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Speaker 1: Hey, what a welcome in And I'm Doug Gottlieb. This

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Speaker 1: is all ball.

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Speaker 2: We got a lot to get to in this episode

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Speaker 2: because there is a new book out about Lebron and

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Speaker 2: you're like, oh God, what more could I learn about

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Speaker 2: Lebron James?

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Speaker 1: Well a lot. Jeff Benedict is the author, and you're like, man,

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Speaker 1: Jeff Benedict, huh who is that one? Well?

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Speaker 2: Think of who the biggest athletes are in the twenty

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Speaker 2: first century, right, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Lebron James, and

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Speaker 2: now with Lebron James. He has completed the triumvirant. I

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Speaker 2: think that's the word. He has done the biography on

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Speaker 2: all three. But I think it's a unique biography because

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Speaker 2: we do know many of the stories and yet there's

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Speaker 2: some detail that we have missing and connecting all the

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Speaker 2: different kind of tissue.

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Speaker 1: It's all in this book. I'm reading it.

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Speaker 2: It's fabulous. We'll get Jef Benedict in a second. Speaking

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Speaker 2: of Lebron, you know there are people that are critical

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Speaker 2: of Lebron for he just shoots too many threes. And

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Speaker 2: while I'd agree with you, I also think you got

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Speaker 2: to understand that at thirty eight years old, you know,

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Speaker 2: Lebron knows himself pretty well, like he tries to get

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Speaker 2: those runouts and straight line drives and get a shoulder

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Speaker 2: into guys as often as possible in transition.

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Speaker 1: But there's also just the case of.

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Speaker 2: Hey man, he gets tired, and I think he's gotten

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Speaker 2: more and more comfortable being a catch and shoot perimeter

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Speaker 2: shooter as time has gone on. Obviously that was not

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Speaker 2: a strength in his career. But I'm going to disagree

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Speaker 2: he'd got to keep taking those three. You got to

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Speaker 2: make some, got to take good ones, got to not settle.

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Speaker 2: But what do people want him to do? Go down

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Speaker 2: and play bullyball in the post all the time. He

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Speaker 2: can do it some on undersized defenders. He can't do

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Speaker 2: it on Aaron Gordon, can't do it on Jokic. He's

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Speaker 2: not a natural post player. He hasn't really developed that

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Speaker 2: part of his game, you know, And especially when you

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Speaker 2: have Anthony Davis, it's there's just not Necesari or Vanderbilt,

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Speaker 2: especially in the game, there's not the space in there

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Speaker 2: to do all that much. I've actually been impressed with

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Speaker 2: the Lakers considering you're playing outs, dude, considering the pace

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Speaker 2: you're playing at and there are parts of the Nut

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Speaker 2: and the Nuggets which are some pretty obvious flaws which

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Speaker 2: become apparent. You know, they go through stretchers where they

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Speaker 2: don't play defense. You know, they will take some ill

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Speaker 2: time shots. And as spectacular as Jamal Murray was, going

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Speaker 2: back to Game two, you know, there are times in

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Speaker 2: which he can take bad shots and go through series

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Speaker 2: where he misses a ton of shots like he did

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Speaker 2: in the first half, or he struggles to guard like

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Speaker 2: he did in Game one and at times in Game two,

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Speaker 2: or like in Game two, when he's playing well. He

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Speaker 2: not a natural point guard and pressure sometimes. I wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be surprised if they double him some on some pick

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Speaker 2: and rolls every once in a while, because he will

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Speaker 2: kind of throw it up for grabs a little bit.

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Speaker 2: But he's a spectacular shot maker, and it was incredible

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Speaker 2: what he was able to do in that second half

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Speaker 2: and turn a disappointing shooting game around and just hoop well,

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Speaker 2: Jokis was still really productive. He continues to get tired

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Speaker 2: in the second half. Let's see what looks like at

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Speaker 2: sea level when they play the Lakers, and it does

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Speaker 2: feel like, you know, the Nuggets are kind of one

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Speaker 2: win in LA from breaking the spirit of the Lakers,

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Speaker 2: you know, I mean the Lakers struggles are I think

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Speaker 2: Dennis Shruder is a pest defensively and does a tremendous job,

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Speaker 2: but man, offensively, he leaves a lot to be desired.

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Speaker 2: Danzelo Russell is really frustrating. I think they're a minus

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Speaker 2: fifty two with him on the floor so far through

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Speaker 2: two games. Something crazy like that. He continues to struggle

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Speaker 2: because you're not a great defender and his entire game

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Speaker 2: is based upon whether or not he makes shots and

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Speaker 2: not necessarily creating shots for others. I think that's the

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Speaker 2: flaw with the Lakers. As for the Nuggets, like I

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Speaker 2: thought they were the best team, I just don't know

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Speaker 2: if they can actually win this series. There's just so

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Speaker 2: many moments when you're like, all right, well, now's the

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Speaker 2: time in which if they just work it, take a

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Speaker 2: good shot, they win this game and something goes awry.

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Speaker 2: You know, there's been so many opportunities in both games

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Speaker 2: to put the Lakers away, and I mean you just

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Speaker 2: even take last night where they have the Lakers where

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Speaker 2: they want them with, you know, under a minute to go,

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Speaker 2: Jamal Murray gets the ball and bounds, turns it over

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Speaker 2: and Lebron misses a layup. You know, while you can

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Speaker 2: be critical of Lebron for missing a layup, you also say, like, look,

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Speaker 2: hey he makes that layup. It's a three point game,

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Speaker 2: and they don't have to foul, and the Lakers got

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Speaker 2: a chance to come down tie the game. Game one,

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Speaker 2: Lakers had plenty of opportunites. Lebron had a wide open three,

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Speaker 2: a chance to tie the game or maybe even take

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Speaker 2: the lead, and that they couldn't capitalize. So for Denver

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Speaker 2: as well as they played in games one or two,

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Speaker 2: there's still a lot of meat left on the bone,

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Speaker 2: and I don't know whether or not they'll be able

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Speaker 2: to learn how to get all the meat clean, all

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Speaker 2: the meat off the bone moving forward. And like, look,

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Speaker 2: if the Lakers come back and win this series, it

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Speaker 2: continues to build the legacy of Lebron, especially with the Lakers.

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Speaker 2: But I will point out that while there's a ton

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Speaker 2: of equity gain based upon the turnaround in this team,

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Speaker 2: and this is a team that's been turned around, right,

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Speaker 2: they were falling out of the possibility of playoffs when

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Speaker 2: the trade was made. Trades were made, and then Lebron

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Speaker 2: was hurt, and yet they figured it out. And Lebron

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Speaker 2: has i think, assumed a really good and different role

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Speaker 2: than other times in his career, where he facilitates, he

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Speaker 2: moves the ball, he plays within the structure of an offense.

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Speaker 1: Many times he doesn't hold the ball the way he

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Speaker 1: used to hold the ball.

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Speaker 2: There's still moments in which Lebron tries to be Lebron

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Speaker 2: and forces will. But there are times in which he

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Speaker 2: shows that he's a human being and he understands his

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Speaker 2: age and he moves the basketball, and it's allowed others

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Speaker 2: to be really successful. So there's a lot of good.

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Speaker 2: But I will tell you that you know, when you

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Speaker 2: live in Los Angeles, it's a Kobe town. If Lebron

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Speaker 2: loses in the Conference finals to the Nuggets, you get

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Speaker 2: all the well, Kobe wouldn't have lost that lost that series.

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Speaker 1: In regards to the fact that Kbe lost plenty of series,

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Speaker 1: I'm just telling you what the narrative will be.

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Speaker 2: All right, Let's let's get to our discussion with Jeff Benterdict.

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Speaker 2: He's an award winning and acclaimed author. His new book

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Speaker 2: is the biography of Lebron James.

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Speaker 1: Jeff, who was the impetus behind the book.

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Speaker 3: I mean the impetus is that, you know, I got

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Speaker 3: to write Tiger Woods's biography, I got to do the Dynasty,

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Speaker 3: which was twenty years of Tom Brady, and I think

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Speaker 3: Lebron is the third of the three greatest male athletes

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Speaker 3: on the American stage in this century. And so it's

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Speaker 3: a it completes the trio.

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Speaker 1: How does it work? Like?

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Speaker 2: I'm fascinated with that. Okay, I've done these other two.

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Speaker 2: This makes sense? What like legitimately? What's the process like

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Speaker 2: of going from idea? It makes sense to me. You're

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Speaker 2: the guy who wrote the other two. But how does

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Speaker 2: it come to actually be?

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Speaker 3: You know? So that's a great question, Doug. And the

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Speaker 3: truth is, and being completely honest about it, the idea

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Speaker 3: to do Lebron wasn't mine. It was proposed to me

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Speaker 3: by my publisher in a meeting. And I remember I

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Speaker 3: was not prepared for that at all. I had no

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Speaker 3: idea that they were going to recommend that I do Lebron.

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Speaker 3: And when they mentioned it to me in a meeting,

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Speaker 3: it was simply this, what about Lebron? That was just

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Speaker 3: the question. It's three words, and I my agent was

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Speaker 3: with me, My literary agent. I never looked at him.

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Speaker 3: I just looked back at my publisher and said, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I mean it to me. It was such an obvious,

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Speaker 3: tremendous idea. I didn't think about anything other than that.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't until you know, after I'd said yes and

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Speaker 3: had time to really think about what I had just

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Speaker 3: committed to, that I was really overwhelmed by the magnitude

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Speaker 3: of you know, what I had just committed to. And

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Speaker 3: I would liken it to you know, standing at the

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Speaker 3: bottom of a massive mountain and not being able to

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Speaker 3: see the top from where I was. And so I

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Speaker 3: still followed the same process that I followed with my

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Speaker 3: other books, which is a deep dive into, you know,

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Speaker 3: intensive research, trying to read everything that's out there that's

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Speaker 3: been written about Lebron, but maybe more importantly, everything that

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Speaker 3: Lebron has ever said over the years, whether it's in

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Speaker 3: printed form, whether it's in an interview that was recorded

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Speaker 3: and is on video, whether it's archival video that people

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Speaker 3: haven't seen before. But it's gathering all of that and

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Speaker 3: I spent about a year building a timeline for Lebron's life.

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Speaker 3: And it's once you do that, the timeline is what

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Speaker 3: enables me to then from a thirty thousand foot view,

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Speaker 3: look down and say, okay, here are the areas that Yes,

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Speaker 3: everybody who knows about Lebron knows about these things. For example,

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Speaker 3: everybody knows he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated

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Speaker 3: when he was a teenager. What can you say about

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Speaker 3: that that nobody knows? And the job of a biographer

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Speaker 3: is to do that at every step of his life

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Speaker 3: is to you have to cover the things that people

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Speaker 3: know because they're monumental moments. But your job is to

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Speaker 3: either a find things about those moments that no one's

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Speaker 3: aware of, or reframe them in a way that is

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Speaker 3: illuminating for the reader.

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Speaker 2: What about tackling you mentioned like you read everything written

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Speaker 2: about him, everything he said.

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Speaker 1: What's the job like?

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Speaker 2: Obviously you're trying to find new and different ways to

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Speaker 2: more thoroughly tell some of the stories that are already known

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Speaker 2: and many of the stories that are not.

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Speaker 1: But what about the basic stories.

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Speaker 2: How do you decide Okay, this has been overcovered and

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Speaker 2: this is not and how much how much you know?

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Speaker 2: Because again, in my job, you know, when you're doing radio,

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Speaker 2: you're doing a pod, you can't they tell you never assume,

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Speaker 2: don't assume everybody knows what you're talking about. How do

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Speaker 2: you decipher what is assumed and you can gloss over

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Speaker 2: and what you have to make a deep dive into

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Speaker 2: because there is at some point limited space and things

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Speaker 2: have to get edited out.

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Speaker 3: That's a great question, and I think when we're when

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Speaker 3: we're talking about the challenge you just brought up about

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Speaker 3: on a podcast, don't assume everybody knows. That's a good

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Speaker 3: rule of thumb for a journalist is out. What I

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Speaker 3: would say about Tiger Woods and Tom Brady and certainly

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Speaker 3: Lebron James is they are arguably the three most covered

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Speaker 3: athletes of our time. And in Lebron's case, I would

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Speaker 3: put him at number one because I mean him and

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Speaker 3: Tiger are a close one two, right, And Tiger was

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Speaker 3: on national TV when he's two years old because of golf.

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Speaker 3: But Lebron, we all know from the time he was fifteen,

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Speaker 3: even before he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated,

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Speaker 3: he was being followed around by people with cameras, video cameras,

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Speaker 3: still cameras journalists. His life has been more covered than

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Speaker 3: It's hard to point to an athlete that had more

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Speaker 3: coverage than him, So I would say in this instance,

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Speaker 3: it is a safe assumption. It's in other words, I'm

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Speaker 3: breaking the rule a little bit, and I am assuming

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Speaker 3: that everybody knows he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated,

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Speaker 3: and so I'm going to treat that story a certain way.

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Speaker 3: Everybody knows that in the summer of twenty ten he

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Speaker 3: did something incredibly controversial when he went on TV and

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Speaker 3: announced he was going to Miami, and everybody knows that

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Speaker 3: four years later he's going to leave Miami in an

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Speaker 3: equally you know, well publicized way and announcing an essay

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Speaker 3: in Sports Illustrated he's going home and then win a championship.

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Speaker 3: So there's those touchstone moments that you know, a you

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Speaker 3: have to write about them because the whole world knows

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Speaker 3: about him. But you know, it's what are all the

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Speaker 3: other details that are in his life that probably people

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Speaker 3: don't know that lead up to those moments. And I

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Speaker 3: spent a lot of time like pinpointing what are those

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Speaker 3: And here's an example of one of those. Doug Like,

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Speaker 3: everybody knows he's compared to Michael Right, it's it's the

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Speaker 3: never ending debate who's the greatest of all time? Jordan

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Speaker 3: or Lebron. What can I really say about that? Well,

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Speaker 3: as a biographer, I don't really want to weigh in

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Speaker 3: on that. I don't want to make those kinds of statements.

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Speaker 3: But what I can do is take you back in

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Speaker 3: time to when Lebron first met Michael, which is a

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Speaker 3: story that hardly anybody knows, and I was fortunate to,

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Speaker 3: you know, you find that Lebron was actually keeping a

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Speaker 3: journal back then, and he was doing it for Slam magazine.

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Speaker 3: How many people read those journal entries back in, you know,

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Speaker 3: in that time period in two thousand and one, hardly anybody,

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Speaker 3: and even if they did read it, they don't remember it.

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Speaker 3: And so I leaned into those journal entries because they're

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Speaker 3: a great original source. It's Lebron's own words written as

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Speaker 3: a teenager. They're unfiltered. It's him in the moment, and

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Speaker 3: he's talking like a teenager would talk, and he's talking

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Speaker 3: about things like meeting Michael for the first time. When

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Speaker 3: you find things like that, as a biographer, that's stuff

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Speaker 3: where you go, Okay, that's a gold mine. Let's go

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Speaker 3: down that road, because now you can introduce content that

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Speaker 3: people haven't read it, and it puts a different a

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Speaker 3: totally different loss on the Jordan Lebron debate.

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Speaker 2: You know one thing that one kind of flaw in

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Speaker 2: Lebron's story is there's no real.

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Speaker 1: Career crisis, right.

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Speaker 2: I'd say the the two the if the lowest points

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Speaker 2: are not playing well in the NBA Finals and after

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Speaker 2: deciding to leave Cleveland, right, whereas Tom Brady six round

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Speaker 2: and also and then after unefeated season, lose in the

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Speaker 2: super Bowl and tear up your knee, right yeah, And

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Speaker 2: we know about Tiger Woods and the injuries mid career,

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Speaker 2: and then of course all of his personal personal misgivings,

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Speaker 2: like there's there's kind of I mean, is there is

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Speaker 2: there something I'm missing? But it feels like, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I guess the decision and the Dallas series are like

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Speaker 2: the lowest points, and really, in reality, if those are

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Speaker 2: your lowest points, that that's not the strife of so

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Speaker 2: many other stars.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think one of the things that stands out

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Speaker 3: about Lebron to me, because I've written about a lot

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Speaker 3: of athletes over the last twenty five years, from high

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Speaker 3: school athletes to college to pro it's incredibly rare to

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Speaker 3: find an athlete who has the kind of spotlight that

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Speaker 3: Lebron has, and with that comes tremendous wealth, fame, power,

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Speaker 3: and as a result of that, there's so many temptations

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Speaker 3: at your feet and hands, and Lebron doesn't participate. One

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Speaker 3: of my favorite things to write in this book was

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Speaker 3: back in O seven, he allowed a woman from Esquire

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Speaker 3: named Lisa Tatio, a terrifically talented writer who knew nothing

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Speaker 3: about sports, to shadow him through part of that season.

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Speaker 3: And one of the things Lisa Tatio would become known

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Speaker 3: for now is she in the incredible books about women

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Speaker 3: and you know, like sexual relations with men and kind

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Speaker 3: of how men deal with women and see women. So

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Speaker 3: I thought she would be a really powerful person to

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Speaker 3: talk to about what she saw when she was shadowing

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Speaker 3: Lebron in places where there were women, and she was

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Speaker 3: watching Lebron's eyes and one of the things she said

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Speaker 3: that I thought was fascinating was Lebron's eyes never wandered.

