Skip Bayless
Appearances
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
you realize that he lucked into playing into the worst division in football over his seven years because if i look at the raiders over those seven years they have the sixth worst record the broncos oh my god we could talk about this i mean oh let's let's talk about the uh what was that pass against oakland
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Look, I take nothing away from Kobe's ability to score buckets, get buckets because nobody was greater in the history of the game. Magic did transform the franchise because remember Kareem had been a Laker for four years doing next to nothing until Magic walks in the door in 1980
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, but we're not talking about post-career. We're talking about playing career because Jerry West, to me, is the greatest GM ever in the history of the NBA. And by the way, Michael Jordan was the worst GM in the history of the NBA, just for objectivity here.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But to your point, okay, so Jerry West and the Lakers get to nine finals, nine finals, and he loses eight times, and a lot of it had to do with that guy, Bill Russell. To the Greatest team ever. But if I swap out, if I put Magic in place of the logo on those teams, Magic was the greatest winner this side of Michael Jordan that I ever closely observed and got to know.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So if you put him in on those Jerry West teams with Wilt and with Elgin and with Gale Goodrich, he puts them over the top because of his dynamic charisma and leadership. It was unequaled. I've never seen a thing like it. Jerry's leadership...
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He's the logo of the NBA. And you can't say that's better than Magic's winning time showtime.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And he played long. But if you put Jerry West on the Showtime teams, do you think they're Showtime? Because they're not. Because he didn't play with any... Kurt Randis was on the Showtime team. Well, he was. He was like a sixth man or badass enforcer.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah, but again, if you didn't have Magic Johnson on those teams, you don't have Showtime. There's no more Showtime. You don't have Showtime. And Jerry West was as pretty a jump shooter as I've ever seen. It was just beautiful form and it was mesmerizing, but it wasn't captivating, right? It wasn't Magic Johnson. I couldn't take my eyes off Magic because he had the big smile.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He had the greatest smile in the history of the game. Yes. And it was contagious on his team. He lifted his entire team with his own charisma. He did.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And I don't think Jerry was a great leader. Really? I think he was more of a solo act. He stayed to himself. He was a quiet leader, but not dynamic. Not a powerful voice in the locker room kind of leader. He helped manage Wilt. I guess, for a little while. And they got one championship out of it. For the best LEGO team ever, arguably. Yeah, you could certainly make a case for that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
and turns them around and gets them all the way to a game six at Philadelphia in the finals in which Kareem could not go. And I believe Magic Johnson that day at Philadelphia that evening played the greatest NBA game of all time, greatest playoff game because he goes as a rookie for 42, 15 and seven with three steals. He makes 14 or 23 shots in all 14 of his free throws.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
My next claim is, Michael Jordan is the GOAT and laughably better than LeBron James. Here we go. How are you, sir?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He just won and won and won. He was invincible and unbeatable. And he went 6-0 in the finals with six MVPs. And no, they didn't play the... toughest competition in the finals, but the beasts were in the East and he devoured and slayed the beasts one after another, Byrd Celtics, then the bad boy Pistons, and then Reggie Miller's Pacers. And when you go six and O with six MVPs in the finals versus
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
four and six in the finals for LeBron. And Ray Allen saved LeBron a loss there because LeBron had completely self-destructed in game six of that 2013 finals. And then if Kyrie, when nobody can buy a shot, if Kyrie hadn't hit the shot of shots in game seven at Oracle, LeBron could be two and eight in the finals. So we're talking about winning. Look, I give you, I say it all the time.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
LeBron is still to this moment, the best passer in basketball. I say it all the time. LeBron is still the greatest driver of the basketball I ever saw to a fault because he's a poor jump shooter, a poor three point shooter by star standards or certainly by superstar standards. And he's a poor free throw shooter by superstar standards. He should have...
