Speaker 1: Alright, So, as you saw from my Twitter feed earlier today,
Speaker 1: I was successful. It turns out that it does not
Speaker 1: that complicated to get something on Apple podcast. I was
Speaker 1: able to figure it out over my coffee on Saturday
Speaker 1: morning or Sunday morning. I think it was um So
Speaker 1: I'm pumped to have that up there because I think
Speaker 1: that's for those of you who care enough to listen.
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot easier, especially when you're driving
Speaker 1: or doing work or something along those lines, to follow
Speaker 1: along in the form of a podcast. However, I do
Speaker 1: really like these live videos. I really like when I
Speaker 1: can have questions asked and I can kind of interact
Speaker 1: directly with you guys. It's a lot more fun for me.
Speaker 1: Makes it feel a lot more like a basketball conversation
Speaker 1: instead of just you know, one dude talking endlessly for
Speaker 1: a long time. But anyway, so today I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the uh uh m j Lebron debate as
Speaker 1: of right now, where I feel about what I feel
Speaker 1: about that debate as it stands currently. And then I
Speaker 1: got a lot of attitude from some people for me
Speaker 1: saying that Jimmy was the eleventh or twelfth best player
Speaker 1: in the league instead of the tenth and uh I'm
Speaker 1: going to defend that um. And last but not least,
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you all who have supported
Speaker 1: me during this last couple of months as I've gotten
Speaker 1: this process started, and I've had so much fun with it,
Speaker 1: And for all of you who take the time to
Speaker 1: go rate and review that podcast and subscribe, and for
Speaker 1: all of you who continue to support me, I just
Speaker 1: hope you understand how much I appreciate you guys. I
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've been having so much fun with
Speaker 1: it and I look forward to see where it goes.
Speaker 1: But anyway, with the Lebron MJ thing, it's really this simple.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a huge Lebron fan. It's the thing
Speaker 1: that got me into basketball. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: basket I grew up in a baseball and football family.
Speaker 1: I had to have a talk with my dad to
Speaker 1: convince him to let me quit the high school football
Speaker 1: team so that I could pursue basketball. And that was
Speaker 1: the the you know, the because it was just not
Speaker 1: a thing in my family growing up, and all my
Speaker 1: my brothers played football and baseball, and it was really
Speaker 1: hard for me to get off of that, you know track,
Speaker 1: to get to what I wanted, and uh, ironically just
Speaker 1: flicking channels. One day, I came across Lebron playing against
Speaker 1: the Pistons in two thousand six, and I guess I
Speaker 1: was a freshman in high school or a sophomore in
Speaker 1: high school. And uh, he ended up losing that series,
Speaker 1: but I was so impressed. I think I think I
Speaker 1: turned it on in game uh in game six when
Speaker 1: they took the might have been in Game five when
Speaker 1: they took the three to lead, and I was just
Speaker 1: entranced by how well he played. And I became a
Speaker 1: huge Lebron fan at that phase of my uh my life,
Speaker 1: and it got me into basketball, and I ended up,
Speaker 1: you know, getting basketball, ended up paying for my college,
Speaker 1: and end up being this unbelievable experience. So I'll always
Speaker 1: be a Lebron fan for that. But coming into this season,
Speaker 1: you know, I never thought that he had a legitimate
Speaker 1: case for the greatest basketball player ever. And I honestly
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of a mistake made by a
Speaker 1: lot of Lebron fans to jump on that train too early,
Speaker 1: because it shot some of the credibility down and it
Speaker 1: made it I think it's part of the reason why
Speaker 1: this debate is so you know, hard to have with people,
Speaker 1: and why everyone is so entrenched in their opinions, it's
Speaker 1: because you know, it was like they beat the seventy
Speaker 1: three win Warriors, and a lot of Lebron fans kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, stake their claim that that Lebron was that
Speaker 1: guy at that point, when I never really thought that
Speaker 1: at that point he had a legitimate case. And you know, uh,
Speaker 1: now and after this season, after what he was able
Speaker 1: to do, I do think that he finally has a
Speaker 1: case for me personally, I'm still not ready to say
Speaker 1: that he definitively can take that title. Um that said,
Speaker 1: I do believe he legitimately has a case. And what
Speaker 1: I plan to do today is to talk about what
Speaker 1: that case looks like and to explain why. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: if I was having a conversation with somebody and at
Speaker 1: some point in the future and I was staking that claim,
Speaker 1: this is what that claim would look like. And you know,
Speaker 1: for starters, you know, I think it's important to understand that,
Speaker 1: you know, the NBA relies heavily on individual conversations about
Speaker 1: individual players and individual legacies, but it is a team
Speaker 1: sport at the end of the day. Do you guys
Speaker 1: think Lebron finally just randomly in became the best player
Speaker 1: in the league again, or do you think he was
Speaker 1: the best player in the league in two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: and in two thousand eighteen and two thousand nineteen and
Speaker 1: probably for most of the last nine or ten years.