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Speaker 3: And I know the significance of that because anyone who's

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Speaker 3: a man can appreciate the challenge that she's talking about.

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Speaker 3: Is you're a guy who is surrounded by beautiful women

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Speaker 3: in all kinds of circumstances and having a wandering eye

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Speaker 3: would not only be natural, but it would be easy.

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Speaker 3: And she said she could not believe the discipline that

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Speaker 3: Lebron had because in her opinion, and again this is

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Speaker 3: her interpretation, but her interpretation was, he was so focused

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Speaker 3: on making sure that basketball was protected as the most

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Speaker 3: important thing for him that he wasn't going to let

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Speaker 3: anything distract him or determ or take his eye off

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Speaker 3: what his goal was. And I think that that tells

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Speaker 3: you a lot about Lebron and why he has had

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Speaker 3: the kind of career you're referring to. And so when

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Speaker 3: we say what's the biggest controversy we associate with Lebron,

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Speaker 3: it was the manner and not even the fact that

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Speaker 3: he chose to go to Miami, but the manner in

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Speaker 3: which he chose to announce it. That's the worst thing

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Speaker 3: you can say right about him.

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Speaker 2: And that's that's and and and like, look, if we're honest,

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Speaker 2: you know, Tiger Woods grew up in a different era,

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Speaker 2: started his career in an era where we didn't really

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Speaker 2: cover or care about his personal life, right, and we

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Speaker 2: suddenly started to care and got religion kind of as

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Speaker 2: sports viewers and sports fans. Lebron's been in that era

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Speaker 2: his entire career, so it's even more powerful the fact

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Speaker 2: that there's been literally nothing off the floor right like

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Speaker 2: the again, the worst thing off the floor you could say,

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Speaker 2: is is he too involved as a parent that he

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Speaker 2: likes to get into layup line sometimes with his kids

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Speaker 2: game Like that's yeah, it's really it feels like one

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Speaker 2: of those interesting books. But is it dull because there's

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Speaker 2: not what's the spice there?

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Speaker 1: What's the spice?

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Speaker 3: It's not dull at all because there's to me, there's

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Speaker 3: a ton of spice, like and I'll give you an example,

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Speaker 3: like right after he shortly after he meets Michael, he

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Speaker 3: also meets jay Z and there's a great chapter where

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Speaker 3: Lebron has just been drafted, so he's the number one

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Speaker 3: draft pick, he's eighteen years old, he hasn't played a

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Speaker 3: game in Cleveland yet because they've just had the draft,

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Speaker 3: but he knows he's going to be a Cavalier. And

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Speaker 3: that summer, jay Z has him come to New York

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Speaker 3: to play in his street ball tournament. And back then

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Speaker 3: this was a really big deal. I mean, you can't

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Speaker 3: imagine today that NBA players in the draft would be

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Speaker 3: playing in a street ball tournament in New York City, right,

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Speaker 3: it's unheard of, but Lebron went there. The more important thing, though,

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Speaker 3: from that summer is the time he spent with jay Z.

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Speaker 3: When jay Z was at a crossroads in his own career.

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Speaker 3: Jay Z's older than him, He's thinking about walking away

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Speaker 3: from hip hop music altogether and doing other things. Lebron's

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Speaker 3: just starting his career. There's this fascinating formation of a

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Speaker 3: relationship between jay Z and Lebron that's not a relationship

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Speaker 3: between two guys that are just famous and want to

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Speaker 3: hang out with someone else who's famous, but who actually

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Speaker 3: see the world the same way. And jay Z sees

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Speaker 3: in Lebron something that was different in jay Z. Jay

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Speaker 3: Z was angry when his dad walked, you know, wasn't

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Speaker 3: in his life, and we know the things that he

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Speaker 3: turned to when he was a young person. He looked

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Speaker 3: at Lebron and saw that Lebron was different. Lebron never

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Speaker 3: did those things. He was always on a certain path.

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Speaker 3: And I bring that up because the other thing that

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Speaker 3: happened when Lebron joined the NBA keep in mind is

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Speaker 3: Kobe Bryant got arrested and charged with sexual assault in Colorado,

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Speaker 3: people forget that that happened as Lebron was entering the NBA,

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Speaker 3: and there's a great moment where Lebron's in New York

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Speaker 3: making a commercial with Spike Lee for the NBA. I

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Speaker 3: think it was a TNT promotion piece, and Spike Lee

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Speaker 3: was really upset about the coverage around Kobe's arrest and

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Speaker 3: once again an African American star athlete in the news

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Speaker 3: for all the wrong reasons. And he actually Spike Lee

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Speaker 3: actually talked to Lebron's agent at the time and basically said,

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Speaker 3: this can't happen to this kid. This can't happen. There's

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Speaker 3: too much writing on him. And what's really interesting is

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Speaker 3: if you go back and look at Lebron from that

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Speaker 3: period when Lebron was trying to figure out whether to

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Speaker 3: choose Nike or Adidas or Rebok, he visited Nike and

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Speaker 3: he saw the commercial that Charles Barkley made where he

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Speaker 3: said I'm not a role model. It's a famous commercial,

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Speaker 3: and it bothered Lebron as an eighteen year old. It

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Speaker 3: struck him as like irresponsible, not in a holier than

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Speaker 3: thou way, but more like, but of course I'm a

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Speaker 3: role model. I mean every kid that likes basketball is

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Speaker 3: going to look up to me. And his approach was

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Speaker 3: so different about those things that by the time he

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Speaker 3: got much older and he finally lashed out at Barkley,

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Speaker 3: which was way later in his career, and he lashed

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Speaker 3: out at him because Barkley was lashing out at him

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Speaker 3: for the way he plays the game, and basically Lebron

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Speaker 3: got sick of it and goes, you know, you're the

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Speaker 3: one who said you're not a role model. You're the

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Speaker 3: one who threw someone through a window and spit on

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Speaker 3: someone and all those different things. And Lebron's point was, like,

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Speaker 3: I've gone through my whole career never done any of

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Speaker 3: those things. That's hard to do. So to me, it's

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Speaker 3: not boring when you when you try to get into

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Speaker 3: Lebron's life and understand how hard was it to be

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Speaker 3: that guy. I think that there's a lot of tension

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Speaker 3: and drama there that has been sort of underappreciated, and

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Speaker 3: that's kind of what I was trying to tease out.

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Speaker 4: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in

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Speaker 4: the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio

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00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 4: dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to

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Speaker 4: listen live.

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Speaker 2: He does have a bit of a reputation of telling

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Speaker 2: some Windy's right. There's the there's the Muhammad Ali book,

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Speaker 2: There's the Godfather quotes he's been asked about.

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Speaker 1: There's the prediction of.

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Speaker 2: Musical groups being talented and people tracking it, you know,

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Speaker 2: and and and people kind of roll their eyes and goes,

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Speaker 2: you know, they and they allow him to do it

404
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Speaker 2: because he's Lebron. What have you been able to track that?

405
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Speaker 2: Is that a lifelong thing where he has a tendency

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Speaker 2: to tell tell some Lebron's as they may be.

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Speaker 3: I think the thing that is really different about Lebron

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Speaker 3: is he's been he was slow, slow to speak out

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Speaker 3: about politics. He was slow to join social media. He

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Speaker 3: had to be convinced to get on Twitter. And it

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Speaker 3: was really, you know, one of his friends in the

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Speaker 3: NBA who finally convinced him he should join Twitter. And

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Speaker 3: he joined Twitter in the summer of twenty ten, right

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Speaker 3: as he was going to make his announcement. I think

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Speaker 3: his first tweet came out right as he was about

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Speaker 3: to announce. I'm saying that because once Lebron got comfortable

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Speaker 3: talking about politics, and once Lebron decided to join Twitter.

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Speaker 3: He was so different in his behavior than Michael or

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Speaker 3: Larry Burr, Magic Johnson, or any of the greats who

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Speaker 3: preceded him in the NBA. Frankly, I would say any

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Speaker 3: of the greats in any of the other sports, including

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Speaker 3: Tiger and Tom Brady, as Lebron went all in. I

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Speaker 3: mean once he entered the political space, which happened after

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Speaker 3: Barack Obama became president, Lebron didn't just occasionally say or

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Speaker 3: do something. He has He has been the most politically active,

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Speaker 3: socially socialist, socialistically active athlete in America for the last

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Speaker 3: ten years. And similarly, he has used social media as

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Speaker 3: a vehicle to express himself much more than any other athlete.

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Speaker 3: Part of that's because he has more followers, But I

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Speaker 3: look at that as you seeing a more three D

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Speaker 3: view of Lebron's character, because Lebron's a funny guy. He

432
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,560
Speaker 3: has a great sense of humor. He is incredibly enthralled

433
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:58,160
Speaker 3: with entertainment. He loves movies and television. He does watch

434
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 3: a lot of TV. He watches a lot of films.

435
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 3: He can quote the lines because he's watched them so

436
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 3: many times. To me, that just makes them more interesting.

437
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 3: He's not as buttoned up as someone like Jordan was.

438
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 1: What about the decision is in the book that we

439
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:20,400
Speaker 1: don't know.

440
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 3: A lot because I mean, the book opens the first

441
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 3: page is Lebron riding in a vehicle from an airport

442
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,879
Speaker 3: on the New York border, driving to Connecticut, through the

443
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 3: backwoods of Greenwich to the house where he's going to

444
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 3: be hold up for a few hours before driving down

445
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 3: the hill into town to do the ESPN event that's

446
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 3: going to change his life. And I decided to focus

447
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 3: in on what was happening that afternoon in Greenwich, three

448
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 3: hours before everybody saw what would happen on TV, because

449
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 3: it sets the stage for a lot of things, and

450
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 3: it really shows you where Lebron was headspace wise as

451
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,959
Speaker 3: he was about to make that announcement. As he's walking

452
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 3: up to this estate in Greenwich with Maverick Carter and

453
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 3: Rich Paul, who are still with him today as his

454
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 3: agent and his business manager, and Savannah Brinson, his girlfriend

455
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 3: who's now his wife, was there, and you know, Lebron

456
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 3: is thinking that he has no idea how much his

457
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 3: life is going to change in about three hours. And

458
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 3: I thought it was really important to take people in

459
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 3: that moment and then, you know, have a different focus

460
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 3: when he gets down to Greenwich. You sort of need

461
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 3: to see it from the perspective that Lebron is seeing

462
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 3: it from right up to the moment where the plane

463
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 3: lands in Miami at two or three in the morning

464
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 3: later that night, and pat Riley is standing on the

465
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 3: tarmac in the dark waiting for Lebron to get off

466
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 3: that plane. And Riley knows. Riley knew before this happened.

467
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 3: He knew that the world was going to change for

468
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 3: Lebron in ways that Lebron and his team didn't appreciate.

469
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 3: And I think when Lebron stepped off that plane, pat

470
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 3: Riley was ready because of two things. He knew the

471
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 3: world it just changed for Lebron, but he also knew

472
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 3: he now had the best player in the world on

473
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 3: his roster and the Miami Heat we're going to start

474
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 3: killing teams. And so that's where I decided to open.

475
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 2: What about the Finals against the Mavericks.

476
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: Emotionally, what was really going through?

477
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 3: You know, I think that one of the things that

478
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 3: I learned about Lebron that I thought was a really

479
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 3: important thing to understand is that he hates to be alone.

480
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 3: He's like the opposite of Tiger in that regard Tiger

481
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 3: as a solitary man, Lebron is the opposite of that.

482
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 3: He grew up an only child, he didn't have a father,

483
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 3: He was lonely and alone a lot as a youngster

484
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: basketball once a basketball was put in his hand by

485
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 3: a man who was like a father figure to him,

486
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 3: put a ball in his hand as a fifth grader,

487
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 3: showed him a basketball court for the first time, and

488
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 3: when Lebron realized that the ball was a key to

489
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 3: opening doors to friends because he was good at this thing,

490
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 3: he could make friends through this game. Lebron has always

491
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 3: looked at basketball differently than most players. So when you

492
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 3: get to the twenty eleven finals with Dallas, you got

493
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 3: to remember that this is a guy who's been who

494
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 3: it's very important to him to be liked. He likes

495
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 3: to be liked not just by his friends, but by everybody.

496
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 3: And for the first time in his life, he was

497
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 3: hated widely, not just by a rival, teams fans, but

498
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 3: by everybody in the NBA. The only place Lebron wasn't

499
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 3: hated was in Miami, and that was a really new

500
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 3: experience for him. Going through that twenty ten eleven regular

501
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: season as the most hated athlete in America, the kinds

502
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 3: of threats that he and his family incurred. All of

503
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 3: that came to a head in the Dallas series. And

504
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 3: I think ultimately, when you say what happened to him

505
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 3: in that series, because he seemed to disappear in that series,

506
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to appreciate how much that graded

507
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 3: on him and war on him emotionally, physically, mentally. By

508
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 3: the end of the series when they lost, especially after

509
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 3: all the bragging, that was the low point of his career.

510
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 3: Wasn't when he made the decision to go to Miami

511
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 3: and they burned his jersey. It was a year later

512
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 3: when they lost to Dallas and Lebron went into a tailspin.

513
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 3: He was alone, hold up in a house in Miami

514
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 3: with no one, no family members, no friends. It's the

515
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 3: low point. And I leaned into that chapter two because

516
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 3: I thought it was important for people to sort of

517
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 3: to the extent they can feel how low Lebron had gone.

518
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 3: And what's interesting to me is one of the first

519
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 3: people that he saw when he came out of that

520
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 3: cocoon that summer was Bono. Believe it or not, because

521
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 3: you two was playing in Miami and Lebron and Savannah

522
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 3: went to see them and they got some time alone

523
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 3: with Bono, and I just thought, you know, it's interesting.

524
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 3: At this point, Lebron is without question the most famous

525
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 3: athlete in the world, not just in America, in the world.

526
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 3: There aren't many people on planet Earth who were more

527
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 3: famous than Lebron by the summer of twenty eleven, or

528
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 3: infamous however you want to put It was one of them,

529
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 3: and who had been through more than Lebron, and I

530
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 3: just thought it was It was fascinating that, of all

531
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 3: people for him to have a moment with it was Bono.

532
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 3: Most people don't know that, and so again it's an

533
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 3: example of finding the moments in the man's life that

534
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 3: people aren't aware of that you think are. But this

535
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 3: is important. Right of all the people he could have

536
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 3: talked to or been around in that moment, it's the

537
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 3: lead singer review too.

538
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 2: So how do you pull out of it? You're in

539
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 2: a tailspin, you hit rock about him?

540
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: How do you pull out of it?

541
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 3: I think one of the ways he pulled out of

542
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 3: it that was most important was a conversation he had

543
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 3: with Dwayne Wade and Dwayne Wade to his credit, is

544
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 3: this the Miami Heat was Dwayne Wade's team long before

545
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 3: Lebron got there, and it was it was Dwayne Wade's

546
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 3: team when Lebron got there. And I think what Wade

547
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 3: told Lebron after the finals lost to Dallas was you

548
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: need to take over this team and you need to

549
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 3: be Lebron. In other words, in Cleveland, it was Lebron's team.

550
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 3: Everybody knew it. Lebron dominated. He didn't have as good

551
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 3: of a cast around him in Cleveland, but he was

552
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 3: the guy. And I think what Wade recognized was in

553
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 3: order from Miami to win, Lebron had to be uninhibited.

554
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 3: He couldn't be constrained by worrying about is it going

555
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 3: to look like he's taking over Wade's team, by asserting

556
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 3: himself offensively, by shooting more, by taking over games by

557
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 3: scoring forty and Wade was basically telling him, you have

558
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 3: to be comfortable taking over, because basically he's saying, I'm

559
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 3: comfortable with you doing that. I want you to do that.

560
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 3: And they worked out alone that summer, the two of them,

561
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 3: Wade and Lebron, and that's where those conversations happened, and

562
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 3: it was to me the turning point because when they

563
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 3: come back to camp that fall, when the twenty eleven

564
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 3: season starts, they're a scary team. I don't need to

565
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 3: remind you. They weren't just beating teams that year, they

566
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 3: were destroying them. And the next two years people were

567
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 3: afraid to play against Lebron.

568
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: He was that dominant and well, i'll tell you. I'll

569
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 2: tell you one that led jumps out at me. And

570
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 2: I think the Jeremy Lynn game is an example to.

571
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: Me because.

572
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 2: I had Matt Hollidays, a dear friend of mine, he's

573
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 2: a obviously a Baseball All Star, and he called me

574
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 2: to see if they get tickets to that game. He

575
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,479
Speaker 2: went down to that game and like Floyd Mayweather, shut up.

576
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: They're like a sixteen person entourage was everything game and

577
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 2: Heat just decided we're going to embarrass these guys and

578
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 2: it was it was It was really the end of insanity.

579
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:10,320
Speaker 2: So so I agree what led to the Cleveland decision,

580
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 2: I mean that was unique.

581
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 3: Yes, what led to that is it's really fascinating. I

582
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 3: mean there's two things going on. There's there's the decision,

583
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 3: and then again, how to announce it. And I think

584
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 3: for Lebron the decision part is fascinating because, if you

585
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 3: think about it right, he goes down there to win rings,

586
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 3: when when Riley recruits him, every team that was in

587
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 3: the sweepstakes to get Lebron had a different recruiting pitch.

588
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 3: Riley's was the best by far. He basically showed up

589
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 3: with a bag full of rings and dumped him out

590
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 3: on the table in a conference room in Cleveland, and

591
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 3: Lebron looked at all those rings, and Riley is basically

592
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 3: telling him, you want rings, you come to Miami. And

593
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 3: Lebron wanted rings more than money, more than and marketing

594
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 3: opportunities that New York presented, more than anything. He wanted rings.

595
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 3: He goes down there and he gets rings, and equally important,

596
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 3: he learns what it takes to get rings, how to

597
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 3: get rings. What nobody imagined, especially Riley, was that once

598
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,280
Speaker 3: he learned that and got that that he would actually

599
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 3: walk away from a team that was built for Lebron

600
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 3: to catch Michael in rings. I mean they were set

601
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 3: up for Lebron to catch Michael. He only needed to

602
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 3: stay there with the all star team that had been

603
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 3: put around him and with Riley, who was committed to

604
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 3: spending whatever it took to keep bringing guys in like

605
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 3: Ray Allen whoever else we need to bring in next

606
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 3: year to keep that thing going. Lebron was willing to

607
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 3: give that up, walk away from all that to go

608
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 3: back to Cleveland to win one championship. And even his

609
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 3: inner circle, even his mother, the family that was closest

610
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,359
Speaker 3: to him, they were all against it. None of them

611
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 3: wanted to go back there, and none of them understood

612
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 3: why he was willing to go play for Dan Gilbert,

613
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 3: who had said all those crazy things about Lebron four

614
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 3: years earlier. But Lebron's words, who am I to hold

615
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 3: a grudge? Which to me is the most important sentence

616
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 3: of the entire essay that he wrote for Sports Illustrated

617
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 3: to announce he was going back. It says everything you

618
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 3: need to know about who Lebron is as a man.

619
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 3: And Riley didn't understand it at the time. He was angry,

620
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 3: but he didn't lash out the way Gilbert did. He

621
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 3: was much smarter about it. He may have wanted to

622
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 3: lash out, but I think that tells you who Lebron

623
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 3: is Transactionally, he knew that the only way he was

624
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 3: going to make good on a promise to win one

625
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 3: for Cleveland. Was he had to go play for Dan

626
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 3: Gilbert again and so he did it and I again,

627
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 3: to me, that is why the biography is so fascinating

628
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,919
Speaker 3: when you talk about is it boring? No, Like, these

629
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 3: are human decisions that most humans don't understand. Because if

630
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: you have pride or ego or any of those things

631
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 3: and someone said those things about you and your family,

632
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 3: the idea of going back to work with that guy,

633
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 3: no way, I'm not doing that. He did it.

634
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 2: So now he's in LA, He's won a championship. But

635
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:36,959
Speaker 2: with the death of Kobe Bryant, plus just the overwhelming

636
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 2: kind of infatuation with Kobe, it's very different from obviously

637
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 2: Miami and definitely Cleveland. It's not only not necessary not

638
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 2: his team, like it's really been until this year that

639
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 2: he feels like he's a Laker, right, that's been Lebron

640
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 2: plays for the Lakers, and it's hard because you know,

641
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 2: was Kobe's team, Kobe's town and Lebron was a was

642
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:06,400
Speaker 2: a rival, though they never matched up in the in

643
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 2: the in the NBA Finals. What is that like? What's

644
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 2: that like for him to to be Lebron and considered

645
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 2: by many the greatest player of all time yep, and

646
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 2: yet not to not really feel truly embraced by by

647
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 2: Lakers fans.

648
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 3: No, Doug, you're you're asking you're the first person to

649
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 3: actually bring that up. And I've done probably one hundred

650
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 3: interviews in the last few weeks and you're the only

651
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 3: one who's raised that. And to me, it's fascinating because, again,

652
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 3: think about perspective wise, Lebron has only gone to one

653
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 3: great team the rest of his career. He's gone to

654
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 3: bad teams. When he was drafted, he was drafted by

655
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 3: the worst team in the NBA and he spent seven

656
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 3: year with them. When he left Miami, he went back

657
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,840
Speaker 3: to one of the worst teams in the league, a

658
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 3: team Cleveland hadn't been to the playoffs in four years.

659
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 3: He went back to that team when he left Cleveland

660
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 3: to go to LA. The way that was framed was

661
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 3: that Lebron was doing the easy thing. He's going to LA.

662
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 3: They have nice weather, it's the Lakers. It's all that. No,

663
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 3: that's actually the wrong way of looking at it. He

664
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 3: was going to a bad team. The Lakers were not

665
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 3: good when Lebron went there and he was going to

666
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 3: a team that was Kobe's team. It's really hard to

667
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 3: go to Los Angeles. The Lakers and the Celtics are

668
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 3: the marquee franchises in the NBA, built on tradition, steeped

669
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 3: in these iconic players, and Lebron is going there almost

670
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 3: like an interlow Burn and the team is bad. It's

671
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 3: not like he goes there and it's like this dominant

672
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 3: team that he joined. It's it's not that. And so

673
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 3: I think what he's done is he's demonstrated that he's

674
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 3: the only player in NBA history that's taken three He's

675
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 3: led three franchises to NBA titles. Two of those franchises

676
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 3: you could argue had no business winning titles, but for Lebron,

677
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 3: and now I think he you know, look, he's taken

678
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 3: this team deep into the playoffs. Who knows how it's

679
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 3: going to shake out with Denver, But I think what

680
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 3: Lebron is doing is is hard. I mean, going to

681
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 3: LA after Kobe, it's not quite as hard as being

682
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 3: compared to Michael Jordan, which is a burden. Lebron's had

683
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 3: the shoulder his whole career, starting when he was eighteen.

684
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 3: But Lebron's done hard things his whole life, and that's

685
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 3: why I think this is just it's par for the

686
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 3: course for him.

687
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 2: Last thing is that, you know, it's interesting John Morant

688
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 2: obviously in the news for the wrong reasons, but a

689
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,240
Speaker 2: lot of it is the guys he's hanging around.

690
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Lebron as.

691
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 2: This small circle and obviously it's expanded some in LA

692
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 2: and through time includes NBA players, but he has that

693
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 2: small circle of his guys he grew up with, or

694
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 2: his guys that he's met kind of along the way,

695
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 2: and he's brought them with him and it's interesting, you know.

696
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 2: So oftentimes, you know, people tell athletes like you need

697
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: to get rid of those guys because now you're in

698
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 2: the grown up world and they're still stuck and they're

699
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're.

700
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: Chasing your clout.

701
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

702
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: How has he been able to manage that?

703
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 2: Because in addition to his own lack of any sort

704
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 2: of misgivings off the court, there aren't there aren't failure stories,

705
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 2: you know, from his production company to his agent, to

706
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 2: Rich Paul to whatever, like those guys have literally been

707
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 2: lifted up by Lebron.

708
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: How does that all work. How's that all taken place?

709
00:41:54,600 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 3: Most important question of this whole interview by far, Look,

710
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 3: I think the most important decision that Lebron has made

711
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 3: in his life, and he's made a lot of decisions,

712
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 3: but I think the most important one he's made was

713
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 3: who he chose to be his girlfriend when he was

714
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 3: a teenager in high school. She's his wife today. I mean,

715
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 3: he he spotted someone and he pursued her. And one

716
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 3: of the interesting things is she didn't pursue him. Even

717
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 3: after he started pursuing her, she didn't pursue him. She

718
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 3: didn't know that he was a future superstar. She didn't

719
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:41,439
Speaker 3: know that he was one day going to be worth

720
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 3: a billion dollars. She didn't know that he was on

721
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 3: TV already and had been on magazine covers. She didn't

722
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 3: know any of that. Most of the girls that wanted

723
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 3: to be with Lebron, they knew all that. That's kind

724
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 3: of why they want to be with him. He chose

725
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 3: beautifully who would be his girlfriend and the mother of

726
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,439
Speaker 3: his kids and eventually his wife. Smartest thing he's ever done.

727
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 3: Second decision, who did he choose to be surround himself

728
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 3: with his friends when he was a teenager, huge mistake

729
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:14,280
Speaker 3: that a lot of athletes make. You can't really fault

730
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 3: them for it when they're teenagers, but you can fault

731
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 3: them when those teenagers become adults and they're handed a

732
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 3: lot of money and a contract to play professional sports,

733
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 3: and then you bring those friends from high school in

734
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 3: the neighborhood with you into your profession. Lebron, however, he

735
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 3: chose Rich Paul. He chose Maverick Carter, he chose Randy Mims.

736
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 3: He didn't choose them in a moment. He chose them

737
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,399
Speaker 3: over time as he got to know them, trust them,

738
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 3: see them, observe them. They were hard working guys, all

739
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 3: three of them. They were never in trouble, They had ambitions,

740
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,839
Speaker 3: They were loyal to him. They never saw him as

741
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 3: a free ride to fame, all those things. When he

742
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 3: offered Rich Paul a job right after Lebron was drafted

743
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,800
Speaker 3: and signed his Nike deal for ninety million, he offered

744
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 3: him fifty thousand dollars a year to work for him.

745
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 3: Fifty thousand. That's not a lot of money. Rich Paul

746
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 3: took the job because he wanted to earn his way,

747
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 3: and I think that that's what's fascinating about Lebron. He

748
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 3: heard all the people say, you're stupid to take these

749
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 3: guys of the NBA. It's a big mistake. Lebron knew

750
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 3: who he had around him. That's why they're still there.

751
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 3: I think it is one of the most interesting stories

752
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 3: in all of sports, is that the same woman and

753
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 3: the same three guys that Lebron picked as his circle

754
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 3: in high school are his circle today. That to me

755
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 3: is the big reason why we've never seen Lebron in

756
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 3: the headlines for the wrong reasons.

757
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 2: Fascinating. Well, I'm into the book. I'll be Lindy if

758
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 2: I told you i'd finish the book, but I was.

759
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 2: When I knew we were going to talk, I was thinking,

760
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 2: is this going to be interesting or And the more

761
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 2: I read and the more I listen to you, the

762
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 2: more excited I am to dig deeper into it. I

763
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 2: really appreciate your time, and obviously this is I didn't

764
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: you know the amount of research that you had to do,

765
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 2: combing through everything he's ever said and all of these

766
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 2: articles has to be a mend. So take a bow.

767
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 2: And I sure appreciate joining me on the pod.

768
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 3: Thanks Doug, it was a pleasure.

769
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 2: Well, I can only tell you that I am three.

770
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: Quarters through the books and it's outstanding.

771
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 2: Obviously masterfully written, but there are anecdotes and pieces, some

772
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 2: of which Jeff shared, that are in it that will

773
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 2: give you a different perspective on stores you thought you

774
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:52,439
Speaker 2: knew about.

775
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: Lebron James. Reminder of The Doug Outlib.

776
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 2: Show is daily three to five Eastern, twelve to two,

777
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 2: twelve to two Pacific. We also have the ind the

778
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 2: Bonus podcast, the Daily Pod covering all sports.

779
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: It is kind of no holds barred. In the meantime,

780
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,919
Speaker 1: I'm Doug Gottlieb and this is all ball