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
5,000 more points, but he's such a worse shooter than Jordan ever was as a jump shooter and a free throw shooter that it's hard for me to say, how can you call LeBron the goat when he's a lousy shooter?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Wait, did you just call Michael Jordan soft? Compared to LeBron James? He was the baddest you-know-what who ever stepped on a basketball court. Trust me, I was there. Not like LeBron? Not like LeBron. LeBron is like the nicest guy ever. He's soft. He's a diva. He's thin-skinned. And can I start down the litany of epic fails that LeBron had that Jordan never had?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah, it took a while to break through against Larry Bird Celtics. But remember that... Michael Jordan had missed the whole year. He played three games and broke his foot. This is his second year in the league. And he comes back just for the playoffs and goes up against arguably the 86 Celtics where you could make a case they were the greatest team ever. And what does he do?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He scores 49 in game one. And in game two, he scores 63. It took double overtime. But after that game, Larry Bird said that was God disguised as Michael Jordan. Well, trust me, Larry Bird would have never said God disguised as LeBron James because look at the epic failures here. Do you remember 2010, the last go around of the first 10 in Cleveland, It's against the Celtics in the playoffs.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's the conference semifinals. They win big by 22. He's 14 to 22 from the floor. It's game three. Then we get to four, five, and six. And right on schedule, he just crumbles to the point that he had somebody from his inner circle tell Stephen A. Smith at ESPN, because I was there alongside Stephen A. at that point,
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
that LeBron had to be sedated before games four, five, and six because he was having some locker room issue with a teammate, Delonte West. Listen, Michael Jordan never had any issues with locker room teammates because they wouldn't dare to have an issue with Michael Jordan. So the point was he had to be sedated? What a wimp, what a weenie. Is that what we're talking about?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
and lifts the Lakers over Dr. Jay Sixers to a championship and he's off to the races. Now let's look quickly at Kobe. Again, no disrespect, but I feel like Kobe was obviously Robin to Batman in the three-peat with Shaq because Shaq dominated those three finals the way no players ever dominated an NBA finals to me, including Jordan. That's why I think Shaq is the second greatest Laker of all time.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And then Dan Gilbert, his owner, a few weeks later, accused LeBron of quitting in those finals. And then do you remember the first go around with the Heat, the 2011 finals? Do you remember the chosen one became the frozen one? I've never seen it like it. Michael Jordan never did that. Even when they were starting one and nine, people were scared to death.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Nice try. Hey, good job. You got some quicks, man. I'm impressed.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You want to discount it? Think of what he had in the way. He had two of the greatest teams ever in the way, and he didn't even have a Robin yet. He was going solo. He didn't have a Scottie Pippen yet. And LeBron did.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
LeBron did. And he made it to the finals. He made it to the finals. with a less roster than Jordan did. And they got swept by the Spurs, and I didn't even bring that up because I give you that one. I'm not going to hold that against LeBron.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, so he goes up against the Warriors. Okay. And I always give him this. Those first three games, you remember, because he doesn't have Kevin Love, he was gone already, right? Kyrie fractures his kneecap in overtime of game one at Oracle. Remember this? Mm-hmm. LeBron put up the greatest numbers of his career for three straight games.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And I'm like, you got this team, because they weren't the Warriors yet. They obviously didn't have KD yet. And they weren't sure who they were. So they're down two games to one. And game four is in LeBron's house in Cleveland. And in game four, he was horrible. He goes seven of 22. He was five of 10 from the free throw line. And I'm like, the next day, I'm telling Stephen A on ESPN,
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
he had a chance to step on their throats. It was remember the Iguodala game where Steve Kerr said, I'm gonna switch, I'm gonna start Iguodala and I'm gonna put him on LeBron. And LeBron just shrank, he closed up, he had them. If he had stepped on their throats and they'd gone up three games to one in that, this is the 2015 finals, the first one against the Warriors.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You got me, you could make a go case. But instead he shrinks and disappears in games. Here we go again, four, five and six right on schedule and they lose in six games. So he couldn't close deals. All the great clutch shots that Jordan made, they closed deals. LeBron's made a few clutch shots, but they never mattered. They were never meaningful. They never ended series or games or championships.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
They were two ceremonial years. He wasn't a cancer. He was running the show. He was going to be the GM and the head coach and the fading superstar.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, the last two years, I don't count.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But then you want to count everything about LeBron.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He took three years off. He retired because they ran his coach out the back door in Chicago, and he said, I'm out. Well, it was on pride and principle. He just said, I'm out. I'm not going to play anymore.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And in those finals, Kobe was good, but he wasn't close to the production that Shaq was equaling. So then Shaq, they fall apart, they lose to the Pistons, obviously. 2004 and he's gone traded way to Miami. And here we go. So Kobe without Shaq misses the playoffs the first year. Then they lose to the Suns in the first round and he has the pout game in game seven.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And he's going even towards 40. Jordan won 10 scoring titles to LeBron's one scoring title. Jordan was the defensive player of the year in 1989. He's the defensive player. LeBron was never defensive player. Nine times, Jordan was first team all defense. I'll give you five times early in his career, LeBron was first team all defense.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You don't think Jordan was the best player for 11 straight years in Chicago? He was. It was just ridiculous how much better he was.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. All right. So let's look at LeBron's buzzer beaters, okay? Because I know him by heart.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