Speaker 1: It just as that team circumstances surrounding him have shifted,
Speaker 1: and you know, things have like broke his way and
Speaker 1: things have not broken his way, and it has resulted
Speaker 1: in you know, teams winning team championships, and and that
Speaker 1: a lot of times we overcomplicated instead of simplifying it
Speaker 1: down to the fact that, yes, this is the sport
Speaker 1: where an individual has the largest impact, but it is
Speaker 1: not a sport where an individual is the soul, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the sole reason why a team can win or lose,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's a I think it starts with
Speaker 1: the aura of invincibility that surrounds Michael Jordan's you know
Speaker 1: that he never lost when the reality was that he
Speaker 1: did not only in the eighties when he was going
Speaker 1: again against a lot of the guys who are his
Speaker 1: all time peers, the Larry Birds, the Isaiah Thomass and
Speaker 1: the Magic Johnson's who dominated while MJ was in the league,
Speaker 1: but also in the nineties, he lost twice. He lost
Speaker 1: in nine nine against that Detroit Pistons team in seven games,
Speaker 1: and he lost in to the to the Magic. And
Speaker 1: the reality is is like you can you can draw
Speaker 1: a line between uh, those losses and and the fact
Speaker 1: that basketball is a team sport even for those circumstances
Speaker 1: like the for that Pistons team, the youth on that
Speaker 1: Chicago roster wasn't ready, Scottie Pippen wasn't ready, and and
Speaker 1: it took those losses for them to improve to the
Speaker 1: point where they could peak simultaneously and go on the
Speaker 1: run that they did. And you know why they lost
Speaker 1: to the Magic because they had Horace Grant and Shaquille
Speaker 1: O'Neil and they had no front court, so they just
Speaker 1: got bullied and they had no chance, and that's why
Speaker 1: they lost. And you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times that doesn't mean that MJ wasn't the best player,
Speaker 1: you know, and MJ was probably the best player from
Speaker 1: you know, N nine four, you know, as as Larry
Speaker 1: Bird kind of throughout his back and faded out of
Speaker 1: the league. But the truth of the matter is that
Speaker 1: you know, uh, simplifying it down to just how many
Speaker 1: championships a player won, is it It does a disservice
Speaker 1: to both of those players, and the fact that in
Speaker 1: all of their teammates and all of their coaches over
Speaker 1: the years, and the impacts that those people had on
Speaker 1: them winning and losing over the years, and and the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is is for about a decade
Speaker 1: from eight or nine, nine to MJ was the best
Speaker 1: player in the league, and when he was in a
Speaker 1: circumstance where his team was in the top tier of
Speaker 1: teams in the league with talent, he won. And Lebron
Speaker 1: exact same thing from nineteen or from two thousand and
Speaker 1: uh two thousand and eleven or twelve, when he became
Speaker 1: the best player to now, you know, for nine or
Speaker 1: ten years he's been the best player in the league,
Speaker 1: and when things have broken his way, when he's been
Speaker 1: on a team that has had as much talent as
Speaker 1: everyone else in the league, he's one and that and
Speaker 1: that's the reality of both of their their cases. But
Speaker 1: before this season, that six to three gap was still
Speaker 1: too big, in my opinion to have any legitimate conversation
Speaker 1: surrounding whether or not Lebron deserved to be mentioned in
Speaker 1: that same breath in my opinion, But what he did
Speaker 1: this last year, I believe has brought that gap close
Speaker 1: enough that you can actually start to have an honest
Speaker 1: conversation about the circumstances surrounding both of those guys, and
Speaker 1: the fact that the fact that Lebron now has a
Speaker 1: legitimate conversation. So, you know, first of all, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about two things that don't matter to me,
Speaker 1: things that I don't think are fair elements of the
Speaker 1: MJ Lebron debate in Lebron's favor, for instance, longevity. A
Speaker 1: lot of stuff about, oh, Lebron is still dominating the
Speaker 1: league in his seventeenth season, that's not fair to Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's because Michael Jordan played in an arrow where guys
Speaker 1: went to college first. And the reality is is that, uh,
Speaker 1: in all likelihood, UH MJ would have more counting staf
Speaker 1: AT's and MJ would have more, uh, you know, have
Speaker 1: that impression of longevity had he gotten into the league
Speaker 1: when he was eighteen, but he didn't. He started in college,
Speaker 1: played you know, three seasons there and had to start
Speaker 1: in his first season in his early twenties, which is
Speaker 1: just a different career path than what it looks like today,
Speaker 1: So that I don't think works in in uh in
Speaker 1: Lebron's favor. And then I just mentioned it a second ago,
Speaker 1: but accounting stats, when you throw that longevity argument out
Speaker 1: the out the window, you have to do the counting
Speaker 1: stats as well. Like, it just doesn't matter to me
Speaker 1: that Lebron's gonna end up with more points, rebounds, and
Speaker 1: assists than Michael Jordan's, because I don't think that's fair
Speaker 1: to Michael Jordan's in the circumstance that he played with.
Speaker 1: If you want to bring up assists from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of bringing up Lebron's skill set and the fact that
Speaker 1: his passing ability was far superior to that of Michael Jordan's, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I just don't think you can do it in the
Speaker 1: form of counting stats. But what does matter to me
Speaker 1: and what I think needs to be the cornerstone of
Speaker 1: Lebron's case for greatest basketball player ever is his winning versatility.
Speaker 1: And that's the simple idea that regardless of circumstance and
Speaker 1: regardless of what she put around him, He's going to
Speaker 1: find a way to win and he can do it
Speaker 1: in different ways, and it goes so much further than
Speaker 1: the thing you've heard a million times over the past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks or over the past week, which is
Speaker 1: he has won three championships as the best player on
Speaker 1: on three different teams. So four championships with three different teams.
Speaker 1: It goes even further than that. He had two additional
Speaker 1: finals runs with two completely different supporting casts. In two
Speaker 1: thousand seven he went to the finals with Larry Hughes
Speaker 1: and Eric Snow and Drew Gooden and Zaidrewnielgawskis and Anderson
Speaker 1: Verigel and those guys. And then in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: after Kyrie left and they traded, They traded Kyrie, and
Speaker 1: they traded um Isaiah Thomas, and they traded Jay Crowder,
Speaker 1: and they traded all those guys. He carried another team
Speaker 1: to the finals that was built around George Hill and
Speaker 1: Rodney Hood and Kevin Love as a as a second
Speaker 1: star instead of a third star, and a lot more
Speaker 1: Tristan Thompson, a lot of Larry Nance Jr. He took
Speaker 1: five completely different supporting casts to the NBA Finals over
Speaker 1: a fourteen year stretch. Uh over a fourteen year stretch,
Speaker 1: and then in addition to that, in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: he came just two wins Shy and two game winners
Speaker 1: by UH or a game winner by Richard Lewis from
Speaker 1: taking another team to the finals. That was built around
Speaker 1: Moe Williams and Delonte West and j J. Hickson and
Speaker 1: and and those guys. So we've seen basically six completely
Speaker 1: different supporting casts get to either to the finals, to
Speaker 1: a championship, or two within two wins of the finals,
Speaker 1: whereas with Michael Jordan's while there was a couple of different,
Speaker 1: you know, moves on the periphery that were different, he
Speaker 1: did all of his winning with the same cast of characters,
Speaker 1: which was basically Scottie Pippen Phil Jackson. And then in
Speaker 1: the first three PET it was mainly built around Horrors
Speaker 1: Grant in the front court, and in the second three
Speaker 1: PA it was mainly built around Dennis Rodman. Now, I
Speaker 1: think it's important you can't punish MJ for that necessarily,
Speaker 1: but it does cast just that little bit of doubt
Speaker 1: just you can have a conversation about the fact that
Speaker 1: there is more evidence that lebron can win in different ways,
Speaker 1: whereas MJ. Just continued to win in the same way.
Speaker 1: And you know, and I think it's important understand that
Speaker 1: because you hear a lot of people say that. You
Speaker 1: hear a lot of people say things like, you know,
Speaker 1: well Lebron just always cuts and runs and goes to
Speaker 1: another roster, or you know, every time Lebron found his
Speaker 1: himself in a disadvantageous situation, he would just shuffle the
Speaker 1: deck again and leave and go somewhere else. And the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is is, yes, he did do that,
Speaker 1: but he did that out of necessity. And it's a
Speaker 1: necessity that did not exist for Michael Jordan's when Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan was in Chicago, as as he was getting to
Speaker 1: that point, you know, six or seven years into the
Speaker 1: league where he was starting to get frustrated as he
Speaker 1: was losing, Scottie Pippen peaked and became, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the best players in the league. And it allowed
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan to spend the entire second portion of his
Speaker 1: prime alongside one of the best players in the league.
Speaker 1: You know, I say, I've been saying this all season
Speaker 1: as it pertains to Anthony Davis, Michael Jordan playing with
Speaker 1: Scottie Pippen for the entire back end of his prime,
Speaker 1: basically for ten years. That was that would be very
Speaker 1: similar to Lebron spending his entire prime with Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: instead of getting Anthony Davis when he's thirty five years
Speaker 1: old already. Now, is Anthony Davis a better player than
Speaker 1: Scotti Pippen, Absolutely, But in the hierarchy of the league
Speaker 1: he was not. Like the league was so much deeper
Speaker 1: at the top now that it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: Scottie Pippen isn't that great, But in the nineties, Scotty
Speaker 1: Pippen was that great. He was a first team All
Speaker 1: NBA guy. He was. He ranged over the course of
Speaker 1: that ten year stretch from somewhere around the you know,
Speaker 1: six or seventh best player in the league to the
Speaker 1: second or third best player in the league. The guy
Speaker 1: damn Near won an m VP. The guy damn near
Speaker 1: made it to the finals without Michael Jordan. Scottie Pippen
Speaker 1: to the to the nineties was what Anthony Davis is
Speaker 1: to this era, which is not the best player in
Speaker 1: the league but right up there and on any given
Speaker 1: season could go on a run where he was like
Speaker 1: the best players in the league and So that's why
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan never shuffled a deck or went to another team,
Speaker 1: or asked out or demanded trades from teammates or things
Speaker 1: along those lines. That's why he didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because, for whatever reason, that reputation follows
Speaker 1: Lebron around, but it never has followed Kobe around. And
Speaker 1: you know, you look at those three guys. You've got, uh,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, Lebron, and Kobe. You've got Michael Jordan's who
Speaker 1: consistently in the for the large part of his career,
Speaker 1: was on one of the best teams in the league
Speaker 1: and never felt the need to leave. And then you've
Speaker 1: got Kobe, who very much felt the need to leave
Speaker 1: and demanded a trade and it ended up leading to
Speaker 1: his second stretch of championship contention there from two thousand
Speaker 1: h ten. And then you've got Lebron where that trade
Speaker 1: never happened and so he had to leave. So I've
Speaker 1: got the guy who never needed to leave, I've got
Speaker 1: the guy who wanted to and by threatening leaving caused
Speaker 1: his front office to finally be aggressive and make the
Speaker 1: necessary moves to bring in the winning piece, which was
Speaker 1: Pau Gasol, and then I've got Lebron, who, after seven
Speaker 1: years of dealing with Moe Williams and Delante West and
Speaker 1: Larry Hughes and Eric Snow, was like, I gotta do
Speaker 1: this myself, and you know, and then Dwyane Wade was
Speaker 1: supposed to be his Pippen and then he broke down.
Speaker 1: So if if Dwyane Wade stayed at that level the
Speaker 1: way that Scottie Pippen did for Michael, Lebron never would
Speaker 1: have left. He would have stayed in Miami. He left
Speaker 1: out of necessity. And so while it's not fair to
Speaker 1: blame Michael Jordan's for not winning in multiple circumstances, it's
Speaker 1: also not fair to blame Lebron for leaving in looking
Speaker 1: for those circumstances because he did it out of necessity.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, if if if
Speaker 1: your definition for what greatest basketball player ever is you
Speaker 1: know what can I win with? Then I think Lebron
Speaker 1: has a better case for number one, simply because of
Speaker 1: the fact that if I'm starting from scratch, and I'm
Speaker 1: picking four random players out of a hat to be
Speaker 1: the starters, and I'm picking another ten random players out
Speaker 1: of a hat, to be the supporting cast, and I'm
Speaker 1: picking another random name out of the hat to be
Speaker 1: the coach. There is more evidence that those random names
Speaker 1: will succeed alongside Lebron James, then there is evidence that
Speaker 1: they will succeed alongside any other player that that he
Speaker 1: can be compared to long term or UH in terms
Speaker 1: of the top players in NBA history. And so that
Speaker 1: is the number one case for Lebron being the greatest
Speaker 1: player ever. It's just that winning versatility, the idea of
Speaker 1: regardless of who you put next to him, He's going
Speaker 1: to find a way to win. And then secondly, the
Speaker 1: other big thing that I would build my Lebron case
Speaker 1: around is just that the mental consistency, in the mental toughness.
Speaker 1: I have never seen a player in my lifetime in
Speaker 1: any sport UH that has the ability to dig deep
Speaker 1: and find some sort of motivation to do it again,
Speaker 1: even when the carrot at the end of the tunnel
Speaker 1: may not be realistic, like what he did in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen with that Cavalier team sitting there like knowing
Speaker 1: he can't win the title and knowing it would be
Speaker 1: so easy to pack your bags and just be like
Speaker 1: this isn't the time, this isn't the run, and just
Speaker 1: doing it anyway, like what he did against Indiana and
Speaker 1: Boston and Toronto and that playoff run with that group
Speaker 1: of guys, just being like, you know what, the deck
Speaker 1: is stacked against me. I probably have zero percent chance
Speaker 1: of getting this done, but I'm gonna go all the
Speaker 1: way anyway, and I'll go get my ass kicked by
Speaker 1: Golden State. But it's just his that that that type
Speaker 1: of mental wiring that he has is not something that
Speaker 1: existed for m J. And the reality is is for MJ,
Speaker 1: like when he got exhausted, he just left, and he
Speaker 1: got to leave for two years, and then when he
Speaker 1: got exhausted again, he left again. So you know, and
Speaker 1: I think you've seen that with just about every other
Speaker 1: group of players in NBA history, Like look at the
Speaker 1: Lakers in two thousand eleven and two thousand twelve. It's
Speaker 1: like those guys just got tired and then you know,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 1: health and Kobe's knees started to have some issues there
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven. But you know the reality is,
Speaker 1: with all of these other players that you compare Lebron too.
Speaker 1: There were just there was just an eventual mental exhaustion
Speaker 1: that would set in that would cause them to fall apart.
Speaker 1: And if you like, you look at the Celtics and
Speaker 1: Lakers in the eighties, like there are a couple of
Speaker 1: random seasons in there for both of those guys, for
Speaker 1: Larry and for Magic where they would just lose and
Speaker 1: like the second or third round for some reason, and
Speaker 1: you'd be like, wait, like why in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: why in the world is Portland's beating l a you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like Magic Johnson's the best player on the
Speaker 1: floor by a mile. And it's that mental exhaustion. It's
Speaker 1: the simple fact that over time, it's one thing to win,
Speaker 1: it's another thing to win again and again and again
Speaker 1: and again without ever relenting. And if you look at
Speaker 1: Lebron's entire career, it's pretty much just last year with
Speaker 1: the injury and the injuries, injuries to all of his
Speaker 1: role players, where you can say he kind of packed
Speaker 1: it in, but even then he tried, like he came
Speaker 1: back from that growing injury with you know, Alonzo being
Speaker 1: out and with Brandon Brandon Ingram being injury prone all season,
Speaker 1: and even after brandon Ingram went down and he just
Speaker 1: tried to do it, and then of course it ended
Speaker 1: up not being enough because that team was garbage after
Speaker 1: all the injuries happened. But he gave it. He had
Speaker 1: Lebron's mental energy. Lebron's mental reservoir is completely different than
Speaker 1: any player UH in the history of the NBA. And
Speaker 1: so if I'm so insummation, like I said, from from
Speaker 1: the from the start, I personally am not ready to,
Speaker 1: you know, profoundly claim that Lebron is the best player ever.
Speaker 1: But I think now after this season, he finally has
Speaker 1: a legitimate case, and that legitimate case is built on
Speaker 1: his his UH winning versatility, the ability to win regardless
Speaker 1: of circumstances. He has taken five different supporting casts to
Speaker 1: the finals and six different supporting casts, two within two
Speaker 1: wins of the finals. He he has shown that he
Speaker 1: can win under any circumstance. And then secondly, his mental consistency.
Speaker 1: His mental consistency, his motor his his reservoir of motivation
Speaker 1: is unparalleled in the history of basketball in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and so the ability for him to eventually have a
Speaker 1: profound case is built on that longevity. Like I said, earlier.
Speaker 1: You cannot use longevity as a case for lab On
Speaker 1: now because what he just did, he's thirty five and
Speaker 1: MJ did this at age thirty five. But you know
Speaker 1: what MJ didn't do is this at thirty six, in
Speaker 1: this at thirty seven, and this at thirty eight. So
Speaker 1: that third case that Lebron can make, beyond the winning
Speaker 1: versatility and beyond that mental consistency, is he can make
Speaker 1: the longevity case. Now the year everything going up to
Speaker 1: year seventeen didn't it was worthless, It didn't count in
Speaker 1: terms of the longevity debate because MJ did that too.
Speaker 1: But now, in this late stage of his career, Lebron
Speaker 1: has a chance to add another significant element to his
Speaker 1: case in that longevity. See, I'm I, you know I
Speaker 1: I like I said, I think that this debate can
Speaker 1: get super uninteresting with how entrenched everybody is. That I
Speaker 1: do like having the nuanced conversation with people who are
Speaker 1: honestly willing to do it honestly, And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: excited to have Tommy on later this week. He's going
Speaker 1: to take the MJ side of this, and him and
Speaker 1: I will have some fun with that. Just to give
Speaker 1: you guys some extra content here in the NBA's summer um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like that's that's just where I stand right
Speaker 1: now at the summer of the you know, the winter
Speaker 1: the off season of after Lebron has won his fourth title.
Speaker 1: So the last thing I want to talk about today is, uh,
Speaker 1: this Jimmy Butler thing. I caught a lot of flak
Speaker 1: from people when I said that Jimmy Butler wasn't a
Speaker 1: top ten player, but it was something that you know,
Speaker 1: there's two important things that I want to get out here,
Speaker 1: just to defend myself. First of all, Uh, it bought
Speaker 1: this is I used to have this problem with Steph
Speaker 1: fans when I'd be like, I get just my astitude
Speaker 1: for saying that Steph is the second or third best
Speaker 1: player in the league or the fourth best player in
Speaker 1: the league, as if that's some giant insult when the
Speaker 1: league is so damn talented. Now that the guys at
Speaker 1: the top and the the guys at the top of
Speaker 1: the league are the names you're looking at, it's the
Speaker 1: most it's the most. Uh, it's the most talented top
Speaker 1: of the league we've seen since the nineteen eighties. When
Speaker 1: you go to the nineteen eighties, and you've got you know,
Speaker 1: Barkley at the top of his game, and Bird at
Speaker 1: the top of his game, and Magic at the top
Speaker 1: of his game and MJ at the top of his
Speaker 1: game that like, and it goes on and on. In
Speaker 1: the eighties, that's literally what it's like. Now I've got Lebron,
Speaker 1: I've got Kauai, I've got Steph I've got you know, uh, Janice,
Speaker 1: and I've got Kevin Durant and like and and now
Speaker 1: I've got Anthony Davis, who's in that group of guys
Speaker 1: like that, the list of talent at the top of
Speaker 1: the league is unlike it has ever been since the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. And so from that standpoint, it goes all
Speaker 1: the way down into that deep you know, ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen range. And for me to say, you know, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler is the eleventh or twelfth best player ever or
Speaker 1: excuse me, and this era is not an insult to
Speaker 1: him because like I said, uh, like I said when
Speaker 1: I originally made the point, we're comparing him to Damian Lillard,
Speaker 1: a guy who averaged thirty damn points a game this
Speaker 1: year and just dragged his team to the playoffs on
Speaker 1: his back. When they were injured out the wazoo. It's
Speaker 1: like this guy, this guy is in a tier where
Speaker 1: he's even in that you know, tend to five team range.
Speaker 1: He is competing against Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum, who
Speaker 1: just dropped twenty six points a game in a playoff
Speaker 1: run for a team that made the Eastern Conference finals
Speaker 1: and was the best defender on the floor and a
Speaker 1: lot of the games that he played. And and uh,
Speaker 1: Joe l Embiid, who's like the best, like the best
Speaker 1: center we've seen since you know, uh, since Dwight was
Speaker 1: in his prime. And and we have you know, Paul George,
Speaker 1: who I mean, obviously we've roasted him, but he was
Speaker 1: an m VP candidate last year, and and CP three
Speaker 1: was second team All NBA this year and dragged a
Speaker 1: team that was supposed to miss the playoffs and into
Speaker 1: a seven game slug fest with the Houston Rockets. So
Speaker 1: the point is is, like me saying that Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: is not a top ten player is not me, you know,
Speaker 1: shooting on the guy after having an amazing playoff run.
Speaker 1: That's me just trying to have an honest conversation about
Speaker 1: the NBA's proverbial horse race, and I'm looking at these
Speaker 1: guys and Okay, I've got nine for sure names that
Speaker 1: I cannot put Jimmy above. And then I'm talking about
Speaker 1: whether or not he's better than Dame or better than Tatum.
Speaker 1: And right now I would say that Damian Lillard is
Speaker 1: so far superior as an offensive player that I just
Speaker 1: cannot put Jimmy above him because of my personal ideologies
Speaker 1: and the way that I evaluate offensive talent or talent
Speaker 1: in the playoffs. And then the same thing goes for
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum. And again, I made this point like seventeen
Speaker 1: times over the last two weeks, and I'll make it
Speaker 1: one last time. Jimmy Butler was a twenty point per
Speaker 1: game guy for the last six seasons in Chicago, in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: in Philly, and in Miami. In the playoffs, he was
Speaker 1: a twenty point of game guy in Minnesota, in Chicago,
Speaker 1: in Philly, and in Miami. In this Miami playoff run,
Speaker 1: he was a twenty point of game guy the entire
Speaker 1: playoff run. And then the Lakers really really really really
Speaker 1: really really really let their foot off the gas in
Speaker 1: two games in Game three of this series and in
Speaker 1: Game five of this series, and they let a guy
Speaker 1: who is the eleventh or twelveth best player in the
Speaker 1: league play one on one basketball all night long, and
Speaker 1: they let a guy who is the tenth or the
Speaker 1: eleventh and twelve best player in the league face zero
Speaker 1: help defense and uh Anthony Davis and foul trouble, just
Speaker 1: floating around the perimeter and just really garbage efforts from
Speaker 1: the Lakers that led to him having a forty point
Speaker 1: triple double and a thirty five point triple double. And
Speaker 1: again that's Jimmy. Butler deserves all the credit for what
Speaker 1: he did in this playoff run, and he absolutely deserves
Speaker 1: to be acknowledged as you know, a player who was
Speaker 1: better than we all thought he was, because coming into
Speaker 1: this playoff run, we probably all had Jimmy in that seventeen,
Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty range, so we were giving him his
Speaker 1: props by moving him up the list. But if I'm
Speaker 1: having an honest conversation about who the ten best players
Speaker 1: in the league are, I just I can't in good
Speaker 1: faith take a twenty point a game guy who's a
Speaker 1: good not great playoff defender and who's good not great
Speaker 1: at anything in playoff basketball and put him over Damian Lillard,
Speaker 1: who legitimately, uh that gets trapped on every single pick
Speaker 1: and roll and doubled all over the court because teams
Speaker 1: are terrified of him having the ball, and you know
Speaker 1: what guys like in this the last thing I'll say,
Speaker 1: Dame has had some playoff failures in his life, make
Speaker 1: no mistake, but Jimmy Butler won three playoff series total
Speaker 1: in his entire career coming into this playoff run in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference, literally playing against the same guys that
Speaker 1: everybody has completely denigrated for the sake of trashing Lebron
Speaker 1: for the last decade. Jimmy Butler has been in that
Speaker 1: same conference and has been a twenty point of game
Speaker 1: guy for the last six years. And his won three
Speaker 1: playoff series total in his entire career, and one of
Speaker 1: them was back in the day when Derrick Ross was
Speaker 1: on the team and he was you know, uh not
Speaker 1: the same guy. So the reality is is like if
Speaker 1: I put Damian Lillard on this Miami Heat team and
Speaker 1: and gave him that Eric Spoelstra coaching staf of and
Speaker 1: the band's elite defensive versatility, and Andrea Guadala and Jake
Speaker 1: Crowder and elite shooters like Duncan Robinson and Tyler Harrow.
Speaker 1: Guess what, guys, Dame's going to the finals, and he
Speaker 1: probably gives Lebron a better run for his money because
Speaker 1: they're not gonna It's just I just think that we've
Speaker 1: gotten a little bit out of a little bit crazy
Speaker 1: on this Jimmy Butler thing because of a couple of
Speaker 1: games that were incredible. But we have two games of
Speaker 1: that type of evidence, and I've got six entire years,
Speaker 1: including this year, including every other playoff game in this
Speaker 1: playoff run, where Jimmy was a different guy. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I think a lot of people are overthinking
Speaker 1: this and getting a little bit too caught up in
Speaker 1: the moment. And if i'm if, I'm talking about who
Speaker 1: you know, which I take very seriously because I'm a
Speaker 1: die hard NBA nerd. I take NBA rankings very seriously.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Dame and maybe even Tatum have a
Speaker 1: better case as better basketball players right now than Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler does. And I'll stand by that um at least
Speaker 1: for this summer, until I see something a little bit
Speaker 1: more consistent from Jimmy moving forward. All right, So that's
Speaker 1: all I have for today. UM, Like I said, later
Speaker 1: this week, I'm gonna have Tommy come on and we're
Speaker 1: going to uh talk m J Lebron. I also am
Speaker 1: going to finish my top ten list and go one
Speaker 1: through nine uh and UH. The format I'll do for
Speaker 1: that is, I'll work my way up from nine to one,
Speaker 1: and each player that I get to, I will explain
Speaker 1: why that player is better than the player underneath him.
Speaker 1: Uh and then I'll take some questions. At the end
Speaker 1: of that one, you guys can explain why you disagree.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so thanks again for for all of you
Speaker 1: for listening. Like I said, if you go to my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed, my pinned tweet has the link to the
Speaker 1: Apple podcast that I finally have created. All of you
Speaker 1: who rate, review and subscribe, I sincerely appreciate you, guys,
Speaker 1: and until later this week, I guess