the Lakers. They swept the Blazers and destroyed the Knicks in Five. It was Duncan and Robinson.

And frankly, you think Carl Malone was a bad matchup for Chicago? How would have Duncan and Robinson been? It was over. You watched this. How many close games were there? It was over. They were old. They were the best team, but they were winning a lot of those games, let's be honest, over Utah and over Indiana.

They were winning some of those games on Moxie, championship medal, an individual play by Michael Late. It wasn't they were steamrolling teams. In fact, against Utah, they didn't score 100 points in the finals. Why? Because they were offensively challenged. They were only ninth in the NBA in 1998. ninth in offense. That's with the greatest offensive player ever.

Ninth. Okay. So the idea, oh, they'd come back. No, no, no. The push off. Michael hits it. He's holding the trophy. They're six for six.

Seacrest out. It's the perfect way to do it. This is why the mythology of Michael is almost as great as the reality of Michael. Like Michael had a lot of struggles. a lot antagonized by his own GM. Pippin could be unreliable. Rodman was flaky and increasingly distracted. Coo Coach was never really like one of the guys.

You know, Steve Kerr, Paxson, their career averages are six points a game. It was perfect. They were old, tired, offensively challenged, and Michael and the Bulls left the party just a little early, never too late. Now let me shift to this. Scotty Pippin. I covered him in Portland. Apparently, Scotty Pippen has been wounded, is the word, by the documentary. And I've said this before. I don't think I've ever met anybody in their life that didn't deserve their reputation. I mean, we earn our reputations. Maybe not

when you're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, but by the time you're 30, 40, 50, 60, you are what you are, good or bad. I've never seen a pro athlete who was a great guy with a terrible reputation. You know, Jay Cutler's difficult. That's his reputation. Aaron Rogers, talented, but can be difficult. That's his reputation. Dennis Rodman, talented, but flaky. That's his reputation. I'd say those are spot on. Okay. So Scotty Pippin doesn't like how he's portrayed in this. But having covered him, I think it's been as accurate with Scotty as anybody. Scotty has seen as super talented, vital to Michael Jordan's success, sometimes immature, pouted.

You know, they didn't bring up the DUI and the dock or the gun charge against Scotty. They showed the pouting on the bench. They showed him when he basically decided, I'm not going to get rehab and a surgery in the summer because I want to have a fun summer to hurt the team. When I covered Scotty, I thought he was really talented. I thought he was tough as hell. I thought he was a nice guy. But I never thought he was a leader.

I thought he was the classic great vice president. And it should be noted, most great athletes are not great leaders. Jeter was, Arod was just talented. Peyton Manning and Brady are. Russell Wilson is. But I can name lots of quarterbacks. I've said with Aaron Rogers, he's great. I don't know if he's a great leader.

He's just really talented. But to be a great leader, you generally need examples of great leadership. Look at Scottie's background and look at Michael. one of the great advantages Michael had was rock-solid parents into Dean Smith, into David Falk, into David Stern. Michael had so many amazing examples of leadership. Michael's too smart not to have gleaned some of that off that. Scotty Pippin's background, he didn't go to a classic college basketball power with a Dean Smith. His upbringing from the documentary was tougher.

His father had a stroke very early. He went to a small college. So when I look at Scotty Pippen, I think he's an amazing American story, is that if you look at his childhood, he didn't grow up with much, and he became an unbelievable. Now he's a broadcaster. He was a great player. He's a top 30 player I've ever seen.

Maybe a top 20 player. I don't know. But to ask every athlete to be a great leader is like asking every human being on the planet to be a great leader. Isn't that the thing we always complain about every presidential election? These are the candidates? This is what we're left with? Those are grown-ups. He was a kid.

Scotty was a great player. He's a great story. But the documentary has not been unfair. It's been reasonable that Michael was the better player and the better leader. Scotty was super talented. But sometimes you couldn't count on him in big situations. I don't think that's inappropriate, nor do I think it's unfair. I think it's what Scotty is.

Super talented, like a lot of pro athletes, but not built or not comfortable. Maybe that's a better word, to take the burden of a franchise on his shoulders. That wouldn't be abnormal. That would be normal. Most 21, 24, 27, 32-year-olds are not ready to carry like Russell Wilson an NFL franchise. They're simply not. And if you look at Russell Wilson and you look at Jeter and you look at Peyton Manning, much of the credit goes to when they were kids and the people giving them great leadership ideas and paths.

And so I don't think Scottie's been inappropriately or unfairly labeled. I think it showed him as a great teammate at times, sometimes a little moody and pouty. And in crisis, sometimes he was great. Sometimes he wasn't. He was not always bad in crisis. He was often great in crisis. The one thing that thing showed last night was how tough he was. And I can say this having covered him, Scotty played through a lot of injuries.

He hit the deck a lot, was on the floor a lot, was never 100% healthy, took care of his body, played hurt. Said this about Cam Newton. I don't love Cam. Cam is hurt a lot and playing through pain a lot. That and Scotty I'll always give him credit for. All right. So there's a poll out this morning. It's a little recency bias.

73% of people now think that Michael is better than LeBron. In fact, they had it. They asked like 15 questions, and Michael won all of them by a landslide. And that is frankly a lot of nonsense. I'm going to go through the questions on the poll where overwhelmingly fans gave Michael the win in every single category, guy, shoes, player, teammate. I'll break down the truth on that coming up. Plus, J.A. Adonde is going to be joining this hour as well.

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So there was 17 categories. Michael Jordan won every one. They posed a poll. I think it was on the SBN. 73% of people on the poll chose Michael over LeBron. But he won every category. So I got 16 of the 17 categories. One was just stupid.

So here's where I agree. This is where I agree with the fans. Better sneaker for fashion. Yeah, I mean, Jordan sells a lot of. shoes. Pick for a game-winning shot. I think LeBron's underrated here, but Michael's the better offensive player and the best mid-range schooner in the history of the game. Come through in the clutch. Again, LeBron's underrated here. It's closer to 60-40, but I'd take Michael. Spectacular to watch play. That ain't close. Michael Jordan's game had much more cool factor. LeBron came into

the league as a freight train. In fact, I remember criticizing him the first four or five years, I'm like, I know he's great, but he's boring. The first run in Cleveland, was mostly boring. Better offensive player. Yeah, that's Michael. Michael is a relentless offensive player. Better look. I'm not sure what that means.

Is that glamour, fashion, look, cool? Yeah, I mean, Jordan's probably the coolest player ever. Better defensive player. Again, I think LeBron and his prime was really, really good. But Michael was the best one-on-one defensive player for a long stretch in the NBA. Here's a toss-up. Better overall player. Jordan dominated this one.

There's a lot. There's a lot LeBron does. LeBron's a bigger, stronger athlete. Way better passer, better rebounder. Better overall player. Be careful about that one. NBA was better all around, people say. Well, it's more skilled now.

Years ago, it was more physical. The rivalries were more bitter. There was more trash talking, and they weren't all buddies. So you could make an argument. But there's things about the old days I like and there's things about the new game I like. Michael would win one-on-one to 21. LeBron's got three and a half inches and 35 pounds of muscle. He ever played one-on-one?

Guy with a big butt, 35 pounds heavier? Hard to beat. They can back in on you. I'm not so sure LeBron James wouldn't get the ball first and just back in on Michael. He's got a great left hand and a great right hand. He can use the glass. LeBron would be tough one-on-one. Top pick to start a team.

Well, let's be honest about this. Michael Jordan quit twice. Hey, where'd Michael go? Baseball. Where'd Michael go? Wizards. I could make an argument. LeBron's the better choice to start a franchise.

Have a drink with. Not even sure what that means. To be honest with you, who would tell better stories? Probably Michael, but I'm not sure about that. Now, here's where I disagree with the 17 questions, all favoring Michael. choose as a and by the way for those on radio Michael usually won 60 to 75% on all these so I disagree on this choose as a teammate I think I choose LeBron as a teammate I think he's more fun to be around he's more inclusive he's not on your butt all the time and he's just kind

of a he's an easy hang Michael's a difficult hang could be a great hang could be overbearing positive impact off the court Michael's very private he sells shoes LeBron's done an amazing thing. The school's just one of amazing things LeBron's done. LeBron's better off the court. Better passer, this ain't close. LeBron is second or third best passer I've seen in my life. After Magic and Bird, I'm not even sure after.

LeBron's an unbelievable passer. For a six, nine and a half guy to be able to pass 20 feet across court and literally get the ball in the perfect shooting position every time is unbelievable. That ain't close. Michael wasn't a terrible passer. He was a reluctant passer. LeBron's an unbelievable passer. Trust to pass you the ball.

No, that's LeBron. In fact, LeBron got knocked his first seven, eight years in the league because he passed the ball too much. So, you know, some of its recency bias. You know, I would say this. Was the league better back then? Just here's the way I would state it. Years ago, back in the MJ, the illegal out hand checks, meaning it was very physical. physical and guys hit the deck and guys got pissed and guys got in fights and it was intense.

The league was more intense than physically. It was really, I mean, you saw MJ and Bird meet last night and the words they used. It was a very alpha male man's league. In hockey, you have like, you know how in hockey you'd have a fight guy on your roster years ago? In the NBA, everybody had like Dale Davis. Like you had to have a couple guys that were just willing to knock you on your butt. 6-9, 258, 260 tough dudes. It was a tougher league.

It was a harder league. It was a combative league. And there was a lot of fights and pushing and shoving. I mean, people were pushing Michael. And so, I mean, everybody looks like Reggie Miller today. Everybody's long, handsome, skinny, runs around. Like, he looked like a toothpick because everybody was, it was a lift weights, bang into people, knock them over, take their head off league.

And there's a part of that that's very fun. It's like SEC football. It's just more physical. It just matters more. Today's more of a cardio league, everybody's buddy's league, everybody's getting rich league. But the players are far more skilled now. I mean, you can't have two guys on a floor who can't shoot a three. Trent Thompson years ago, Tristan Thompson, he'd been a good player in the NBA.

Now it's like, oh, good, where do we put Tristan Thompson? So I always put athletes are bigger, better, and stronger than they've ever been. But there are parts. I mean, not all sports are better now. I mean, college basketball was way better in the 80s. Because guys like Patrick Ewing would come back for his sophomore year, his junior year. Stars would come back for their senior year. So you knew them.

You had an emotional connection to athletes in college basketball. Now it's a bunch of guys I've never met. They're here for an hour. If they come at all to college basketball, they're off to the NBA. I don't think the quality is very good in college basketball. I don't think my connectivity to college basketball is nearly as good. I know the coaches more than I know the players. That's generally not good for a sport.

Here's Joy with the News. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. It got me thinking who in the sports world I'd want to have a drink with. Like, I think Michael's, I mean, well, I had an opportunity to have a shot with him on my 21st birthday, obviously. Your brother would not let you. But other than Michael, I think Pat Riley would be a good hang.

You know, it's generationally. People now are more protective. Pat Riley's got his wealth, his legacy, and he has nothing to hide. So, Briley's a great choice. He would have amazing stories. From like three different teams. Right. And I think, I think Belichick actually would be interesting.

Because if you could get Belichick a little loosened up. Day after he retires. Yeah. You get the secrets of the dynasty. By the third bourbon shot, Bill's just blabbing. Yeah. Can't shut him up. So on Friday, Aaron Rogers spoke publicly for the first time since the Packers

drafted Jordan Love. He said he wasn't thrilled with the pick, but he understood it, but now he isn't sure if he'll spend his entire career in Green Bay. What? It was more of the surprise of the pick based on my own feelings of wanting to play into my 40s, and then really the realization that it does change the controllables a little bit, because as much as I feel confident in my abilities and what I can't accomplish and what we can accomplish, there are some new factors that are out of my control.

And so my sincere desire to start and finish with the same organization, just as it has with many other players over the years, you know, may not be a reality at this point. I thought that, yeah, I thought he handled himself really well. I thought he was authentic. He told you where he wasn't happy with stuff. I thought he was about as honest as you can be, and he is a smart enough guy to be able to massage all those difficult topics. I thought he hit it out of the park. Maybe you listened to your press conference preview. Yeah, we kind of told him what to say, and he did.

I thought he was really good. I thought he was too. And I think that's an honest answer as well. It's totally fair. Green Bay fans shouldn't be upset at that. What do you expect him to say? They drafted a quarterback and he's right. Now, again, Jordan Love could never see the field in Green Bay.

We've no idea what he is or what it's going to be. But the reality is, if you're going to play that long, you likely aren't going to be with the same team. I mean, we don't know what was going on with Tom Brady and the Patriots, whether it was really even an option. I mean, it was reported that they wanted him back. It was his choice, whatever. Belichick wanted him out three years ago. Right. And that's Brady off a Super Bowl win.

Right. So Brady was aware that that was a possibility he'd be playing somewhere else from that point because that almost happened. And had that not gone down the way it did with Jimmy Garoppolo, maybe Brady would have been somewhere else before, you know, before all that happened. So I understand the idea of wanting to play, like start and finish with one team.

Loyalty in sports is a very complicated, concepts. Like we throw that word out there, but it really only applies to the players in most cases. Very rarely do we feel like, you know, a team wasn't really loyal to a guy because in general, they have to make harder decisions and they have to look forward, whereas players are generally more in the moments and, you know, focus mostly on themselves and their career, even if they are in a team sport, especially the quarterback position. So the word loyalty is really harder to find when it comes, especially to professional sports. I understand wanting to play in one place and have a legacy like that, but I don't think it takes away from your legacy to play in more than one place.

I don't think it diminishes your challenge or says that you're not an all-time great or any of those things. I think Peyton Manning winning a Super Bowl in Denver, even though he wasn't at his best. Makes him greater. I think it makes him more impressive. He won, like LeBron winning in Miami and Cleveland, and if he won in Los Angeles, I think it's the only shot he has to surpass Michael is he wins a title in L.A. 2. then you start going to yourself, okay, Michael went to a second place in Wift. Well, you win everywhere you go.

So I think it does change how we view you as a winner. But also, to me, what's impressive about it, especially as you go into later in your career, for example, Peyton Manning or whatever's going to have him with Tom Brady, it is a tremendous task for young players to go into a new place and learn something. But when you're used to something for decades, it's very difficult to adjust to.

So finally, the Bears have an open quarterback competition between Mitch Chibisky and Nick Foles this summer. Head coach Matt Nagy made it clear that Chibisky will take the first snap whenever they can get on the field, but that he still needs to see them both play. Nagy said it's going to be very important in whatever time we're given for us to see it all play itself out. And because there's zero agendas in this thing, because there's complete honesty. It's very healthy. Credit to both of these guys, Mitch and Nick.

They're both really good people. Nick Foles has always been a very good quarterback when he has a good offensive mind. He was good with Andy. Andy saved his career. Andy Reid and he was very good with Doug Peterson. I'm interested to see Nick Foles with Matt Nagy. Well, he was with Matt Nagy when he was the offensive coordinator in Kansas City in 2016. And he said Folles relearning the playbook is like riding a bike.

So there is some familiarity there. I feel this has a lot of the Tennessee of last year feel to it where it's like you kind of know, you kind of see how the future of this is going to play out. But again, I don't really, I don't know that I believe, and this is not a discredit to them. I don't know if I buy it fully into the whole honesty thing. You don't really owe players full entire transparency. I do think you owe them honest conversations about, listen, this is a competition.

We are going to go with the best player. But you have to make decisions for the entire team and sometimes telling players too much too early can change the course of that. Finally, really quickly, the NFL sent a memo to all 32 teams Friday outlining the guidelines for reopening their facilities. So starting May 19th, clubs are allowed to open their facilities. If it is permitted by the state and local regulations,

no more than 50% of the staff, up to 75 people total, can be present at any time. The coaching staff is not allowed to return yet. Players are only allowed if they're receiving medical treatment or doing rehab work. And the NBA has opened some facilities as well. 16 have opened or will be opened by today for voluntary workouts. And that's the calves, blazers, nuggets, grizzlies, heat, magic. The Lakers and the Clippers have also opened as well.

Good stuff. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The herd line news. Well, I had him on, was it last week of the week before, and I said I wanted to get him on again. J.A. Adande is the director of sports journalism at Northwestern.

He is joining us via the Coward Global Satellite Network brought to you by Mercedes-Benz, the best or nothing. So, J.A. has the rare position of having covered the Bulls, a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun Times, and then having covered Kobe Bryant for the L.A. Times. I don't believe there's another journalist in America that was on that beat. So, JA is now joining us. So let's start with this, Jay A. This reports are Scotty Pippin feels wounded. I covered him of Portland. I thought he was talented, but at times moody and immature. I think it's

been fair. How has it landed for you with Scotty Pippin? I think it's been fair. It's been the ups and the downs. Their greatness of Scottie Pippin, the improbable rise from Hamburg, Arkansas, to one of the elite. basketball players in the history of the game. And yes, the moody moments, the tantrum, if you want to call it that, the 1.8 seconds, the migraine in game seven. But also, I think you got a sense for the heroics, the way he gutted through that game six in 1998 when his back was deteriorating on him, the way he played that season on a surgically rehabbed ankle, all the stuff that he was going through.

I thought it presented a good balance of Scotty Pippen. Maybe none of us would be happy if our flaws were presented on national television to six million people a week. You know, we wouldn't be happy with that. But I thought you saw the good and the bad of Scotty. Now, there is the mythology of Michael, six for six. Everybody says, oh, Michael goes, bring me back for a seventh title. And I'm like, J.A., there's a saying I was told years ago, always leave a party early, never leave it late. I think the bulls at the end, J.A., and you covered them.

they were old. I think at times they were offensively one-dimensional. Like, I think they left at the perfect time. The Spurs dynasty was starting up. You were covering, you know, I don't think they would have won the following year. Do you? They went ahead and I think they deserved the chance to fall or succeed on their own merits. I think the one argument in their favor was there really wasn't a great team ready to take it from them. You know, the spurs wound up having a long-term success. But at that point, Tim Duncan was in a second or third year in the league. So I'm not sure he would have been able

to stand up against the season experienced bulls. The Lakers were too young and experienced, even though they were very talented. There was really nobody in the East. And the jazz were starting to fall off. Obviously, they didn't make it back to the finals that next year. So it really would have been about whether the Bulls could have sustained. And that's the great unknown. We've seen how difficult it was for the warriors to, you know, you know, essentially try to win three in a row. If you say they were a few minutes from winning in 2017 or 2016, you know, they basically had a chance at three or four in a row.

But then you saw that fourth year, it all fell apart, right? With Durant going down and then Clay Thompson going down. So to ask that group to stay healthy for another year, to stay motivated for another year. We've been asking a lot. But I think they deserve the opportunity. And it would have been about them, not about the competition. You know, there's a lot of people that say Jerry Krause was unfairly blamed for stuff. Again, I think it lands pretty accurately.

I didn't cover the team, and I had heard so many Jerry Krause stories. I do think Phil Jackson comes off as so smart and so refined in this, balancing Rodman and Krause. Let's address Krauss. You covered the team. Now, you told me last time when you called Jerry, he called you back. Have we been a little harsh on Jeff? Jerry or, you know, Steve Kerser during the documentary, Jay, he said the guy couldn't get out of his own way. Like, where do you land on Krause? And like I think I told you, he didn't cultivate

any allies. He had no one on his side, no one to really tell his story in the media while he was the general manager of the Bulls. He was so distrustful of the media entirely that he didn't give himself a chance. He didn't find someone to help tell his side. And even Scottie comes around at the end of the documentary. It says you have to give him credit. I, I, I I think Jerry was wrongfully kept out of the Hall of Fame longer than he should have. He should have gone in before Jerry Reinsdorf went into the Hall of Fame. It went in in in the opposite order. And, you know, Reinsdorff should have had more blame.

And people always ask me, why did Reinsdorff keep Krause along? I think he kept him around because Kraus got all the blame. Reinsdorff sort of skated free. Reinsdorf also could play the good cop sometimes. But I think if you look at all the issues here, you know, it all has to go and start with the owner. right? And one of the great revelations out of this was the fact that Rinesdorpe called up Phil Jackson after it was done, say, hey, do you want to come back for another year? But by then, it was too late.

J.A. Adande, director of sports journalism at Northwestern, if you want to be a sports journalist, that's the place to go. It's a legendary reputation. And, you know, I saw Channing Fry said this weekend, he said, you know, modern players, they wouldn't want to play with MJ. And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, LeBron is not always perfect. Harry Irving said, no, thank you. Kevin loves a great player. He was sort of marginalized. Chris Bosch with LeBron. He's not, he's hard to play with if you're a big. What about that assertion that Michael's too rough around the edges for the modern player? You covered him. Did he have friends, the players tolerate him or like him?

I think it's more tolerated him. I think it's interesting. You see one of his lifelong friends is George Kohler, who appears in his documentary. That was a guy he met randomly at the when he first got to Chicago and he stayed tighter with him than he has with any of his teammates over the years. But I will say, I think it's hard for any teammates to stay friends. It's such an unnatural amount of time that you spend together on planes, on buses, in meeting rooms, in locker rooms, in the showers together. So you really don't see a lot of friendship sustained among teammates because I just think they need a break from each other after it's all said and done. One thing that's interesting, if you try to imagine Jordan in the modern game, obviously the closest thing

we had to him was Kobe. You didn't see free agents rushing to sign up with Kobe Bryant when they had space under the salary cap in the last few years of his career. So maybe that indicates that Jordan might have had a hard time attracting people to come play with him in the pre-agency area

that we've had the last 10 or 15 years compared to what it was in the 90s. Again, J.A. Adonda, you had such a unique experience covering MJ and Kobe. And I think Kobe's the closest stylistically we've ever seen to Michael. And there was some things I always thought Kobe had a little better range than Michael did as a shooter.

Michael had bigger hands. So he did a lot more stuff around the rim. Were there things covering both? One's got five titles, one, six. Was there anything Kobe was better than Michael at, having covered both? A better bad shot shooter. And if there was one second left, I would take Kobe to take the shot. If there's enough time, as we saw in that famous last shot in Utah,

If there's enough time for Michael Jordan to set himself up to create a shot, he's going to create a better shot and give himself a better chance of making that shot than Kobe. But if there's really no time to do anything other than get the ball and take a wild shot, I'm going to Kobe Bryant, the best last second shot maker, the guy I would take out of anybody. And you know what? I ran that premise by Phil Jackson one time, and he agreed with me. So don't take my word for it. Take Phil Jackson.

Well, I mean, I would argue Phil Mickelson in golf is a great tough shot maker. Tiger's the better golfer, but man, Phil, now Phil got himself into a lot of trouble, but Phil was a great tough shot maker. If you're in the bunker, if you need a flop shot, you'd go with Phil Mickelson. Right. If you want to win the tournament, you pick Tiger Woods. So I think that's an apt comparison. There's a poll out today that GM said KD could not play with Michael.

And I know, we're just guessing here. But you deal with a lot of young kids. Sometimes I think we marginalize. kids in their teens and 20s. And we don't realize they're tough, but they don't have to wear it as a badge like most of us in a different generation. My gut feeling is Kevin Durant likes winning. You know, when you hear this Kevin Durant, because you uniquely are around more young people

than any sports journalist or former sports journalist in America, what do you make about the assertion? No way Katie could play with MJ. Too tough on him. I think we have to look at Kevin Durant's track record of success. they were successful in Oklahoma City and he basically made that franchise after it moved from Seattle

and he was successful in Golden State coming in where he was the outsider and being able to adapt and know it didn't last. So maybe he wouldn't be able to thrive and survive long term with Michael Jordan, but I certainly think he could come in and adapt and have success. We've seen him in two places so far. I haven't had a chance to see him playing Brooklyn yet,

but the two places he's played, he's been successful in both, obviously more successful with Golden States. Was this good journalism to you, this documentary, or just great storytelling? Were you comfortable with a level of journalism? Great storytelling, first and foremost. And I never looked at it as an act of journalism from the fact that they needed Michael Jordan's approval to sign off on it for the footage to be aired in the first place. You know, you'd never go into reporting a story with that type of contingencies. But the storytelling and just, you know, as it went on, I think you

realize more and more that they weren't trying to tell the complete story that they didn't really have the means, even with 10 hours, to tell the entirety of the story. And there's a lot that they left out. Some of it little things, some of it big things. But, you know, they went with what was going to generate the most reactions. So you don't really hear about Sean Kemp in the 2000 or in the 1996 NBA finals, even though he played a big part in getting the Sonics back in that series. Why? Because the Jordan versus Peyton storyline was so compelling, the reactions, the video, the verbal back and forth between those two. So they went with that. They turned the 96

Binals into Peyton versus Jordan when it was more than that. But for the purposes of the story they were trying to tell, and the video that they had in their hands, that was the way to go. Great stuff. J.A. Adande, Director of Sports Journalism, Northwestern, the Medell School

of Journalism, Top in the Country. What a pleasure it's been to talk to you a couple of times. I'm going to have you, I'm going to call you out to have you join our class at some point coming up in the next few weeks. That's all I ask and return. I'm calling you out on a national show. Those kids can learn virtually nothing from me,

but you know you can call me. I'll go. Anytime you want me, you got me, bud. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Colin. All right, good stuff. Yeah, you know, it is funny. This kind of Durant can't play with MJ.

I'll address how young guys would have played with MJ next. It's 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 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. 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 in 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, 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. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game.

This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, rep, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you

get your podcast. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend, and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA.

Listen to the 1021 podcast on the I, Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. Good to have you in. So from this documentary, there's a lot of narratives that are starting. Some I agree with. Some I do not agree with. This is one of them. Channing Fry picks LeBron as the goat. Says modern players wouldn't want to play with Michael Jordan. I disagree with that. First of all, players like winning. Winning is basketball is a long season. If you ever notice this, baseball players always take the money. Football free agents always take the money. NBA stars don't. 70% of NBA stars, they want to win. I mean,

Kevin Durant hasn't always taken the most money. LeBron hasn't always taken the most money. Paul George didn't take it. Kauai. You look at these guys, if you stay with your team that drafts you, you make your most money. Players don't. NBA players are constantly willing to give up big chunks of lettuce because they want to win games, because they want to be on television. Because in May and June, when everybody watches the league, they want to be playing. And that's the second part. Michael Jordan today would be great.

And there was a glamour to Michael. Do you think Dennis Rodman gets the WAAE call if he's playing for the Spurs? Everybody on that team had a car dealer ad. or a clothing deal, or that was all part of the glamour of the franchise. I mean, listen, Phil Jackson was a great coach, but it literally got Phil Jackson the Laker job. He was offered every job. It got him a general manager job at some point to the New York Knicks,

just because of the sheen, just because of the glare off the franchise. And so this idea that all players care about is winning. they're really great players in this league care about legacy and care about winning. They would have wanted to play with Michael Jordan because he was a winner. And, you know, star players, people have compared Michael Jordan and Westbrook because of their intensity and their domination of the ball. But there's a reason guys get worn out from Westbrook. He doesn't win in the playoffs.

So you don't get your shots and you get crushed for not winning. With Michael, you don't get your shots. Sometimes with LeBron. you get marginalized. Chris Bosch goes sit in the corner, but you win a bunch of titles. And the reason Chris Bosch, everybody knows Chris Bosch,

is because he played for the Miami Heat, and he played with LeBron James. Otherwise, he would have stayed in Toronto, been a nice player, fairly forgettable. But he went to Miami and Chris Bosch, in sports, is a household name. That's why networks would lead to have him as an analyst. It's why, you know, it's why on social media.

A lot of people follow him. That is the glamour, cool, you know, most dynasties are not, you think they're all fascinating. Tiger Woods was fascinating. I don't think New England's been captivating. I really don't.

I am boring, so I like New England. I thought San Antonio's dynasty was boring. I think Alabama's is mostly boring. I think New England's is, unless you're a diehard, kind of boring. I think the Miami Hurricanes was wild fun. I think Tiger Woods was a lot of wild fun. I think the heatles were a lot of fun.

Shack Kobe was fun. Most L.A. teams were a lot of fun. But they're not all. That Chicago team, and I don't use this word in sports a lot, was glamorous. I mean, they were stylish, they were cool, they were good looking, they were smart, they were cutthroat. I mean, even in Utah, 98, after they won, they were doing the award ceremony. And people in Utah, small town are like, yeah, all right, this is pretty cool, is it? You know, I mean, like, you just had to acknowledge, I'd never, I covered Michael Jordan with the Wizards.

He was still a great player, but just Michael and a bad team did not have the pulse. I don't give you an example. And I've talked to NBA players about this. Guy, you could ask Steve Curtis, when you played on the Chicago Bulls, here's the advantage Michael gave players. So every Bulls game, there are a lot of games in the NBA that don't matter. But because Michael was so big, Every home game for the Bulls, my wife lived in Chicago, got some good seats occasionally. She said every game was like the Super Bowl.

Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon. Bulls games for six years were like Super Bowls at home. Then on the road, similarly they were. And so that kind of pressure that Michael created, the world's watching, it elevated players. Players played harder more often. Very few mail-in games with Michael Jordan. The crowd was full, the stadium jammed, the lights were on, the game was on TV, Michael was riding your new, you know what, Phil was riding you. So, you know, the idea that players, listen, we had Kobe.

He won five titles. He could wear people out. Palgassol liked him. Shack wore him out. But there's a lot of Lakers that got along with Kobe. It wasn't all bad. Coming up top of the hour where Colin was right, where Colin was wrong, and the great legendary Jerry West is joining us. around the corner. We're apart these days. Often, we're sharing more and Geico sharing more too.

It's called the Geico Give Back, 15% off car and motorcycle policies. New customers, old customers, it lasts your entire term. Geico.com slash giveback. Geico.com slash give back. 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 blow. A Blondeer. phone 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 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. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsClace on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in 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 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. What's up, guys? This is Clever-Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee.

We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Come on out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, rec, my mama want you to wave at her. What?

Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend, and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest

storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Live in Los Angeles Hour 2. This is The Heard. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Colin right, calling wrong in 90 seconds.

Joy Taylor just told me she's going to write a book. Should I have given that out? I'm thinking about it. Well, that's the first step. Yeah, well, so I put on Instagram, I got, I have your book, both of your books, um, Skips book on the Cowboys. Ernestine's book.

Which is actually funny. Which is a great book. And Marcellus's book. So I'm doing some research. I also just got Pat Riley's book. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard.

Well, yeah. I mean, you know, anything worth doing is takes time and effort. Yeah, but compared to like what we do now, this is way easier. I'm not imagining it's going to be easy, but it's writing a book is going to be a little more. It's unbelievably rewarding. Well, I remember the first book I wrote. I saw The New York Times. I was number six on the New York Times.

best-settlest. My wife started crying, and I was, I passed out. I think I was just like, what? I thought, that's not possible. So it's an incredibly rewarding experience, but man, it's a lot of work. So it's great to have you in. We do right, wrong, if you've never listened to the show before. On Monday, I make mistakes. You know, and I admit him now, in 15 minutes from now, or a little bit less, Jerry West is going to stop by. And the first NBA game I ever watched in my life was in on my bunk band as a kid in 1972. Jerry West, Gail Goodrich, Wilt Chamberlain had the headband.

Wilt was really old. And so it's always, I get Jerry about once a year. Jerry's one of those rare guys, older generation, but young players respect him so much. Like that doesn't happen usually. Like people just grow out of something.

Young players still today like respect Jerry. And that's very, very rare. All right, ready to go now? Colin Wright, we're not. ready to go. What's going on? Our computers froze? I don't necessarily need right wrong. I don't know. Colin was right. Do we have any? Can they play sound in the back, actually? Can they play sound in the back? Okay, we're good. All right. Here we go. Colin right. Colin right. Aaron Rogers had his press conference Friday. It was what we

what we guessed, he was authentic, he was honest, he addressed the tough questions, here was one of his bites going right after the Jordan Love situation, which everybody was waiting for. You know, the general reaction at first was surprised, I think like many people, you know, obviously I'm not going to say that I was, you know, thrilled by the pick necessarily, but I understand he didn't get asked to be drafted by the package. He's not to blame at all. You know, he's just coming in excited about it.

opportunity. We had a great conversation the day after the draft, and I'm excited to work with him. He addressed everything the way he should. He was honest. He didn't duck anything. We predicted it. We thought he was smart and he would handle it well. He did. Now where Colin was wrong, where Colin was wrong. He continues to predict something that I don't think's going to happen. Here it is. The goal is obviously to play in my 40s. That's kind of what I've been talking about for the last few years. But, you know, I know the key for that is my physical body, and that's what I focus on. That's really my motivation is to give myself physically the opportunity to play as long as I want to play, and that's going to be my continued motivation.

I've never seen him as a guy that's going to play in his 40s. I don't think he's defined by football. He's got a lot of interests, music to finance the travel. I've never seen him as a guy that's going to play forever, but he keeps bringing it back, so I'm wrong on that. Where Colin was right? Once again, the New Orleans Saints had to play baseball. victim last week. This has become their de facto personality. Nobody likes us, the world's picking on us when a story came out that James Harrison was once handed an envelope by Mike Tomlin, which Mike Tomlin and the Steelers denied. Sean Payton came out to say, well, I doubt they'll say anything. Nobody's picking on the Saints. The league caught them red-handed on Bounty Gate. Yes, other teams may have had bounties, but they weren't caught. You're robber. a bank, there's not going to be equal punishment. Some get away with it and some don't. But if you

get caught, you're going to get whacked. And there's a reason Sean Payton got whacked. They had a bounty. Nobody's picking on the Saints. Peyton's likable. Drew Breeze is likable. They're one of the more post-Katrina. There's a sense of resilience to the city, the American spirit. This idea, the league is picking on it. The league last year created an instant replay on pass interference to make sure they didn't have their feelings hurt. They already got rid of it because it was so dopey and corny. Where Colin was wrong. ESPN to the poll, Michael or Jordan or LeBron, who's better?

I'm not surprised that Michael won the poll. I am surprised that 18 to 34-year-olds, 66% preferred Michael Jordan. I always figured younger fans equaled LeBron fans. clearly those old YouTube videos work. I do think the documentary has been jet fuel for Michael Jordan's brand. I bet his shoe sales go up even higher. He already is worth $3.1 billion a year annually for Nike sales, which is about 8 to 9% of the overall sales for Nike.

But young people prefer MJ2 over LeBron. Where Colin was right? Well, SEC football, our prediction. My one sports prediction is going to be the SEC is going to play football. I don't know about the NBA baseball that I know. Well, the SEC is already saying publicly, listen, if all of our teams can't play, then we can just have Bama and Auburn play two times.

They're not getting in the way of it. They have conservative governors in the South. The University of Florida is already offering their facilities to pro teams, to come on down and play in Gainesville. Listen, the branding of the SEC, you've seen the commercials, it matters more. And it does. And when this virus hit, and as it's gone on and on and on,

the people who are willing to take a few risks on from the media and Twitter are the ones succeeding now, and the SEC has made no bones about it. We're playing regardless of every southern team can play. Where Colin was wrong. I was starting to feel, pretty pessimistic about the NBA returning, but Adam Silver surprised

me last week. He's very pro player. David Stern was too. But Silver came out last week and with real urgency and acknowledged, we are not built for a multi-year pandemic. This will change the salary

cap and revenues for decades. It was a call for urgency. It was a call to the biggest stars. Silver said, Somebody gets the virus. We can't break it down and stop the league. It was a real shift in tenor by Adam Silver, one I think is necessary and one that surprised me.

Where Colin was right? James Hardin's annoying. Nobody likes him. So last week, the NBA got all their big stars on the phone, including Kauai Leonard, who doesn't talk. And they got the Rockets number two player, Russell Westbrook, on the phone, noticeably missing James Harden, whose game is annoying, not considered a team. team guy, so, so on the defensive end, a solo act. I think his legacy, he'll have a lot of street cred, and he will be one of the all-time

scoring greats. But I've come around on Hardin. I like him more now than I used to because I think he's worked on being at least a indifferent teammate, if not a great one. But I don't think this is random. I mean, there are just certain players other players don't like. A lot of guys didn't like Isaiah Thomas. It wasn't just MJ.

A lot of players don't like Hardin. where Colin was wrong. Yet another quarterback expert loves Jarrett Stidham, New England's heir apparent to Tom Brady. Cliff Kingsbury came out last week and talked about how he recruited him, how amazing is him. He is. Listen, I watched him playing college.

He had 18 touchdown passes for Auburn. Auburn's got pro receivers and backs. He got drafted in the fourth round. Nobody was outraged by it. Size, meh. Athletic ability. meh, you're watching the tape, is it blow you away? Belichick, for the record, was willing to get rid of Tom Brady

after he won the Super Bowl against Atlanta for Garoppolo. Belichick this year wanted Brady back. An older Brady, a less effective Brady. Belichick watched every practice. If Stead him so good, why did Belichick want Brady back? I don't get it. Where Colin was right. By the way, you know I'm not a fan of Cam Newton.

and people make a lot of excuses why they don't get Cam Newton. And I've always said it's drama. I've been told for years he's distracted and there's a lot of drama. Anthony Lynn, when discussing why they didn't get Cam, is trying to sell me on this, quote, I really feel good about Tyrod Taylor and Easton Stick. Nobody talks about Easton Stick. He won three national championships at one AA.

He's a hell of a leader. hell of a professional. He's going to be a great player one day. Time out. You're trying to sell me on Easton Stick over Cam Newton? Come on. Tyrod Taylor, I get. This just proves people just didn't want Cam.

When you're arguing Easton Stick is making the quarterback room complete. What you're telling me is you don't want any part of Cam, too much drama, too many distractions. and I got nothing against Easton Stick. But you can't sell me on that. You want to sell me on other guys. You like your Sam Darnold. You know, you want to sell me on you like you Derek Carr. I get it.

You like Kirk Cousins. I get it. Easton Stick. He's a hell of a leader. Come on now. Come on now. He just didn't want Cam. You don't want the baggage of Cam and the drama of Cam.

I get it. All right. Jerry West is around the corner. Don't go anywhere. Hall of Famer, Clippers consultants, and one of the smartest guys the league has ever had. I feel like a little bit. He was a better player than Steve Kerr,

but he's got this Steve Kerr ability that everything Jerry West has done, he's succeeded at, and he'll join us 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 IHeard Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, 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 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 answers. 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 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, 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, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the 4th.

And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up To me, he goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out.

Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, ref, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. We've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast.

I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, fans, NASCAR is back tomorrow night. It's Xfinity Series racing with the 2. Toyota 200 presented by Geico.

Then Wednesday night, we finish up at Darlington with the Toyota 500 presented by Geico, live in primetime and only on FS1. And Sunday, we're back on Fox for the Coca-Cola 600, live from Charlotte. Race was up 38% pre-virus race. So the television ratings for sports, so often sports gets marginalized for its value. Nobody is insinuating that it's as important as a federal policy from the White. house. But I think you're seeing that sports connects us, small towns, mid-sized towns, and large cities. And there's an ability with sports to move us emotionally. And I was yesterday

fishing around, played some tennis outside, came in and just, by the way, certain sports don't need fans. Like UFC, I can watch without fans. The soccer in Germany, I like fans. No fans was rough. Well, that's such a huge part of the, like, culture and energy of the sport, especially in soccer. Yeah, especially German soccer. Like, they have legendary fans. And so I found NASCAR, I thought it was moving. You know, I thought you could, you could, it worked.

Like NASCAR worked. I think UFC worked. I think tennis works. I think golf works. I will tell you, my understanding is in football, this. network and other networks are going to have fans, CGI it, and they're going to have like crowd noise pumped

in if there's no fans. And I've got to be honest with you. I have no problem with that. This is all temporary. Just make it work. Everyone has to make adjustments to this new reality for the time being. This is not going to be forever. We'll find ways to tweak it and make it happen. Obviously,

you want fans there. That's the goal that everyone wants, but we've got to be safe. Jerry West, right around the corner. Let's go to Joy, Taylor, with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So the charges were a rumored landing spot for Cam Newton at one point, but ultimately they passed.

And head coach Anthony Lynn said during the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio that they didn't sign Cam because they were comfortable with the quarterbacks they already had. I was going to be on somebody's roster. He's going to help somebody win a few games. But, yeah, we did take a look at that for sure. I feel really good about the quarterback room that I have. You know, Tyrod Taylor, Easton Stick, who's the guy that a lot of people don't talk about. But, you know, he's, I think, Division I won, AA. He won like three national championships.

With him, Tyrae Taylor, and knowing that we had an opportunity to get one, picking six in the draft, all those decisions came into play when we were talking about camp. So essentially they chose Easton Stick, who's never taken a meaningful NFL snap, and Justin Herbert, who's never taken an NFL snap over Cam? Because if they would have chosen Cam, you'd keep Tyrod as a backup. So what they're basically saying is we took Justin Herbert and Easton Stick over Cam. Well, yeah, I mean, the Eastern Stick thing, I don't, I don't, I think he's just being nice there. Okay.

That was a quarterback room thing that, you know, was necessary to mention because obviously Easton's probably not going to see the field. But if you look at, if you're evaluating what they, the moves that they made, then this does make sense. because why would you bring in Cam Newton if you have Tyraud Taylor and you're planning on drafting Justin Herbert? So they obviously planned on taking two or Justin Herbert, whoever was available at that spot, the sixth spot in the draft. So it doesn't make sense to bring in Cam Newton and Tyrod Taylor, right? I mean, that's a packed quarterback room to have Justin Herbert who you obviously took at that spot to be the future of your franchise.

Tyraud Taylor, who's already been in your system, you already have a relationship with, he's a veteran that you're comfortable with there. It doesn't make sense to bring in Cam Newn. Because Cam is going to be in front of Tyrod. What it tells you is if there was an injured Lamar on the market or Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson or Wenz, you would take them over those guys. Cam's just overvalued by the media and undervalued by coaches.

Yeah. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I'm a fan of Cam Newton. So I lean towards Cam still having a lot of football left in him and being a franchise quarterback. But again, the market has to be. available.

Like, two things can be true. He can still be a franchise quarterback, and there be no place for him as that, in that position right now in the league. But if he was as good as people said, you would make a position. Like, you'd be like, okay, we've got to have him. You would. Like, for example, if it was like Jacksonville, right? Like, you like Gardner Minshu, but Cam Newton is better than Gardner Minshu.

But you're planning for the future in Jacksonville. That one I get. That's a different situation. If you bring in Cam, you're going to be just good enough not to get the quarterback that you want for the future. if you don't want to build around Cam Newton, that makes sense. So, yeah, again, I think that the market sort of dictates what's going to happen with Cam. That's why I think that it's, I'm glad that he's open to taking a backup position

because it would be a good situation for him if that works out. So Devin McCordy wasn't thinking too much about Tom Brady's free agency decision this offseason because he was a free agent himself, but now that he's back in New England and is happy that Brady ended up doing what's best for him. He said, I honestly didn't think twice about Tom Brady's free agency because I was a free agent. That was my main concern. When he made a decision to me, it wasn't like.

like it was the end of the world. That's what our league is about. That's what players before us have fought for, be a free agent in shoes. I was happy for him if he did what makes him happy. Still kind of the same. I mean, not that he's going to come out and be like,

yeah, we're going to be awful and, you know. It's not the end of the world, but it's not great. It's not great. And it's, I mean, I guess I kind of tend to believe

that nobody wants to say anything. And I get a player not saying anything, of course, but it's almost like it's sacrilegious to just, question what's happening in New England. Like it's against the rules or something. Like, it's disrespectful. I don't know what Jared Sidham is and he might be amazing.

I don't feel great about it. I think that's okay to say. I don't know why it's such a big deal. So Channing Fry is the latest player to give his opinion on the Jordan versus LeBron debate. He picked LeBron as the goats and argue that players nowadays would not want to be on the same team as MJ. Oh, boy. He only have really one job.

And that was to just score. and he did that at an amazing, amazing reign. But I don't feel like his way of winning then would translate to what it is now. Guys we wouldn't want to play with him. Yeah, I disagree. I don't know. I bristle at that. I think guys, I think NBA players in my lifetime, they like to win.

Well, I certainly would not. I would describe Michael Jordan as a scorer, but to say that he only scored. Oh, God, he's a great defensive player. He was a nine-time. Yes. NBA, all defensive. team selection, defensive player of the year. He was terrific defender.

He was as good on the defensive end as he was on the offensive end, and many consider him to be the best offensive player of all time. And you just said he was the greatest scorer of all time. So, I mean, that part aside you can argue that to the end of the day. But the real point is that players wouldn't want to play with Michael, right? There's a lot that goes

into that. Maybe Michael's personality is different than the culture of today. But I don't think that you can move those things around. Like, If Michael was playing today with the mentality that he had, he would have also have grown up today. So he would think and view the world differently. Teams have different personalities. Will Chamberlain was a little flakier.

He played with Jerry West, who had great leadership qualities. They were different people. I mean, I think NBA, I grew up with Spencer Haywood. I mean, I'm going way back. He was his own guy. He was an independent guy. I'm a Seattle fan. We had Gus Williams.

He basically left the NBA. One of the great players that nobody ever talks about. The NBA's always had unique personalities. Tough guys, fun guys, lax guys, chill guys, intense guys. I think we're marginalizing. I think all guys want to be winners. I think they all want to be winners. And I think that each decade, I guess, each era had a different culture and energy to it.

That I don't think that you can just swap. Like, yeah, I don't think that there's players, a lot of players today would not be able to make it in MJ's MBA. You can't just switch those areas like that. Good stuff. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lie News. Well, Jerry West, his resume, it looks like Michael Jordans, as a player and as an executive,

Jerry is one of the seminal figures in NBA history. He's a humble guy, so he doesn't probably want to talk about that. But I am interested in his perspective on the documentary and all things NBA. And so Jerry West is joining me now live via the Coward Global Satellite Network. So I watched Jerry. I watched this documentary and I loved every second of it. I was fascinated by it. I love NBA history.

I was a kid who collected basketball cards, not baseball cards. Did you learn anything, Jerry, from it? Or did you just enjoy the walk-down memory lane? Well, Colin, I was obviously know a awful lot about what went on then at that point in time. And I think the biggest thing that I got from it is that this was, like the ultimately driven athlete who had enormous skills, okay, enormous. When you watch his physical ability, even at that point in time, I'm not sure we've seen an athlete like him in this league ever,

but combine that with the skill level, the intensity level, but more importantly, he had enormous belief in himself. And I don't care how great you are. sometimes when you lose games that are really important for you, you have a question in your mind. I don't think Michael in his life has ever had a question in his mind about whether or not he was going to succeed before. And I don't think I've seen another athlete like him in my life.

You know, Jerry, Scotty Pippen, some have said it's been unfair. You played with Elgin Baylor and Wilt. You were a leader. But it's tough being sometimes a leader because you have to include people. and everybody's got a different personality. Do we undervalue Scotty Pippen's ability to be Robin to Batman? Is that, you know, having been in a role where you were the guy and played with other stars, can that be difficult?

Well, you know what? No. I think it really depends on the person, okay, and particularly their personality. You know, after watching this, the one thing that I communicated today with Lawrence Frank, We've been watching the thing, and he's in New Jersey. Obviously, we're separated. We work together with the Clippers now. And one of the things that, you know, I just want to bring up something in my career,

and I don't want to talk about myself, but we run NBA finals nine times, nine times, and we won once. And Michael had said something that I think is really, really compelling to me. He said winning has a price and it does have a price. And that price for me has been completely the opposite of that great feeling that he has. You go through the summers, you worry about some of the things that are, that you have no control over. And yet you look to your impact. You think you have an impact on a game and you lose.

For me, it's all my life. Sometimes I felt like a loser and I had a pretty, pretty amazing career for someone during my era. And we all take it differently. And we can be competitive, we can be quiet, we can be a lot of different ways with our personalities. But his personality, you watch it. He's one of my favorite people that I've ever been around my life. I know Michael, I've been around him. I've enjoyed some really fun times with him

that documentary when you see him interacting with the players a lot of it he was kidding something he was not some of he was not and I think you have to have a certain kind of personality to do what he did with his life but this is one of the

he's a man's man trust me a man's man I love being around him he doesn't change I wonder if we had all of social media today, would he be someone to get on there and extoll his virtues? I don't know. I don't think he would have. His play, his play dictated who he really was. And a remarkable player, as I say, I love to be around him. He's just a great guy. You know, Jerry, you are, boy, there's just, I'm not sure there's anybody better at judging talent. And it's very difficult.

you traded for Kobe Bryant, a high school player on draft day, Jerry. And that was a real gamble. When you watched Kobe, now years later, all of us said, oh, he looks a little like Michael. But when you traded for Kobe, was part of it you saying, I see Michael, or did that develop for you as an executive? No, I just saw an extraordinary, gifted player. see there's other factors leading into it. We were trying to acquire Shaquille O'Neal, which we were lucky enough to get. And we tried to like crazy to trade him, but I thought he really was the best player in the

draft. I saw him perform in workouts, a lot of film on him in high school, but he was a uniquely gifted athlete, okay? But the other thing, I think the things that he had that maybe were somewhat like Michael was his fierce desire to be the best. And if you watch that documentary, okay, and when they won, I would guarantee you the last image that I remembered last night, Michael Jordan was standing on a table, exulting the fans and trying to get everyone involved.

And if you look, you see Kobe Bryant doing the very same thing. He loved Michael Jordan. He emulated Michael Jordan, and he was very much kind of the same personality as Michael Jordan, but he was not Michael Jordan. He was Kobe Bryant, and his thirst and desire to gain information to get better was almost like Michael Jordan was his hero, and he was going to go everything he could to have the same success. but more importantly, not let anyone to outwork him. Jerry West joining us. Jerry, sometimes we romanticize the past and we ignore how great people are now. I think the skill level of NBA players is absolutely remarkable, ball handling, shooting.

I think it's unbelievable. But there is something about Michael's era and your era, which I grew up on. First NBA game I saw was you and Gail Goodrich and wilt with a headband. And I can remember being in my bunk bed as a kid. there is something about the older times, Jerry, where there was less money, guys were fighting for a small piece of the pie. It was a more physical league. I understand people liking the old days better. We tend to go, this is better, that is better.

Do you compare the two eras, Jerry? What do you like about Michael's era and what do you like about today's players in era? Well, Michael's era, Michael started this era, okay, to be honest with you. He was, you know, you look at players and the way the rules have changed. You know, at one time, Colin, you, players that were really good had to work in the summer to support their families. With the enormity of the money, the enormity of the equipment, the teaching ability, the facilities, the training. The players today have such an advantage. It's a joke, okay?

they can really, if they're willing to work hard enough and they want to be something special, we see an incredible amount of great, great athletes. But in watching them, they get to a certain point and you see that they improve some because naturally the experience and playing against great players, but these truly really great ones come back with something different every year. I see people rating players of all different areas. And I see players that are ranked like 24, 25th and stuff like that, all-time great players.

They made the all-pro team one time, one time. And to me, you're not a top 25 player unless you've made it a minimum of five, a minimum. And this guy here is, and I'm talking about Michael, I'm talking about Kobe Bryant, they have a long, illustrious careers, and Michael could have continued to play. But I'm not so sure that the enormous pressure on him, and if you watched him go anywhere, he was like the pipe-piper. You could not keep people away from him. He just had that incredible charisma.

But when he played, every night he played, he was not going to take a night off. And they see that kind of harsh side with him. interacting of the other players. The other side is what, the death of his father, oh my goodness, how that affected him, how much he admired him, how much he depended upon him. And then the thing that no one ever considers are the people that would be considered menial but work for organization that players get attracted to and his security guard, the gentleman who had lung cancer and passed away.

For a player of Michael Stature, who has seemingly is just so obsessed with his family, his career, to go out of his way, to go visit this gentleman, it really tells you who he is. As I say, I love Michael Jordan. I absolutely love Michael Jordan. He's the best athlete I've ever seen in basketball. People are going to make comparisons. But I wonder today, with the rules having changed today, you can't hand check, you can't touch anyone, you can walk all over the place, you can carry the basketball all over the

place. And this is the evolution of the game. If he could have added that to his game, my goodness, what would we see today? Yeah. You know, Jerry, it's interesting. again, generationally, I remember this well. As I watched the documentary, I saw Dennis Rodman. Dennis is terrific, but was his own spirit.

Well, you inherited Wilk Chamberlain, who was a very, very, wilt today with social media, Lord. And I want to talk about that. Michael was able to harness Dennis' uniqueness, and it worked, although it could be distracting. You did the exact same thing with Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry. You were very mature and very focused.

If you'd like to talk about Wilt and Rodman, but I think that's, we don't look at Rodman. I thought Michael made Rodman work and let him be Rodman. And I don't think that's easy if you could talk about that. Well, you know, obviously Dennis Rodman is a great player. And I really liked Dennis personally. He was with us in Los Angeles for a short period of time. I didn't work out there.

He was really troubled during that period of time. But I think Phil Jackson should get an enormous amount of credit for being able to handle him. But I think along with Michael, and I think Dennis, if he respects you, he's going to do anything for it. He really is. But I think the respect he had for Michael because no one was going to outwork Michael, but Dennis Rodman's work ethic, his basketball in-state. his basketball intelligence was off the chart. But Phil Jackson did a great job, even in Los Angeles,

when you had two distinctly different personality, Kobe Bryant and also Shaquille O'Neill. The way Phil handled that, I'm sure that any coach, any coach that had Dennis Rogman, if he would leave to go to, he needed to have a vacation, in the middle of season. I've never seen anything like that.

And then to watch him, I think the funniest thing, because to go to the WWW, the World Rastling Association or whatever it was at that point in time, and no one knew where he was, I think the way Phil handled that was absolutely

unbelievable. And the team, because they knew of his importance, on their team, that Michael would, I never saw him say anything to Dennis Rodman on this broadcast. He accepted Dennis for who he was. Yes. And how important if he was for winning. Yep, that's well put. Hey, by the way, finally, I have said, Joy and I have said, I think the Clippers are built

doing a championship. I don't worry too much about seating. I think your team has enough veterans and coaching to overcome having to play some games on the road. we got a couple minutes left. How much fun has it been for you? It's a unique roster of young, old, veterans, new kids. It's a fascinating culture you have developed there. And I have to imagine this really lands well for you because it's not been easy.

You've got another big brand in town, which you help create. If you could talk about the growth of the clippers and what it's meant for you. Well, I think an awful lot of Colin, as you're well aware, is that, You know, Jerry Krauss mentioned organizations win championships. That's not true, okay? It is not true. Players win championships. But it's up to the people internally to go get those players.

And if you can't do that, and if you don't have the right support group around you, you can't do it. You have to have smart people. You have to have real committed people. Steve Bomber, there's never been a better owner. I work with Jerry Buss, very much like him, a man of the people. Michael Heisley, who I work for in Memphis, an unbelievable guy. But we do have a very capable team. The age group of this team is incredible.

And this could be a dominant defensive team with the work of Lawrence Frank, our staff, Michael Winger. Steve has allowed them to bring in players that others would not want to pay. and we feel very fortunate that we have a team that can be really competitive, but it's kind of, you know, you get up to the top of the mountain and you want to go down the other side of the mountain. As the season was wearing along, you could see all these teams. There weren't that many games left to the regular season,

and we just got on top of the mountain, and we were going to go down the easy side of the mountain, not the hard part. Every team in the league faces that. But this team was getting better and better and better. And our coaching staff was very positive about this team. And that, that to me says a lot. But I think it would be great if we could have a series, if we're going to have a season, if we can have a series, the Lakers and the Clippers, that would really be fun for me.

But more importantly, with everyone looking for competition, I mean, it's sad. I mean, I look for anything to watch this competition. I can't find anything because there's no people there. There's something about having a crowd there. Can you imagine if we'd have a Western Conference Championship with the Lakers and the Clippers, the two teams and the finals? Can you imagine what the ratings would be like that series? It would do wonders for the people who are just roping for things to try to find this competitive.

I mean, you can get on the air and talk about all you want to, but people are just creating stories today, creating content that has little or no interest to what America is about. That's about competition. And I think it would be fun, as I say, the Lakers were my life, okay? They were my life. And they're no longer part of my life. And as I say, I'm thrilled that someone like Steve Baumer thought I could help a little bit.

He's a great owner. More importantly, he's a great guy. And I'm lucky at this point in my life to be able to hopefully finish my career with the Clippers. I'm not going anywhere else, but I would love to see the Clippers get into the finals and win the NBA championship and see what would happen in Los Angeles. I think it would be a lot of fun.

Jerry, you look fantastic. I love hearing you and seeing you, and I'm so thankful you stopped by our show on a Monday. Congrats on all your success going forward, Jerry. Thank you so much. Colin, great to spend time with it. Let's have some basketball, please. Please.

I need some basketball. I need Clippers, Lakers. That'd be pretty good, right? Buck Celtics, Lakers, West. Good stuff. Jerry West. All right, we got to take a break. That went a long time and it was a lot of fun. Back in a second, The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHard 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 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 beaders 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 SportsSlic on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in 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 or 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, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hardway,

and listen now. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the 4th. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff, like being an internet

famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me, he goes, Hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out.

Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Wreck, my mama want you to wave at her. What? Where's she at? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know, there's a lot to break down. Orsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with the mayor, men. They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. I like the boogie style of Housewives show. I think it looks like it's going to be interesting. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances, and the team

everybody's talking about. As an executive producer in reality television, I'm not just watching it. I understand the game. As somebody who creates shows, I'll even say this. At the end of the day, when people are at home, they want entertainment. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The online savings account from Marcus by Goldman Sachs, a high yield account, no fees, money actually grows. Please learn more, Marcus.com, online calculator compares rates, Goldman Sachs Bank, USA member FDIC. Jerry West, a good 30 minutes of Jerry West talking any time I'll take it.

Doug Gottlieb stops by on our final hour of our show, J.A. Adonde earlier. Obviously, the last dance has been five Sundays, 10 episodes of, to me, just riveting television. I think there's some journalism in there, but I think documentaries are mostly about storytelling. They're not a newspaper. It's about storytelling. You have to make choices. You know, it's like the way I look at a documentary is there's some, You know, okay, we've got video of this.

Okay, we can tell that story. We don't have video of this. It's a harder story to tell. It is a visual enterprise. And so the video they have, they move in that direction. They talked enough about Michael's gambling to me, which I always thought was absolute nonsense. They talked about the Steve Kerr incident.

I thought the Steve Kerr segment last night on his father being assassinated in Beirut was unbelievably powerful. You know, Steve Kerr and Michael on that team have been great leaders beyond that in business or in basketball. They also both had really formidable upbringings, parentally. They had great leaders in their life. Michael had Dean Smith at Carolina. Steve Kerr had Lute, Olson, at Arizona. We ask a lot of our athletes to be great leaders.

You need examples, and I think they both had them. I will say this when I watched that the thing, remember is everybody says they should have kept playing and playing. The 96 Bulls team had 72 wins and the next year they came back, they had 69, and then the 98 team

had 62, and they were getting older. So it was a struggle offensively. Rodman wasn't a score. Scotty was a slasher, not a score. Kerr and Paxon were limited scores. So when I watched it, Joy,

the whole thing made me happy. I'm not a memory lane guy. I like to live in the moment. I'm not a rearview mirror guy. I'm a windshield guy, but I loved it. Yeah, I felt like I tweeted this yesterday, it kind of felt really poetic and perfect for this moment where we have no competition.

As Jerry West just said, there's no competition. We're looking for competition. We're all experiencing this together and getting to go through the process. If this had come out when it was supposed to during the finals and we're watching the finals, I don't think we all would have experienced it the same way. I think we would have still loved it and enjoyed it, we're all like deep diving in on the greatest dynasty in sports together and being able to discuss it.

And there's so many emotional moments that we don't, we're not going to talk about. Like we're not going to bring up the bulls and be like, oh yeah, you know, Steve's father or Michael Jordan's father or any of the emotional things that went on with it. So yeah, it's, it's, when I got done watching it, I felt like full, you know? Like, I have you have chicken noodle soup. Like, that was good. That was happiness. Yeah.

That's kind of how I feel with it. Like I think Michael's tough, but I don't, you know, he went golfing with a lot of guys, so they had to like him a little. He played cards with a lot of them. Well, it's like he's a man's man, like how he was talking to Larry Bird. Like, not everybody communicates that way, obviously, but, you know, you and I have had this conversation before. I talked to some of my girlfriends abrasively.

Like, when you're close to people, you're more open with them. Like, you're more yourself. You're loose. Yeah. Michael's a man's man. Yeah. There's not a lot of, I don't think he'd be a big social. media guy. I just, hey, listen, Charles

Barclay isn't. A lot of the old school guys, like they're just not interested in that at all. They want to be, like Warren Beatty once said to Madonna during a movie. Does every part of your life have to be public? Can't you just go home and be private? I think Michael's a very private guy. All right, hour three, live in LA,

coming up, The Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd, Weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Oh, here we go. It is a Monday. A little damp outside. It's hour three and we're live in Los Angeles. This is The Hurt. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening. IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Got any of the haircut again.

Better find a barber. I'm playing tennis all week though. That's the good news, Joy. I got a little activity in my life. I'd be very excited about that. You love tennis. Love tennis. By the way, imagine picking up your smartphone, your app, controlling your grill remotely. That's what you do. Do what I did. got a rec tech grill. They're absolutely amazing. RecTechgrills.com. That's REC, TEC, Gills with an S.com.

App. Control it. Start it. Turn it off. Right there. Make those pork chops as you're driving home. It's great to have you and Doug Gottlieb in 15 minutes.

Okay. The M.J. Doc, the last dance, has been a, as Joy put, it's a filling. It's been a great distraction during this time for many people, including Joy and I, and last night it wrapped with the final two great episodes.

I can't think of anybody in sports outside of Tiger Woods. I'd probably watch a 10-part documentary. He's had enough controversy and greatness, and there's a combination of stuff. What made Jordan so fascinating is there was controversy. He was fighting his GM. There was the Rodman Factor.

Not all great teams are fascinating. I'm not sure I could watch 30 minutes of a one-part document. on the Tim Duncan Spurs. I'm not sure I could get through it. I don't want to watch a documentary on Alabama football. They're just great. They're not fascinating.

I could watch a five-fart documentary in the Miami Hurricanes or Pete Carroll's Trojans. Not all documentaries are fascinating. Michaels was. One of the takeaways and one of the things that's frustrating for fans, and I've always had this belief, leave a party too early than late. Nothing but more cocktails and more donuts. some comments in trouble the later you stay at a party. Come late, leave early, make an appearance, have some fun, shake some hands, leave early.

You don't want to be the last guy around the keg, okay? You don't. And to me, the Bulls left at the perfect time, 98. Now, there's a lot of people, Michael Jordan at the end, saying, I wish we could have come back for one more. No, no, no, no, no. This is perfect. It adds to the mythology.

One of the cool things about Michael Jordan's legend, there's a lot of what-if with it. Not with Bird, not with Magic, not with LeBron and Cleveland. It's kind of pathetic. It unravels. It is time. But there's a lot of what-if with Jordan.

Ooh, six for six, but what if he didn't play baseball? Ooh. He could have got eight for eight. What if Jerry Krause didn't break him up? Ooh, ooh. Michael and the Bulls left the party just a little early. And it adds to his shoe sales and mythology. The following year, Pippin was not going to stay

because Houston was offering him a contract of $80 million. He wasn't going to stay for 14 in Chicago for one year. Rodman was getting older and distracted and less consistent. Tony Coo Coach was not the kind of player Michael was ever close to or could rely on. If you go back to it, the 98 season, never forget this. Phil Jackson figured it out too. Phil Jackson told Jerry Krause, I'm not rebuilding. I'm out.

Phil Jackson, who came off great in this documentary, he's like, boom, clean, out, six. Is that the Spurs dynasty had arrived. So in 99, the year Michael says, I want to come back for one more year. The Spurs went in the playoffs. They swept the Lakers. They swept the Blazers and destroyed the Nixin 5. It was Duncan and Robinson, and frankly, you think Carl Malone was a bad matchup for Chicago? How would have Duncan and Robinson been?

It was over. You watched this. How many close games were there? It was over. They were old. They were the best team, but they were winning a lot of those games, let's be honest, over Utah and over Indiana. They were winning some of those games on Moxie, championship medal, an individual play by Michael late. It wasn't they were steamrolling teams.

In fact, against Utah, they didn't score 100 points in the finals. Why? Because they were offensively challenged. They were only ninth in the NBA in 1998. Ninth in offense. That's with the greatest offensive player ever. Ninth. Okay?

So the idea, oh, they'd have come back. No, no, no. The push-off. Michael hits it. He's holding the trophy. They're six for six. Seacrest out. It's the perfect way to do.

it. This is why the mythology of Michael is almost as great as the reality of Michael. Like Michael had a lot of struggles, a lot antagonized by his own GM. Pippin could be unreliable. Rodman was flaky and increasingly distracted. Coot coach was never really like one of the guys. You know, Steve Kerr, Paxson, their career averages are six points a game. It was perfect. They were old, tired, offensively challenged, and Michael and the Bulls left the party just a little early, never too late. Now, let me shift to this, Scotty Pippen. I covered him in Portland. Apparently, Scotty Pippen has been wounded, is the word, by the documentary.

And I've said this before. I don't think I've ever met anybody in their life that didn't deserve their reputation. I mean, we earn our reputations. maybe not when you're 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, but at the time you're 30, 40, 50, 60, you are what you are, good or bad. I've never seen a pro athlete who was a great guy with a terrible reputation. You know, Jay Cutler's difficult.

That's his reputation. Aaron Rogers, talented, but can be difficult. That's his reputation. Dennis Rodman, talented, but flaky. That's his reputation. I'd say those are spot on. Okay. So Scotty Pippen doesn't like how he's portrayed in this.

But having covered him, I think it's been, as accurate with Scotty as anybody. Scotty has seen as super talented, vital to Michael Jordan's success, sometimes immature, pouted. You know, they didn't bring up the DUI and the dock or the gun charge against Scotty. They showed the pouting on the bench.

They showed him when he basically decided, I'm not going to get rehab and a surgery in the summer because I want to have a fun summer to hurt the team. When I covered Scotty, I thought he was really talented. I thought he was tough as hell. I thought he was a nice guy. But I never thought he was a leader.

I thought he was the classic great vice president. And it should be noted, most great athletes are not great leaders. Jeter was. A. Rod was just talented. Peyton Manning and Brady are. Russell Wilson is. But I can name lots of quarterbacks. I've said with Aaron Rogers, he's great.

I don't know if he's a great leader. He's just really talented. But to be a great leader, you generally need examples of great leadership. Look at Scotty's background and look at Michael. One of the great advantages Michael had was rock-solid parents into Dean Smith, into David Falk, into David Stern. Michael had so many amazing examples of leadership.

Michael's too smart not to have gleaned some of that off that. Scotty Pippin's background, he didn't go to a classic college basketball power with a Dean Smith. his upbringing from the documentary was tougher. His father had a stroke very early. He went to a small college. So when I look at Scotty Pippen, I think he's an amazing American story,

is that if you look at his childhood, he didn't grow up with much, and he became an unbelievable. Now he's a broadcaster. He was a great player. He's a top 30 player I've ever seen. Maybe a top 20 player. I don't know.

But to ask every athlete to be a great leader is like asking every human being on the point. planet to be a great leader. Isn't that the thing we always complain about every presidential election? These are the candidates? This is what we're left with? Those are grown-ups. He was a kid.

Scotty was a great player. He's a great story. But the documentary has not been unfair. It's been reasonable that Michael was the better player and the better leader. Scotty was super talented. But sometimes you couldn't count on him in big situations. I don't think that's inappropriate, nor do I think it's unfair. I think it's what Scotty is.

Super talented, like a lot of pro athletes, but not built or not comfortable. Maybe that's a better word, to take the burden of a franchise on his shoulders. That wouldn't be abnormal. That would be normal. Most 21, 24, 27, 32-year-olds are not ready to care. like Russell Wilson and NFL franchise. They're simply not. And if you look at Russell Wilson and you look at Jeter and you look at Peyton Manning,

much of the credit goes to when they were kids and the people giving them great leadership ideas and paths. And so I don't think Scotty's been inappropriately or unfairly labeled. I think it showed him as a great teammate at times, sometimes a little moody and pouty. and in crisis, sometimes he was great. Sometimes he wasn't. He was not always bad in crisis. He was often great in crisis.

The one thing that thing showed last night was how tough he was. And I can say this having covered him, Scotty played through a lot of injuries. He hit the deck a lot, was on the floor a lot, was never 100% healthy, took care of his body, played hurt. Said this about Cam Newton. I don't love Cam.

Cam is hurt a lot and playing through pain a lot. That and Scotty I'll always give him credit for. Doug Gottlieb is around the corner. He'll be fun joining us live 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 IHeard Radio app. Get your free credit scorecard today, even if you're not a Discover customer, include your FICA credit score. Go to discover.com slash credit scorecard. Limitations apply good stuff.

Doug Gottlieb and I played tennis yesterday. I'm not going to divulge the outcome, even though it's very beneficial to me. Okay. and joining us now via the Coward Global Satellite Network. I don't think either one of us is going to make the Australian open anytime soon. We're not playing enough. No, but you won. You want. You want.

Colin won. You know, you're much better than me at this point in time. It's very much the preseason, though. We're like when if the Lakers and the Clippers got now and played, that's what I would equated to. Okay, fair enough. All right. So let's start with this. everybody now says Michael says you know I wanted to come back for one more year

give me a seven championship and I'm like I don't know they look pretty offensively challenged Doug what do you make of the claims that they could have come back and won a seven I thought Phil Jackson who didn't have a ton of input on the documentary I thought he put it well it was time to go it just was like let's let's get the context of the time yes there was a lot caused a 50 game season. Okay. Maybe Jordan could have gotten healthy by then,

and maybe Scotty could have been healthy by then. But Dennis Rodman barely played the NBA after that. He was never really the same. Scotty Pippen was never really the same. And you saw how hard it was for Jordan and the Bulls at 6th championship. The idea that a seventh was possible? Sure. Was it likely no?

You know, this is one of those. Are you somebody who leaves a part? party 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late. And, you know, I think they left it 15 minutes early. Look, Jordan thinks to this day if he got in shape, he could play in the NBA. Jordan never thinks he would lose. So let's not take his word for it, whether they could have afforded it. The reality was there did need to be an overhaul of the roster. Whether it needed to be a complete rebuild or not, I don't agree with that idea. But I like that it came out that Phil was offered an additional year of contract. I like that.

that it came out that Jordan said, yeah, I would have come back. I don't understand why they didn't get everybody in the room and try and do it all at once. That part is a flaw to, if they really wanted to make it happen. But I don't think it was a strong likelihood they would have done it again. The fact that they did have Michael Jordan and they would have likely had Phil Jackson if they could have brought it back. All right. So Scotty Pippen, who I covered in Portland, I thought he was a good guy and I thought he played hurt a lot. He really, he played hard and he played hurt a lot when I was in Portland. He was on the floor a lot. He and Barclay didn't get along, but I think Scottie was a better practice player and was a little bit more driven. Charles was just more

talented and they just oil and water. It didn't work. But he doesn't like the way he's being viewed in this documentary. He thinks it's unfair. What say you? I mean, he's the thing hurting Scotty Pippen is Scotty Pippen in this documentary. You know, when he didn't go in against the Knicks because the play was run for Tony Koo coach, all he had to say was, hey man, 26 years later, I wish I had gone in the game, and I'm so happy that Tony Koo Coach made the shot. He wouldn't say it. He wouldn't say it. Instead, he gave the hole.

I wish it never happened. But if it happened again, I would do it again. Those are your words. They're not anybody else's words. I thought they tried to paint him as a sympathetic figure about the contract early on when it was his decision to sign that contract. Okay. And they didn't paint a clear picture. Jordan was massively underpaid until the last two years of his deal when he signed those

those two, you know, 30 plus million dollar deals, right? With the exception to that, Jordan was wildly underpaid because that was the time. I forget, Magic Johnson signed a 25-year, $25 million deal. Guy signed up for longevity, guy signed up for security. That's what Scottie Pipp. They painted him as a sympathetic figure early and late. They painted him as a warrior, playing through injury, playing hurt, back, locked up, just went and gut it out.

This wasn't the director. This wasn't Michael Jordan. only part that paints Scotty Pippin in a negative light is and sometimes you have to live with it. He was a great player. He was never the second best player in the NBA. Never, okay? But he was probably the best second player in the history of the NBA.

He just fit, he got it, he understood it. He was never a true leader, but he was a great attache. It's like a great vice president. It doesn't always make president, but man, that guy's a great number two. So executives today are saying, and I think players like to win so they could play with Michael today. Guys like to win. It's why NBA guys move to cities and take less money because they want to win. They want to be playing May and June and sort of their shoe companies.

They want them playing May in June. People say, though, Kevin Durant couldn't have played with him. Very sensitive guy. Mike's brutal. Do you buy that? I agree with the premise that some would say it would be hard for some to play with Michael Jordan because he challenged guys because he practiced so hard, because he was so driven, and because he was unquestionably the alpha. Look, Kobe Bryant struggled to get free agents to sign with him.

Granted, again, the context is important. Kobe Bryant never wanted to be number two. Neither did Michael Jordan, but Kobe Bryant's skills diminished at a certain point where he had to be a number two. That would have been if Michael Jordan held on for three years. As for Kevin, I disagree. Like, look, Kevin Durant's issues are with leaking things to the reporters. Kevin Durant's. Rantz issues are with guys what he thinks are turning on him. Kevin Durant's a ball guy. He also, at least this is what he believes, the reason he goes back at people on Twitter is because that's how he is with his buddies.

They go back and forth. They talk trash to each other. And that's perfect for Michael Jordan. Now, I don't know how he would have fit in terms of the confines of an offense and fit in terms of the coaching style of Phil Jackson. But I do think there are a certain number of players that would have worked. It's just, it's finding the right mix. And that really is maybe the best part that came from the last episode is even Scotty Pippen,

as muchifies Jerry Krause and how Jerry Krause acted at. He admitted, look, Jared Krauss might be the best GM of all time. I would say with Jerry West, your previous guest, but the idea that Jerry West figured out what type of personality is, what type of players could not only play for Phil Jackson and could play in the pressure of the NBA finals, but could play alongside Michael Jordan. There's like a psychological test that he had to run,

and he found the right mix of guys. And I think you could find the right mix of guys if you had them, if he was empowered. Would it be everybody in the league? No. And also, keep in mind, one of the echoers of this sentiment is Channing Fry. Now, look, Channing Frye obviously enjoyed his experience playing with LeBron James, but Tyree Irving didn't.

Okay. And, oh, yeah, by the way, Kawhi Leonard, had a chance to play with LeBron James didn't want to. Paul George didn't want to. How many guys have we seen had the opportunity to go to L.A. and decided not to. It's not easy. And the big that I don't know if anyone said,

so you can credit me with it if you'd like or you can take it for your own, is when Jordan lost, and he obviously never lost in the finals, but he lost to the magic, he lost to the Pistons previously. When he lost, it was about Michael Jordan's failures. Whether it's Michael Jordan failing to trust his teammate, or the coach is failing to put Michael Jordan in position. When LeBron has lost, remember, with the exception of the Maverick series,

which I actually don't think was as much his fault as it's being made out to be. When LeBron's lost, it's always somebody else's fault. His teammates didn't step up. His teammates were Kyrie was hurt. You know, Kyrie laughed or, you know, Kyrie and Kevin Love were hurt. Again, those are accurate statements. But when Jordan lost, it was about Jordan. He accepted responsibility.

When LeBron lost, he wouldn't personally say it, but others would echo it, hey, LeBron did all he could. So I do think that we're looking through it through an unfair lens of someone like Channing Fry who loved playing with LeBron James and got it and taking his word for it when he never experienced playing for Jordan and all he knows is watching through a documentary isn't an accurate portrayal. So there's a poll that came out. 73% of people said Michael's better than LeBron.

Is that surprise you at all? No. I've always been a Jordan is the best. player I've ever seen guy that Jordan was a guy that you knew it was coming and there's nothing you could do to stop it. Case in point, game six, NBA finals, 1998. Jazz knew it was coming. There's nothing they could do to stop it. On the other hand, you and I spoke in this very same setting before the document, did you really think he was going to have creative control of her documentary that didn't paint him as the greatest player ever? Right. Who does that? Let's do a doc.

Okay, about your last year. But at the end, we're going to leave some ambiguity as to how great you were all time in comparison to everybody else, right? And that's not the way it works. So not surprising. We are, we do, on the other hand, you know, we're these curious creatures where the last thing we see is the most impressive thing we see. And it sucks for LeBron because he was having a marvelous season. He was leading the Lakers. They had just beaten the Bucks. They'd just beaten the Clippers. And if this was properly timed out, it would have been a better debate. Now it feels like there's no debate. Maybe we'll see if LeBron can take the Lakers in a NBA shorten season and win an NBA title, but that'll feel like an asterisk. I'm not surprised. I think he's wired differently.

I think he's probably a better all-around man. But I think that Michael Jordan's the greatest player ever. And the timing of the documentary and everybody watching it and the painting of the documentary makes it so that it's really hard to find any way to put LeBron at this point in time ahead of Michael Jordan. Yeah, good. It'd be interesting. It'd be interesting. Joy mentioned it earlier. What if what if the playoffs were going on and LeBron was just tearing it up and he's, he's beating the clippers. And then, and then I think he'd have a shot. Because I do think, I do think, Doug, if Michael, if LeBron could win a championship with the Lakers, wow. I mean, it'd be like Brady winning in Tampa and then saying, I'm going to go to the Chargers, it would be the one thing where I think

it would give LeBron a little momentum in a couple years if he won with the Lakers, it would split it down the middle. There's always going to be the loyalist to M.J. But good God, if LeBron could win a third championship with a third team, boy, Doug, that is unbelievable in my lifetime, right? No, it would be. And I think, look, there's an interesting thing here in that, you know, LeBron has always had this kind of stacked team since he left Cleveland the first time. I mean, what we forget is when he led the heat, the heat now only became a superpower in the East, but the Celtics aged and then he, you know, he kicked out of legs from the Celtics getting Ray Allen, right? He joined forces with Chris Bosch that completely debilitated the Toronto Raptors.

Those were both playoff teams, championship caliber team, or at least the Celtics were championship caliber teams. He took away those two contenders and then took away Cleveland, who was the best team in the East, when he joined the heat with Dwayne Wade. So it was like three competitors went away and they all became a super team. In the West, he hasn't been able to do that with the clippers. So yes, I think it would make a much more interesting argument. Look, the difference is in wiring though, right? Like I thought that Jordan's desire and ability to take and make the big shot, even early on his attacker, he had to learn to trust his teammates,

whereas LeBron has always deferred if possible and then has had to learn to become the dynamic go-to-score. And even sometimes then, he can lose his confidence with Jordan, never seem to lose his confidence. Hey, I have a question for both of you guys. This is an honest question. Do you believe the pizza story from 1997? They had 23 years to come up with why Jordan was sick, the flu game. And this is what we're told. Okay. Michael Jordan, who's got two security guys and Tim Grover, travel with him, Jordan's hungry. Now, I don't know about you, but if Michael Jordan's hungry, everybody scurries about and goes and finds Michael Jordan food. So Michael Jordan picks up the phone and says, hey, you're the only pizza place in Salt Lake City that's open. I'm Michael Jordan.

Bring a pizza and don't just leave it at the front door. I want you to come directly to my room. And then there's four people that come to his room. Like, you couldn't come up with a better story. And then that's the one pizza that, like, if one of the security guys got him a pizza and he happened to eat the pizza, by the way, crushing an entire pizza all by himself, also kind of hard to be like all of these things like, okay, I'll go along with a lot of these stories. But I was born at night, not last night. Well, do you believe the pizza story is why he was sick in game five and 90? Yes, because as somebody who spends a lot of time in Utah, it closes really early. And, you know, there's the old joke about Spokane, Washington. Nothing happens in Spokane after 10 in the morning.

Utah, I can absolutely at 10 o'clock in Salt Lake City see somebody, especially in that time. Now, it's a different time now with Uber and deliveries. But literally, everything being closed in saying, hey, man, we got, you know what? I can see him calling. But they knew. But listen, Michael Jordan always did his, at his hotels, he stayed under an assume name. Okay, how do they know Jordan's room? How did they know he ordered the pizza?

Why were there four guys at the delivery? Like, and is Tim Grover leading us to believe that they knowingly, willfully poisoned his pizza? Or was it? What kind of cooked meat? What kind of pizza? You mean to tell me that Michael Jordan gets sick in game five? Yeah.

And this is the secret. And you don't know the pizza place's name? Of course you do. Like, I don't, I'm sorry. I love Michael Jordan. I believe it's the greatest player ever. I don't buy that sort of. There's way too many holes in that.

You had 23 years. You couldn't come up with a better story. Well, that's why I believe it, because you would come up with a better story, and that's not a great story. So that's probably the truth, because you'd come up with something way slicker than that, and it ends up being clunky. I got to go. Doug Gottlie.

Do you buy it, Joy? I think Doug's ready for basketball to come back. I can see 20 years ago at 10.30 at night in Salt Lake City. Nothing's open. in Salt Lake City. I couldn't be wrong on this. We know that. The game was on, was the game on a Sunday?

Because Salt Lake City closes down. At least it did when I was a kid and spent a summer there on Sundays. Yeah, there was no Uber Eats. Plus, also, didn't Tim Grover say he was the one who called for pizza? So it was not like Michael pick up the phone. Like, hello, I'm Michael, Jeffrey Jordan. I'd like a pizza. Well, he could have called and said, hey, listen, man, it wouldn't be surprising.

But also, at that time, if you're working for the pizza place, they know where, they know what hotel they're saying at. So someone orders a pizza in the middle of the night. Maybe they're all like, oh, my God, maybe we're going to get a chance to deliver this pizza to Michael George. So we're all going. How we know Tim Grover didn't say this. They said, listen, we don't deliver pizza. And they said, it's Michael Jordan.

Yeah, he could have said that too. It's Michael Jordan. Can you deliver it? Okay. And five guys come because they want to look at them. It could have been a pizza place that didn't have delivery. Also, if you have the flu, you have like flu like symptoms for a while. Have you ever had food poisoning before?

Twice, it's brutal. It's a nightmare. For 48 hours. But it's for, the flu is going to linger for a while. Food poisoning is like a day, maybe two, and then you're not feeling great, but you're good. Like you get some fluids in you, you're going to be all right. You're not going to have. The flu's a while.

I remember my first food poisoning. I ordered a piece of fish in the desert. And then I learned in the desert, order a cow. Yeah, I had a bad turkey sandwich. I'm not going to say from where, but it was here in Los Angeles. And it was when I was undisputed. So calling out sick is kind of impossible because you've got to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning. So it's kind of hard to find someone to come in.

It's brutal. It's bad. All right, Joy with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So anyway, I buy it. So Ben Rathesberger decided that he would not shave his beard until he was able to throw a pass to one of his teammates again following elbow surgery last year.

So we finally have an explanation for that beard, which on the first. makes me feel better about the entire situation. I kind of wish you would have said that from the beginning that I'm not going to shave until I can throw a pass to my teammates because then at least we would know why he's walking around looking crazy. Well, today he posted a video to Twitter reminding everyone of that promise

and he showed a recent throwing session with Juju Smith-Schuster, James Connor, and Ryan Switzer. Also shows him getting his beard trimmed so he's looking normal again. And at the very end, Juju says he's back. Stay tuned.

This is comforting to see. I could not. I got to be honest, I couldn't grow a beard. I don't know how guys, isn't it itchy? I think there's a point where as it's growing, it starts to get itchy. And then once it gets past that point, then it's no longer itchy. Is it itchy, Goulet? Yeah, it can be itchy when it gets hot.

You get used to it and you don't really notice it anymore. I've never done that, though. I've never gone full living in the woods for six months beard. Okay. I feel better. I'm glad that this is not a moment that Minn Ruther'sberger is living in, and he's out throwing and feeling good and working with his teammates again. It's very comforting to see. So Warriors GM, Bob Myers, said that they won their second straight title with Kevin Durant in 2018, that there wasn't any joy because winning was what they were expected to do.

Katie does not agree. He had an Instagram picture showed Myers quote next to the team celebrating, and he commented and said that they looked happy as bleakened. in that pick. Katie is not letting anything slide right now, but I kind of, I got a side with Katie on this, on this point. Like, we know that some winning at that level is not fun. Like, going through the process of that is not fun. It's not supposed to be fun. When you are expected to win, there's a certain amount of pressure and expectations on you that can make the environment not very fun because you, when you're, when you're playing from behind, when nobody expects you to do anything, you have a looseness and a,

to the energy and the culture and everything that's surrounding your organization. Because you're the underdog. If you don't win, no one expected you to win. It's okay. It's cool. You're cool. You're loose. I still think, I mean, I don't know if it's, I think there's joy.

I just think there's more pressure. Well, yeah, but because there's more pressure, that can kind of take away from the fun that you're having. But as Katie said, at the end, when you're the winners, that's what the fun is for. I mean, everything that we just watched with the last dance, it didn't look like fun. Those practices look like fun to you? No, they looked very stressful and a lot of pressure and a lot of yelling and a lot of name calling. But at the end, you're the champions.

You're the winners and nobody can ever say anything to you again. And then you're happy and you love each other. I think pressure is vital for life. Like the idea that I would live a life and never have any pressure, isn't that kind of like important? I don't want utopia. Either do I. It seems like it gives me anxiety. to even think about that.

You have to have ups and downs. I start fights with my wife just to make it interesting. I mean, I don't know if you need to go that far, but this idea, and you need to have spaces in your life where it's drama-free, for sure. Last weekend, she looked at me, she goes, you're just picking fights today. And I'm like, yeah, I think I am. You're just being more loose. It was just a feisty, funny day.

And then she just looked at me and she said, I'm about done with you. You know what I told my wife, you know, I get home now at 1230. Do you know what my wife said to me? She said, I signed up for better. or worse, not for lunch. Go find something to do. That's understandable, though. You need a space.

You got to miss you a little bit. Don't you love me? She goes, no. I didn't sign up for lunch. Go get busy. Go play tennis. Go for a walk or something. Finally, yesterday, NASCAR had their first race

since early March. Kevin Harvick won at Darlington. Over 6.3 million viewers watched on Fox, which was the most watched non-Datona 500 NASCAR race in over three years. years and we've got another race

at Darlington Wednesday night on FS1. Yeah. So Goulet is our big NASCAR fan. I know you were watching that. Goulai was betting on it. I was betting on it. I also had Kevin Harvick to win that was 8 to 1. So Lug nut lock of the week. That's right. Lugnut locks of the week by Goulet.

Very exciting. Yeah, he's a big better. Good stuff. Enjoy it with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurdline News. All right, we do it for our final one. We call it up down sideways. We watch the MJ documentary. It's complete now.

Who do I feel better about? Who do I feel worse about? And who's about the same? Up down sideways with MJ in the last dance coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeartRadart Radio app. Everything going on. People getting nervous and anxious. Check it out, MDrive Relax.com. 50% off. MDrive Relax.com.

It'll chill you out. So last dance. We watched the last dance. I got to tell you something. It was five Mondays of great content. I am really crossing my fingers that I get some more days of content. Coming up, baseball worries me a little bit with their labor disharmony. We're trying to get Rob Manfred, the commissioner of baseball on this week.

I am very encouraged by what I hear from the SEC and college football programs. Hey, I love college football. You give me college football. I'm good. we just need a bridge for about three months for college football, maybe two. I only have so much vacation time. I need something, folks. So we thought we've been doing this every Monday during the last five weeks that we look,

and this is our last one, do we think more or less or about the same of the stars of this? Here we go. All right. Michael Jordan, is he trending up, down, or sideways? He is imperfect, and he was rough on people and occasionally mean, but I think he trends up. the flu game was actually pizza. He said he would have played the following season. You know, he holds grudges.

He created some grudges that didn't really exist. Again, he's imperfect. But I think what he did do is that he signaled back to a time where the NBA was really physical and really tough. And I think what you figure out that success is hard, it's not linear, that he's, He had obstacles. Even the final game of his career for the Bulls, Scotty Pippen's back gives out. And they became really a one-dimensional scoring offense as he's playing the Utah Jazz with two Hall of Famers in Utah, which may have been at the time the toughest place to play in the NBA. Even his last win was hard.

They became a very offensively challenged team in 98. And then when Pippin went belly up physically, they were really limited. so he trends up. Speaking of Pippin, Scotty Pippen, trending up, down or sideways? Sideways for me

because I covered him. I thought he was really talented. The best Rodman in league history played hard. And I never thought he was a great leader. I don't think he was built for that. And there are times he could be moody, temperamental,

and a little bit of mature. I don't think less of him, though. I mean, I feel like it's it portrayed him mostly as a guy. Tough childhood, played hard, played hurt, and at times made some really poor decisions.

I think the bad moments were kind of Scotty induced. Rodzilla, tennis Rodman, up down our sideways. He trends down for me. The more I see Rodman, the more irritating he is, very self-absorbed. At the end, he wasn't a great basketball player. He had great moments. It was mostly about Rodman. I could just never bail on my team to do that stuff.

It's not how I'm built. And by the way, I can be selfish too. I mean, it's just, I don't think Rodman's nearly as fascinating as we think. He was young. Now, he is a remarkably great rebounder, and his life story is full of obstacles, and he's overcome him, so I respect him. But for me, he's not a guy that age as well. I see him as a little needy for my taste.

What a different world, right? Would WW even let a basketball player do that now? That's crazy. Steve Kerr, up down or sideways. I think just, you know, I mean, when you hear you, the story of his father. He's lived an incredible life. I mean, good God.

As a player, I like how he saw Paxon and he's like, okay, that's going to be my role. I'm going to do the Paxon role. Yeah, and I mean, I think I liked Michael reaching out to him like Steve hit big shots. Like Michael generally had that one guy that wasn't a great player, but was a great big game shooter. It was Paxon first. and then it was Kerr. So once you hear his life story, you see why he's political.

You see why stuff matters to him beyond sports. Yeah. Phil Jackson, up down or sideways. Big up. I think Michael and, I think Michael Jordan's mom, Michael and Phil Jackson are the big ups.

Got Michael to write a poem. To be able to harness Jerry Krause and Dennis Rodman, then the international player who Michael and Scotty resented. And then Scotty's saying, I'm not going to have a surgery during, you know, in the summer. It was a real balancing a lot of egos and a lot of plates and a lot of drama. I'm not sure, Joy, I'm not sure any coach in league history could handle that.

I mean, it's unbelievable. I think Phil is one A in this documentary. And knowing when it was over, like having the wherewithal to not take the bait for one more season. I've blown away. I'd love to get Phil on this show. I know he doesn't like me. He did bump into my wife at a physical therapist, and they got along. he really should come on the show.

I think he'd be great. An unbelievable amount of patience. Incredible. He has skills, I don't. Like his ability to handle Rodman, I just don't have it. I'm not equipped. Couldn't do it.

Jerry Kraus, trending up, down or sideways. Well, I mean, trending down. I almost go sideways. Just everybody, they never won more than 30 games when that team broke up. So the rebuild, the brilliant rebuild, was a disaster. It's hard not to win 35, 40 games in the NBA if you just play hard. So I still think they should have gone to, I think he should have managed it better and gone to Michael and Phil and said, listen,

can I just, we're going to lose Scotty Pippen because Scotty's not going to stay for the money. Can I move Rodman and get a younger piece? Again, I think managing GM's job is to manage egos and manage expectations and I think he did a poor job. I do think he had a great eye for talent. He did a lot of good things, but he didn't manage. When you have Michael Jordan, you've got to manage it. You got to lubricate it. You got to get, you got to, don't make it agitating. Lubricate it.

Don't agitate it. How about Jerry Reinsorff turning up down or sideways? Actually up. I came in with a very low opinion of him that he was cheap and divisive. But, you know, in the end, I found out that he did call Phil Jackson and say, you're welcome to come back. I'd like to have you back. Please come back.

Please. That went a long way with me. So, but again, I came in with a pretty low expectation. that he was cheap, baseball guy. But I think he came across in this mostly as level-headed, which Kraus did not. Kraus looked grudge-holding and petty.

Wasn't that wild them showing him, showing Michael the footage of Jerry Reinsorf saying that, too? At the very end. Crazy. Finally, LeBron James, up, down, or sideways. Well, he's trending down because he's inactive. I think if LeBron was playing right now, but I think the fact that LeBron's, like everybody else watching the greatness of Michael

Jordan, I think it's separate the gap. I think there was a gap there, but inactivity for LeBron hurts him. And it's not his fault, but I think, and I also think the old school alpha is really attractive. You know, as society's gotten, you know, a little more finesse. I remember 10 years ago, it was called metrosexual and guys and evolved. And I think there is that alpha thing that a lot of guys like the chop wouldn't be guys and they don't always want to be evolved.

Sometimes we just need to go out and have the speed bag and punch it and, you know, do dumb guy stuff. Yeah, we got to feel like a guy sometimes, and it's okay. Women like to feel like a woman. We like to feel like guys. Sometimes we're meatheads. I'm mad at it. And we're a meathead sometimes.

You're wrong with being a meathead? I'm picking fights with my wife. I'm a meathead. But sometimes I just got to get that stuff out. All right, we're done. We got through it. Jerry West was great. Doug Gottlieb, J.A. Adande.

Hit it out of the park. Out of the park. All right. For joining, everybody here. We will be back tomorrow. It's the herd. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

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