No, he doesn't. It's nine to eight, Jordan. It's nine to eight. I'm not cherry picking. I'm not semantics. I'm just telling you the truth. It's nine to eight, Jordan. And I'm giving the eighth that thing the other night. I'm sorry, wait.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
No, I'm doing total. Regular season of playoffs. The other night. LeBron had a little tip-in at the buzzer, do you remember this? On Luka's missed shot, and LeBron's just right at the rim and just tips it over the rim, and you have to count that as a buzzer beater, and it was the weakest, easiest buzzer beater in the history of buzzer beaters. Okay, all right. Okay, cool.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, so here you're, I'm gonna get to Jordan's in a minute, but I'm watching every game LeBron plays, and it took him 477 NBA games before he finally hit a walk-off shot, and it was on Ronnie Turioff. It was at Golden State. This is probably way before your time, because this was January 23rd of 2009. It was a regular season game, okay? And he hit it, and I'm like, way to go.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I stood up and gave him a standing ovation. And then he hit the shot heard around the world against Orlando in game two at Cleveland. You'll remember this in the year that they ended up losing to the Magic. True, true.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I understand that. Here's the point. LeBron was born without a clutch gene. It's as simple as that. He just was. Jordan is the greatest clutch shooter I ever saw. And LeBron can be the weakest mentally superstar I've ever witnessed because he's afraid of the late game free throw line. And in late and close situations, since LeBron came into the league, he's the worst by far.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You're trying to make a goat case. Yeah, goat case, exactly.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You did a good job. you're gonna need that cross around your neck.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Oh, so we're going a different direction.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And it was hard for me to forgive him for that. And then they lose to the Suns in the first round the next year. And then they lose to Boston in the finals in the closeout game six. Kobe is horrible in that game. They lose by 39 points at Boston. I can't defend that. They broke through and beat Dwight Howard's Magic. It was supposed to be LeBron's Cavs. So I thought that was a little overrated.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. Do you realize that Steph Curry and company had a three-to-one lead on LeBron without – there's no Kevin Durant involved here, right? It's just Steph. So I think you would agree that was Steph's team, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
There's Klay and there's Draymond, and we get all that. But it's Steph Curry or bust to me. Game five. Draymond Green. He's gone. He's gone. Why? Because LeBron made him gone. If Steph is the GOAT, he's got two out of three at home to close the deal. All he's got to do is win one of three, and two out of the three are at Oracle, and he can't pull it off because he's not that guy.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He's not the GOAT. And what happened in Game 7 at Oracle, remember LeBron's chase down block. Remember this? And Kyrie hits the game-winning shot. In the fourth quarter of that game, Steph Curry went one of six and he went one of four from three. Well, I'm sorry, one of five from three.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And he had a terrible turnover with two minutes left where he tried to throw it behind his back and threw it in the fifth row. And it was a key turning point in that game. And without Steph disappearing in the fourth quarter, LeBron and Kyrie cannot do what they ended up doing. And after they blew the three to one lead, what happened on July the 4th that summer,
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Steph Curry led a contingent in a private plane and they fly all the way across the country out to the tip of Long Island to visit Kevin Durant. And Steph Curry got down on one knee and said, you've got to come save us. You, Kevin Durant, have to come save us because we can't beat LeBron James without you. I understand. I understand that. So you're disqualified as the GOAT.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
If you have to go beg somebody to come save you.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
We don't know that. I'll bet against that because he's 37 years of age. Interesting. Way to go. Good job. How are you, sir? Good to see you. Dodger fan.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And then even when they did beat Boston and get over the hump, in game seven, Kobe was six of 24 in that game. So I... I don't know, I agree with your big picture, but when I go little picture of playoff performance without Shaq, I'm sorry.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's LeBron. I'm gonna give you your first point. LeBron James is the longevity king. I mean, it's unquestioned. He is the most durable superstar ever. I'm watching a game the other night and he hooks his thumb on the rim and pulls it. And I thought, oh God, cause that's your shooting hand. I thought, man, are you gone? Nope. They go tape it up and he goes right back in.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
incredible, blessed durability. That's how you play 22 years at age 40. LeBron has now played in the regular season 60,000 minutes to Jordan's 40,000 minutes. So it's an apple and an orange almost. And if we go total, it's 71,000. If I add the playoff minutes in, 71,000 to 48,000. Aha, that's 23,000. That's a magic number that LeBron tried to steal from Jordan and he shouldn't have.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
because LeBron wished a lot of this on himself. He right away declared himself, I got next, I'm the next Jordan.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He got one break before they won their last championship in the bubble, the Mickey Mouse Championship, as I call it. He got like a four-month break ahead of that, and it served him well because I don't think he's going to win another championship. Not 18 months.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Longevity king. That doesn't make you the GOAT. That makes you the longevity king.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I mean, he did get past the Pistons, finally.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And there was a book written about it called The Jordan Rules, in which it detailed the rules with which the Detroit Pistons, the bad boys, had to stop Michael Jordan. And thankfully, he got Scotty. And they were scared to death of him.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Eric Spolstra is a real live coach. I would bank on Eric Spolstra. And remember, Pat Riley was coaching the coach in that situation. So that was optimum. That was ideal. And LeBron needed a big brother to teach him how to win. And Dwayne Wade was that guy. All right. Good job. Way to go. Thank you.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm not sure Larry Bird has, but Shaq on TV will say that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I do. Nine, actually. Nine. Just real quick, I got, obviously, Jordan, Magic, Shaq, Kareem, Tim Duncan, Bill Russell, Kobe seven, Bird eight, and LeBron nine. Because I'm taking Kobe and Larry Bird as clutch players LeBron James every day and every night.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I give you all that. We're just talking about your performance on the court. Sure. But yeah, he's the greatest. He has the most points ever. This is what really kills me about what I call you LeBron supporters. You're fanatic about it. You're blind witness because you're blind to what happens. You expunge his record. You scrub his record.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You don't want to hear all the negatives and they just pile up. I call them epic fails and I've given a couple so far and I'm going to give a few more. If we can go back to that fateful game six of the 2013 finals, I don't know if it's before your time, but I'm sure you were watching.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's at Miami, and the Spurs have a chance to close it out in six games, and they're up five points with 18 seconds left. And I was a Spurs fan at this point, and it was unheard of to blow a lead, especially in a game of that magnitude that way.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Down the stretch of that game, even in the final minute, with 40 seconds left and 20 seconds left, this is game six closeout potential, LeBron had two unforced error turnovers that were horrendous. I'm not a LeBron fan, but I sat back and I said, what are you doing, man? He's unraveling. He made one three, but then he had to take a three to tie the game with six seconds left.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, it would be, but he labricked it. He bounded it.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Nope, because they weren't epic, because they weren't magnitude games, because these are in the finals. I'm going to the finals. So it took Ray Allen making the greatest clutch shot I have ever witnessed, because remember, it's a LeBrick and it's a long rebound out. And it's Chris Bosh goes out and tracks it down and kicks it in the corner.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's insane. I know you watch this. How about the Western Conference Finals just two years ago against Denver, okay? So the Lakers wind up getting swept, but four straight times, they go to the fourth quarter right there. It's a winnable game for LeBron and company. First two are in Denver, second two at home. If you combine his shooting stats for the four fourth quarters, he's seven of 23.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Kobe's mystique was bigger than Magic's, but... If you look at Magic's productivity, how he changed a culture that both Shaq and Kobe benefited from piggybacking that culture, I'm going slightly Magic over Shaq, Shaq over Kobe.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
That's horrible. That's how you lose games. And he was one of 10 from three in those four combined fourth quarters. And in the closeout game at, as I call it, the crypt here in Los Angeles, in the final seconds of the game, LeBron gets two shots to tie the game, two two-point shots, and neither of them, he gets up to the rim. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? You're better than that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And yet the blind witnesses say, oh, we didn't see that. We don't want to hear about that. So we fast forward one more year because last year in the playoffs, they get Denver again, but this time it's in the first round. And games one and two at Denver, LeBron pouts in the fourth quarter because he can be a mentally weak diva. He won't shoot in the fourth quarter of a winnable game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm going, what are you doing, man? Just take over. You can do this. You can rise above Joker and Jamal because you think he's the goat. The goat rises above because the game is begging to be won by LeBron James. And he won't shoot until there are three minutes left and the game's out of control. Game two. He's got Jamal on him. He makes a sweet move.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's Jordan-esque on Brian Russell in game six at Utah. And we've got LeBron James. This is game two just last year in the playoffs at Denver. It's gonna change the series. He gets a wide open shot from three. It's like a free throw from three. and he le bricks it. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? Because Kobe's gonna make that shot. Jordan's obviously gonna make that shot.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I think Shaq could have made that shot. It was so easy, seriously.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Ooh, I got it. I got it. I got it. You've been chomping to get up here.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Lakers in five to do what? To win the finals, win everything.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I agree with you. I've never seen anything like this guy at 40.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He's actually shooting the ball better than he has in 22 years, both from the free throw line and the three point line combined. His shooting stats are the best ever. They don't rank highly this year in the NBA, but again, he's all the way up to 77% from the free throw line and 38% from the three point line. What took him so long? I'm like, what have you been doing? I thought you were in the lab.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
This is year 22 and it took you this long to become an average free throw shooter, an average? Okay.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Does that make him the GOAT? