The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Is LeBron Trying to Get Fired & the Start of the Top 25 Athletes of the Last 25 Years | 7.14

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

On today's episode of The Right Time, Bomani Jones discusses LeBron James and unveils the first few members of his 'top 25 athletes of the last 25 years' list. Bo begins the show by saying why it's always been about LeBron James first until the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Luka Doncic (3:36) and if there's a resolution that would serve either side if LeBron is trying to leave the team (12:17). Next, Bo transitions to naming #25 (18:15) through #21 (38:05) of his top 25 athletes of the last 25 years list, including three football stars, an NBA champion and one of the best home run hitters of all-time. . . . Subscribe to Supercast for Ad-Free Episodes: https://righttime.supercast.com/ Buy 'The Right Time' merch: http://therighttimebomani.com/ Subscribe to The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok for all the best moments from the show. Download Full Podcast Here: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6N7fDvgNz2EPDIOm49aj7M?si=FCb5EzTyTYuIy9-fWs4rQA&nd=1&utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-right-time-with-bomani-jones/id982639043?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social Follow The Right Time with Bomani Jones on Social Media: http://lnk.to/therighttime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. This is a big show.

We are launching our big summer feature for you this year. The top 25 athletes of the last 25 years. We will lay out the particulars for you. we will give you the first five entries 25 through 21 on this. We'll also talk to my good buddy Spencer Hall on Wednesday to go through some context on the last 25 years of athletes. We're going to get into that. But first, the wildest thing is happening. Now, those of you who don't know, me and the man Ryan, we're getting ready.

We're going to go down to Las Vegas. We're going to hang out with the crew from Wave. And apparently something is going on in Las Vegas that seems almost counterintuitive, but I get it to a degree. And Ryan, you can correct me if I'm wrong, right? But I feel pretty confident that this is appropriate phrasing. LeBron James is trying to get himself fired. Yes. He's trying to get fired at work.

Yeah. Does this not see, after he agreed to do the job. Yeah. He is trying to get himself fired. Now, it's a different kind of firing, obviously, because he is trying to get himself fired, but his money is guaranteed. You understand what I'm saying? So it's like a guaranteed $52 million.

dollars. Anybody who blames LeBron for opt-in-in can't count. That's all I have for you. Well, if you didn't want to play for the Lakers, why did he opt-in? Can you count 5-2 comma 0-00-coma 0-0-0-0-000, hold on, dot

zero-zero. All right, we're all caught up. We all understand. We all get the deal. Okay. However, I've been watching Rich Paul go around, doing interviews, where he's talking about, it. LeBron is just there. He got some hell because ESPN asked him to come on the broadcast and he said he didn't have anything to say. And I don't know why you giving LeBron hell for that. That man pays Rich

Paul millions of dollars to do that shit. I don't know why you think he's going to be the one to do it. You must be crazy. Every now and then something happens in my life from like, yeah, I could do that, but what about these people I pay to do it? Or somebody gets paid to do it. Why don't they go ahead and do it? So anyway, LeBron been around Las Vegas in this incredibly interesting scenario because when they traded him. Now, Ryan, I know you haven't been around a program in the most intimate way for the longest of times, but maybe you have noticed this from some of the comments that we receive and that you can check out from time to time. Though you and I both traffic in the don't check the comments too much, but it's a lot of people that think I hate LeBron James just because I'd be, I hear it. telling the truth, right? I've noticed. Okay. I really don't hate the dude. I don't like him as much

as I used to, but I also don't know him, right? Very important distinction. So like the idea of hating LeBron, no, not really there. But what happens then as a result is I think there's a lot of stuff that because LeBron is such a polarizing figure, that could be very difficult for folks to like, I would say truly acknowledge and recognize what's going on. So when they made that trade for Luca Dachich. I said it right then and there. I don't think I use these words exactly, but he got demoted. Since the year, like what, 2000, 2001, he has been the center of every single team that he's been on. He hit the NBA and he was the center of the calves at 18 years old. He went to Miami, which was his man squad. And he was the center of that. When he comes back to Cleveland,

like everywhere he goes, this has always been about LeBron James. And then they went in traded for Luca Dodgich, and now he's number two. And at every point, LeBron has been saying, I need more help, I need more help. I want Anthony Davis. Hopefully I can hand this team over to Anthony Davis. And I think he meant that completely when he would say that, right? I have little to no doubt that he meant those words when he said it. But then you actually have to do it, right? And with the Lakers in Anthony Davis, it never really happened. And even if Anthony Davis became the best player on the team, which I do think probably happened after a point. It never stopped being LeBron's team. It never stopped being about LeBron. Then Luca got there, and it kind of stopped being

about LeBron. The first sign that it stopped being about LeBron was when they tried to make that trade for Mark Williams after Anthony Davis and LeBron had been wanting a center. They ain't go get no center for now, but they went and got themselves a center for Luca Donchich. Yeah, they did that. And you realize, oh, okay, this is Lucas T. And I think for LeBron in the very beginning, he went along with it, and he was cool with it. And then more and more you start to see and you're LeBron and you realize, hey, man, they're not thinking about you like that anymore. But now you're LeBron, James, you were going into literally year 23, which is absurd, right? He's going into year 23. Ain't no waiting for 2027? And the word is out that what the Lakers are trying to do is to maximize their cap space

for the year 2027. Number one, if LeBron had a problem with that just on the face that it's poor strategy, that is where I agree with him. Look, big free agents, that doesn't really happen anymore. I that we had already discussed this with the thing with the aprons and the way that players now choose to behave in terms of re-uping. This idea, like, there's not going to be a summer of 2010 anymore. I don't think you're going to have a point at which there's a guy like, call it Kevin Durant being available in 2016. Dudes are re-uping as soon as they can for as much money as they can. And then they're going from there. Like, maybe there's something that I don't understand about the idea of waiting for the year 2027, but I'm just telling you, I don't get it. I don't see why that

would be the strategy that you would play if you were the Lakers. And so if you're LeBron, I get that. He's like, yo, what is it that you're doing? What is it that we're doing? And so now LeBron is done what is basically always work for him. I'm going to put the squeeze on them. And I don't blame him for the approach that he's taking all these years of putting the squeeze on them because he didn't put the squeeze on the calves early and they burned a lot of the early portion of his career just because they had LeBron. And that was when he realized, oh, these teams are willing to sacrifice winning just to keep getting this paper because I fill up the house. I drive up the equity. I do all of those things. You're not going to get me a winner behind

that? What are you talking about? So then he went to Cleveland back to Cleveland because he did those four years in Miami. He went back to Cleveland in at just about every turn he could possibly he set up a situation where they had to do what LeBron wanted them to do and not a legist don't give a damn what LeBron want. Not only do they not give a damn about what LeBron wants, what seems to be clear to me from this comfortable distance is they are somewhere between feeling like they've done plenty and being tired of him.

I have one question. When you say they, when it refers to the Lakers, yes. I mean genie. You mean genie. Okay, thank you for getting to the question. I mean Jeannie and Rob, right? Look, man, they went and got Anthony Davis,

which by the way, was what they should have done anyway. But the way that they look at it is, LeBron wanted us to get Anthony Davis, and we traded literally the whole team in order to get him. And they won a championship. And then there's that other one, Ryan. They gave his son a job. I thought you were going to Westbrook, but they did give...

I forgot about that one. Yeah. So they trade for Anthony Davis. That worked great. They trade for Russell Westbrook, the exact opposite. Yes. Now his son has a job guaranteed for three more years. Yes, a really good job, by the way. They didn't just say, well, son, how'd you like to push this mail cart? No, no, no. They did not. They gave him a good-ass job. Okay. I think the Lakers feel like they've done everything that they could for LeBron,

or at the very least they did everything that they would for LeBron. And what I think I find most interesting about it is they probably think we got Luca Dantages, we did this for LeBron, but they did that for LeBron. They did that for themselves. And now I feel like the greatest player of his generation, one of the five greatest players of all time, no matter how you slice it, is now in Las Vegas with his agent doing a PR, tour about what comes next.

Does he think the Lakers are going to buy him out because they're not? Why would they do that? I think, yeah, the Lakers are not going to buy him out. You saw the reporting that four teams have called the Lakers that are interested. Obviously, the Knicks and the Cavs being kind of high on that list, getting back into the Eastern Conference. I feel like we're due for a long-form LeBron James interview. Mm-hmm.

like friendly media outlet. I mean, I forget he does have his own podcast. So if you really wanted to put the screws to him. But I feel like that is next. We got the Rich Paul statement. We got the pouty public appearance. Yes. And knowing the last 20 years of LeBron James,

I think that's that public appearance is next. Is it going back to McAfee? It depends on if McAfee's on. But I think that's definitely a high on the ads. So this is, this is my thought and I'm curious what you think about this. I feel like if you're the Lakers, you've just got to get this to the regular season, right? Get this to training camp. Get this. This is not Jim Hardin. Right. I don't think he's going to show up to training cap

acting up. Because remember, Jim Hardin was on a team with DeMarcus cousins and PJ Tucker and I think John Wall was there by that time too and they was ready to whoop his ass. Like that, that had to end before somebody killed. killed James Hart. Because the words, disrespect. That's when he was out there quitting in the middle of games. Yes. And also in practice and all this stuff. But the word disrespect was being thrown around by people by like DeMarcus cousins. Yes, by people who fight. Yes. They were like, hey, we got to do something about this. Okay. I don't think

LeBron's the type that's going to get in there and act up. I think he's got a little too much pride and too much dignity when the regular season comes to get out there and do like James Harden type things, right? Or my personal favorite, but Andrew Bynum was finished and he was playing with the calves and he had the practice where he shot the ball every time he touched it, including from three quarter court. I thought you were going to go Jimmy Butler taking the backups and beating all the starters in Minnesota. I think that's an all-time good one too. So that was interesting because Jimmy played when it came time to play. He would find reasons not to play games.

But when it came time to play, he came time to play. But yeah, he would go to practice, kick everyone's ass. And then Rachel Nichols was magically there. way to go out of him, right? I don't know where this goes, but I don't think LeBron doesn't have the leverage to strong arm himself out of there. He might be able to find teams who are interested.

The Lakers have no great reason to like move him. And honestly, if I'm one of these other teams, how much am I giving up to get one year maybe to a LeBron James at this point? How much am I giving up to get a guy that's going to make $50 million and what's that going to do to our cap situation and with these funny aprons? and everything else. I do, does anybody see a resolution to this problem that serves either side? I don't really see that. I don't know if the Lakers thought this out, but so far.

But I do know this. And this is the part that every single player in the NBA needs to recognize. In the year 2003, after Michael Jordan, who had a piece of ownership with the Wizards, gave that up so that he could go down on the floor and to play for two years and to sell out the house every night and then at the end, Abe Paulian called him into the office and shit-canned him. Michael Jordan thought he was going to go back to being an executive and they told him to kick rocks, you yellow-eyed motherfucker, and sent him down the road. That was the time that a lot of guys in the NBA learned, in the words of the great Coo Joe Goody, You think it can't happen to you, then it do. It can happen to anybody. When they're done, they're done.

Because fundamentally, if you don't play this right, y'all are all still employees. And LeBron James is learning this the hard way. You think it can't happen to you, then it do. Okay? Kobe Bryant wanted to be traded in 2007. They told him to sit his ass down. It worked out for the best for all parties involved that had happened.

They gave him a nice little farewell tour in the end, but that was the moment he realized he worked for them. Okay. And LeBron is getting this right now for everything that he's done, for the upstanding statesman that he's been for this league, for the fact that he's carried this league as its face for just about 20 years, they did it to him too. They can do it to anybody.

And right now, he has no recourse. has no leverage and I have no idea how this is going to play out. None whatsoever. But I'm telling you this. LeBron, this is, you're on a team with a fan base that's been iffy with you since the day that you got there. Now, if you can find your way to get back to Cleveland where you're going to have some measure of love forever, then maybe this turns out to be some kind of happy ending. That is possible. But man, I don't think he wants an unhappy ending, right? I think that he has seen this as he wants to go out with some kind of farewell tour.

And the way this is stacking up right now, I don't see the path to that. Maybe he and Rich see the path to that. But it would be a shame, given everything LeBron's done for the league and how good he's been, if this truly ends on a sour note, especially considering how good he still is. But right now, It's looking like it's going to end. Sour as hell. All right, guys, we're looking forward to this one, right?

You know, we like to try to do things during the summer. We've done book clubs in the past. We've done like limited series and the likes. This year, 25 top athletes of the last 25 years. Ryan, it's like 25 of the last 25 in 2025. You see what I'm saying? There we go. There we go.

we was thinking, we was thinking. All right, so I'm going to let people know some of the particulars. If I miss anything, I need you to help me out here because we're working together on this. Ryan's done a great job to help get this going. All right. So this is what we're looking at. All right. We got some criteria. I'm going to be honest with you. I came up with these criteria, in part, to make my job easier and to make sure that I can work some people in here and to get some people out of the conversation. So here we go. Number one, you had to be 25 or younger on January 1st in the year 2000. Unfortunately, that means you get no shack. Okay. We focused on North America, the continent of North America, which includes Canada, the United States, Mexico, and all them little islands.

You know what I'm saying? If you play Sporkel quizzes, we're talking about that North America, are the ones that come up there. You know, Antigua and Barbuda, you have a chance here. No soccer. Sorry, don't really know that much about, y'all. No hockey. No race car drivers. Sorry to lose Hamilton.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a tough bag. We ain't going over there, a little homie. Over there in Europe, we can't do that. Ovechkin can't do nothing for you. Sorry, Jimmy Johnson. Yeah, Sydney Crosby. We thought about it.

Yeah. You know, like we gave us some thought. But in the end, the one thing you need to know about this list is it is mine. That is how we got here. It is more art than science. There is an element of folklore to it. People who tell stories about for a long time. And again, at the end of the day, it's Bo's List. That's right. And I need you guys to understand something. These lists make people argue, okay? I am not doing this to make you argue. I'm doing this so I can get some content. You understand

what I'm saying? I got a job to do. I'm not trying to make you argue. And what is very important about me saying that I'm not trying to argue is this. I understand that you guys will want to argue about this list because you do it every time. Okay, it don't matter what kind of list, it don't matter who put it up. You argue. And I'm going to tell you right now, argue with your partners, argue with your timeline, argue with your mama. I ain't going to do it. Anyway, let me put a happy face on this. That is feeling like I just had the most antagonistic introduction to what this is because it runs counter to so much on what I want to do, right? Because, right, people love to hit me up and be like, yo, give me your top five this.

I've been like, pay me, fool. Guess what? Way pays me. Exactly. So here we go. Number 25 is Randy Gene Moss. Again, it's your list. That's right.

That's the biggest reason. If you thought that there was ever a way in the world that I would do a list like this and Randy Moss would not be on that list, you clearly do not. know me. I don't know who else you put on your list. I know this. Randy Moss is the best college wide receiver that I have ever seen. Compounded by the fact that he got to play against people at levels that had absolutely no, no, they should not have been out there with him. Randy Moss has the most touchdown receptions ever in a season. Randy Moss is the best rookie I have ever seen play NFL football. I believe that Randy Moss is the most physically perfect football player relative to his position

that I have ever seen. Randy Moss is second all time in touchdowns. And Randy Moss for anybody who was there when it happened, there has never been a singular force on offense that I recall ever seen. There were guys like Michael Vick who were super exciting to watch, but it was fair to ask questions about how good they were. There were all kinds of people that you would see play. football and it's hard to stand out with so much playing football because it is 11 dudes.

But there is something about a guy that is always open. I'm not simply talking about a guy that can always get open. That was Jerry Rice, who could always get open. I'm talking about a guy that's always open. Five people on him hanging off his shoulder. holders still open. That was Randy Moss. Just chuck it up there, dog. That was his line. He just said, just chuck it up there, dog. And that's all you did. Like, you know how you would play on video games and just know that like on rookie or whatever the easy level was, all you had to do was throw it up there and then you could take it to where you control the receiver and then you go get the ball. It was like that in real life. Old ass Randall Cunningham could just

throw it up there. Disagreable as Jeff George could you. Could you? just throw it up there. Cold until he got hurt Dante Culpepper could just throw it up there. And then Tom Brady, who had always been effective but never really, really, really look great. Then he got Randy Mawson in the first game. He ran by Daryl Rivas and two other dudes. And Tom Brady just chucked it up there, dog. And there it was. Never seen anything like it before. And somehow in the 27 years since Randy Moss got into the NFL, we still have seen. seen anything like it. Yeah, you've seen Justin Jefferson. You've seen all kinds of guys that were really good receivers. Nothing like that. Now, you're ready for number 24? Number 24,

Cam Newton. Still your list. Still my list. But I want to make a very important specification on here. Because if we are only talking about one part of Cam Newton's career, he probably doesn't make it. If we're just talking about the NFL, in spite of him being an MVP-level quarterback, we're probably not here. The reason why we are here and why Cam Newton makes this list is very simple. He is the greatest college football player I have ever seen. Period. You could rack up guys who had better careers, right?

Because they stacked up more time, like Tim Tebow being an example. Baker Mayfield will probably be another example. There are other guys that won Hismans. There are other guys that threw for more yard, did more of this, did more of everything else. Now, Ryan, I cannot remember. Were you at LSU for that Cam Newton year? I sure was.

Okay, so you were there. All right. Could you talk to people just very briefly about that one play? And you know the play I'm talking about. So, Kim Newton, I mean, the play breaks down. He's rolling to his left and he comes across the field, right? and you see him run past about five NFL defenders, and at the end of it, drag up maybe an NFL Hall of Famer.

No, no, maybe, guaranteed. Guaranteed Hall of Famer and Patrick Peterson on the ground, take it 70 yards into the end zone to be probably, I mean, that team was as good as any team West Miles ever had. Yes, in spite of Les Miles. That was the, that's the weirdest LSU season there has ever been, because that was the year that Derry Dooley had 15 people on the field. for that play against Tennessee.

It was a strange year. Cam Newton, with no one on offense who played in the NFL with him, when undefeated in the SEC. And I am a person who does not believe in the idea of quarterback wins, except for one exception. Cam Newton at Auburn. There's never been anything like it. I want to say they won seven games the year before or eight,

and they won seven or eight games the year after, and they won 14 games the year with him. He was by himself worth five or six. six wins all by himself. He looked like he was bigger than everybody else. He was dragging everybody else running a well-run high school offense, but a high school offense nonetheless. It was watching the team that just had the best athlete and you let him do everything. There's a high school offense, the high school coach. Yes. Yes, all of these things, right? The 27 point comeback against Alabama, right? On the road with as hostile an environment as there has ever been.

all of this while literally the two best schools in the conference appeared to gang up and try to make the bad ineligible over, you know, but it's now. We wouldn't be ineligible for now. Something that is laughable now, a couple hundred thousand dollars. Do you realize what a bargain Cam Newton at $180,000 was if that was ultimately the number that got him there to Auburn? So then you take that. And this is the other reason why I think he makes this list or why I think he makes this list is mine. The other reason why he makes this list is you used to hear about how a guy had to run a pro-style offense. You wanted a guy to run a pro-style offense before he could run your offense in the NFL.

So the guys who played in spreads or everything took a bit of a demerit. Now, Sam Bradford was the first spread quarterback to be the number of an overall pick and that happened in 2010. But he didn't hit the league like gang busters like Cam Newton did in 2011, where I believe his first game, he threw for 400 yards. And my favorite play perhaps ever, he throws an interception. to Darrell Washington and the Cardinals. He goes and tries to tackle Darrell Washington, a Pro Bowl linebacker who saw the quarterback coming and slid.

It slid. It was a complete redefinition of what the NFL quarterback was, a redefinition of what a pro prospect was in a draft overrun with future Hall of Famers. And we'll go through them off the top of my head. Von Miller, J.J. Watt, Patrick Peterson, Julio Jones, Richard Sherman,

AJ Green. Yeah, and then other guys like Robert Quinn is a dude that's in that draft. Marcel Darius. Yeah, Mike Pouncey. Like we got one of the Pounceys. I can't be keeping him dude straight. But, you know, all these guys who had great NFL careers, guys who could have been like Alton Smith, everything else,

you redo that draft, you take Cam Newton number one still. You still take that guy number one after everything, right? A singular force of nature. And the closest that we've seen to him, is Josh Allen. And you have a fair argument that Josh Allen has been a better NFL quarterback, but I've still never seen Josh Allen have to put everything on his back quite the way Cam Newton has. And Josh Allen in ways has been asked to put everything on his back. He was that guy. What guy? That guy. And so you add being the greatest college quarterback that I've ever seen,

maybe the best college player ever because of his singular nature and how much he did all by himself to to the NFL career, he's our guy at number 24. We have got 23, 22, and 21 coming up next. All right, here we go. We have got our next three entries in our top 25 athletes of the last 25 years. Athlete number 23, Alba Poo Holtz.

Now, I think one thing you're going to find about this list is I prioritize peak over longevity, okay? something we'll get to a little bit later. For example, I take Tiger Woods over Jack Nicholas because I take peak over longevity. I think longevity is something for which you deserve credit, but I take peak over longevity. And Albert Poo-Holtz, I think this can be difficult for people to remember, especially if you stop paying attention to baseball. But Albert Poo-Holtz's first 10 years are as good as any right-handed hitters were that you could ever ask for and ever expect. And again, For those of you who don't really do to baseball like that, Ryan,

I think you can help me out with this. It's a difference when you talk about this kind of stuff, especially when you start talking about batting average with a right-handed here. For sure. And also, like, Howard Poolhole's is a weird one because he went, he is the athlete who went from St. Louis to Los Angeles and became less, more anonymous. Yes, yes, yes, because he went, my good buddy Lawrence, who may be listening to this, I'm not sure,

but we talked about this for years. I've said this many times. we used to refer to the Angels as where free agents go to die, and then I stopped doing it because I realized a couple of them went there and literally died. It's okay to laugh. It happened. It happened. It was a trick bag, right?

I mean, the difference between Los Angeles and Anaheim. Yes. I think it's a key distinction, especially if we're talking about, you know, the popularity about who holes. Yeah, no, he went. I mean, it's all understandable, but also everything was different. after that. But these first 10 years, okay, I'm just going to run through some batting averages for those first 10 years. And again, at 21 years old, he had 329 with 37 homers and 130 RBI. So 329, 359, 351, 331, 327, 3.57, 312. Okay, that's what we're looking at for

Albert Poo holds first 10 years in baseball. Three-time leader in OPS, four-time leader in OPS plus. All the numbers you go though. They're four times in total basis. Three-time MVP, silver slugger, damn near every year, just over and over again. Just unreal and incredible. They got the World Series win in the year of our Lord 2006, the worst team ever to win a World Series. But hey, man, things happen sometimes, right? It's easy to forget about this because he made the other move. You know what's easy also to forget because we stopped caring about numbers after the steroids. Albert Poulth had 700 home runs.

700 home runs. And never was, I don't think Albert was ever, and I could be wrong about this, never even sort of implicated in the steroid stuff. Of course. Yeah, you know, he's a birth certificate all star. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of things that I don't think we need to try to prove right now

get to the bottom of necessarily, but he's, like, there will not be, there was never question of whether or not Albuels is going to be in the whole thing. That is correct. He's, so that's, that's, that's an important distinction. He is closer to being Ken Griffey Jr.

than even, than even say Mike Piazza. Yeah. Right. Who, who we definitely have questions about that for whatever reason we have chosen to ignore. Um, but Alapua is fourth all,

all time and home runs in the only people who are over him are Barry Bonds, Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth. That's it. You get to make the list guy, right? I just feel like if we don't put him here, we have just made the conscientious decision that we're just not. Yeah, we're just not going to pay attention. And again, it all ended after that, right? After that, nothing was ever the same. You could get some 30 home run seasons or whatever it was. It wasn't the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. But like, I'm looking at that baseball reference page directly in front of us. Or Ryan, it looks like you were doing the same thing. And it's a lot of black. You can do it because you can hear my loud scrolling going on. It's a lot of black

that gets on that list. So he gets there. He stays there. He earns that because again, here we prioritize peak over longevity. Are you ready for number 22? Number 22. Ray Lewis. This is where this gets interesting, right? Because one thing I enjoy about talking about football when it comes to like, who's better if you want to get into your all-time discussions or everything else, is that stats don't do it. Right. Like, as we get more and more technocratic as a society, we always need some numbers to justify what we're talking about. And football numbers just don't lend themselves the same way. You can get out here and you can talk about tackle numbers for Ray Lewis and, you know, things like that all you want. If you so decide, that's fine. But that's

really what kind of party this is. Ray Lewis was a guy where it was like, yo, did you see that? And maybe you did or did not see it. What's to say? I saw this thing get caught up on the internet where some guy was making an argument that Ray Lewis would not be able to play football today

because of the demands of coverage. Just something like Fred Warner would be as a better linebacker in Ray Lewis. I think was something like the gist of the argument, right? And look, I didn't think that that was as implausible an argument as people were making it out to be, right? but it doesn't matter, I think is the point. Whether or not Ray Lewis can play football right now

doesn't have to do with how good Ray Lewis is. It has to do with an evolution of the game. Now, what Ray Lewis is in part, not entirely is, he is one of, if not the last, traditional middle lineback. And something that happens in football that I don't think that people do the math on is that different positions emerge at different points.

The middle linebacker, as we think of the middle linebacker, really did not exist until the 1960s. I mean, this is like what the blindside was about, right? Yes. You know, like the tackle and the edge risher. Correct. Right. The idea of an edge rusher emerges with Lawrence Taylor,

but it doesn't really, really, really, like we didn't use the term edge rusher until the last like 15 years or so. Like, we still thought of Lawrence Taylor as a linebacker. But the idea of a downhill thumper fill up the middle of the middle of the, the field, middle linebacker, it didn't always exist. So if your idea is that, well, Ray Lewis could not play linebacker as it played right now, that's fine. I don't think Fred Warner could have played the kind of middle linebacker that Ray Lewis played, right? So looking at what he was, Ray Lewis was the best defensive player in the league and the best defensive player on the best

defense that I believe that I have ever seen, which was the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, who won a Super Bowl with their two quarterbacks being Tony Banks and Trent Dilfer. That team went a month without scoring a touchdown and won two or three of those games. On the face of having Ray Lewis there shutting down the middle, there's nothing you could do in the middle of the field with that guy out there. And one thing you talk about often, you know, you talk about the lack of need for stats and football. And, you know, football can be more of an emotional game.

you know what Ray Lewis brings that's a very important part of football, fear? Yes. Look, if you don't, like, if you're a person that doesn't believe that leadership and stuff like that matters that much, which I don't think is like, I get it if that's where you're coming from. Like leadership doesn't really do it for you. Okay. But it seemed pretty clear that that guy had it. And it seemed pretty clear that that guy had it because everybody around him talks about

the way that that guy had it. And you hear those speeches. You'd be ready to go out there and fight all, you know, do all the things. all by yourself. But I think, particularly what we're doing, the best defensive player of his era. And I think that most of us would agree that for that era,

Ray Lewis was the best defensive player that was there. He ironically became a face of the NFL, you know, after the whole, you know. Incident. Yes, you know, the dudes he was out with seemed to have killed somebody that night. Seam, seem, because they got to quit it. Can't lose sight of the fact.

They got to quit it. but I don't think people knew who Ray Lewis was. But you had to be a real, if you know, you know type of person. Because that was in the gap of the Miami teams, correct? It was in the gap of the Miami teams. It was a slight gap there, right? Because he was drafted in 96. So yes, like the 94 Miami team went to the Orange Bowl and lost to Nebraska,

but the 95 Miami team was not good. Right. Right. And so he's there in that gap. But then he goes to Baltimore and he gets there. That's the year after they. left Cleveland. And so you've got these three, three, four years where he's there and he's excellent, but they're not anybody to talk about. Do you remember when Jim Harbaugh played for

the Baltimore Ravens? Right. I bet you don't. That is right before. That's what I'm saying. That's, there's my point right there. Jim Harbaugh and Ray Lewis, can you imagine, by the way, talking about a locker room. Those two psychos are the same team. And they're the same kinds of psychos. Like, those two psychos are the same team. The incident has. And then the 2000 Ravens came and they were that team. And then from there, I think Ray Lewis in an era where offense became to be began to trump everything, Ray Lewis was really the only guy that I thought of as the face of an NFL team as a defensive player. Now, he was not out there by himself.

That 2000 team had some really good players. Michael McCrary, Sam Adams, Peter Bowlware, Rod Woodson was on that team. I mean, obviously he spent all those years overlapping with Ed. as well. Well, then there's that. But remember, though, Ed Reed wasn't on that 2000 team. Like, Ray Lewis is four or five years older than Ed Reed. So, yeah, like, there were other guys, Terrell

Suggs, winds up getting there, Hologna. So it's not like Ray Lewis was there by himself. But you knew who that guy was. You knew who it was that was in charge. And for those of us who are from a different time and

era, the idea of I am punisher. The NFL does not have any guys left who you think of strictly existing as punishers. He is one of the last of the true punishers. And if you don't believe that Ray Lewis was a punisher, Google YouTube, Ray Lewis, Eddie George. And Eddie George is big as a house. And those licks to Ray Lewis have put on him just seemed impossible. He's that guy. And that is why he makes number 22 on our list. And now, number 21, Timothy, Theodore Duncan. Now, guys, I'm going to be honest with you. Right now, Tim Duncan is number 21 on this list. When I sent

Ryan my first version of this list, Tim Duncan was not on it at all. When I sent Bo my first version of this list, Tim Duncan was not on it at all. then we both realized that was crazy. That was absurd. It is entirely possible that when we come back to do more numbers on this list, that Tim Duncan will have risen again as we stop and asked ourselves, what are we doing here? How did we, why do we do this to Tim Duncan?

All right? The arguments for Tim Duncan making this list, number one, if you want to add college into this, Tim Duncan was one of those rare. He's the number one picking the draft, no matter who gets the number one picking the draft because he's better than everybody, right? One of those guys, number one. Number two, Tim Duncan was first team, all NBA as a rookie. And you can make the argument.

It all depends on who you talk to, whether or not he was the best player on the Spurs as soon as he got there because it was David Robinson coming off the back injury. But do not let anybody tell you David Robinson was not a stone call beast, right? The idea, though, that Tim Duncan comes in is even in the same conversation with David Robinson coming into the league. tells you a lot about what you need to know. Two-time MVP, at a point, the best player in the NBA, five-time NBA champion, I believe it's five, three-time finals MVP, quite possibly the best, most impactful team defender in the history of the NBA. You go look at the defensive rating for the Spurs while Tim Duncan was there. And all the way until the end, he was an impactful force on defense. He was an all-star at age 38.

He was the best player in the league when he came in. He was 20 or 21, and he was an all-star at 30. He got 10th in MVP voting at 38 years old. At 38 years old, right? And we talk a lot about the old, the bank shot and the fundamentals and everything else. But the truth is, man, Tim Duncan was skilled, incredibly skilled, really good, and talk cash it. But it is own way. If you go see those clips of whether it be Kevin Garnett, DeMarcus cousins has one that's just come by. When Kevin Garnett talks about Tim Duncan talking, he's like, the thing about Tim Duncan is he didn't talk in sentences. He says, Timmy talked in phrases. He'd be like, slow, too late, almost. right like those are the sorts of things that he was saying to people it was nothing anybody could do with it

he was the proto kevin duran i'm so cold i don't need haircuts you know what i'm saying like he was he was the first dude to get out there on that kick and look this is the truth um david robinson i felt with the spurs and he was not alone in this with the 90s a lot of guys were like this to keep Elijah wine dealt with this. It was a handful of the guys that were in this space. They didn't give him anything really to work with. He was out there by himself, right? However, the thought that Tim Duncan could come in

and if nothing else be as good as David Robinson is incredible as a thought. And then from there, Tony Parker was a very good player. Manu Genoobli was a very good player. They are both Hall of Fame guys and a clear tier below Tim Duncan in terms of what he was and what he brought and what he contributed to that team. I mean, we started off this list talking about how we didn't want to include Shaq. Like that was part of our arbitrary cutoff because what do you do with Shaq? Tim Duncan successfully out dualed Shaq multiple times. Yes, but it's interesting because he successfully did and then had a three-year stretch with the Lakers were blow up.

them out, right? It is a very interesting career to look at because one thing I will say about Tim Duncan and maybe this is an indicator for that is he's a guy that we only evaluate according to his positives. We do not evaluate according to his negatives. We do not hold it against him that layup he missed late against Miami in the 2013 finals, for example. And I was there and I remember sitting in that press conference and looking at him looking like he was went shopping at Old Navy because he had a 1990s grunge costume party. to go to and just beat up and dejected all over his face,

but we don't really, we don't ask him to answer for those things. But he also, when he won that title with David Robinson, I want to say the third best player was maybe Stephen Jackson or Avery Johnson. I think Aver Johnson was the first, the 2003 titles were Stephen Jackson

was the second or third best player. Yeah, but it's still, I mean, it's, there are arguments to be made on both sides. And it's so easy to forget again, Duncan, in this way, because the lack of flash, right? And a lot of people see that as a positive. I just see that as a statement of fact. But he absolutely did enough to earn his place and to make his way onto this list. So we have Tim Duncan at number 21. Ryan, should I, should I tell the people some of the people

who don't make it or should we just make them wait and see who they are and then let, we have a plan for a guest to come. I think if you have one who didn't make it, I think you could let give them a little bit an appetizer and the rest they got to stick around for okay um unfortunately mr allen iverson so close so close tough cut real tough cut real tough cut real tough cut real tough cut we didn't want to do that real tough cut did not make it i think we'll give every every episode we'll give people one at that also receiving votes others receiving votes is that is that how we go we go do it yeah others receiving votes that's what we're going to be so guys please stick with us we're going to be doing this through the end of the summer right we've got to

So what we're going to do is we have the episodes where we'll give you five, and then we're also going to give you episodes that give context. So the next one, my buddy Spencer Hall is going to come on, and it's athletes who feel like the future. We're just going to talk about guys that felt like they were dropped off of spaceships and go through there. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. Ryan did a lot of work to help put this together, so I thank him for that.

And so stick with us on this because, hey, man, unless y'all want us just sitting around waiting for people to get arrested, you know, this is, this will be a lot of people. We're all waiting for football like you are. That's right. That's right. So guys, check this out. I appreciate you greatly. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We're going to do this three times a week, sometimes a little bit more. My man Ryan Brumley's behind the scenes handling everything. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us. Give us five stars. He'll only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.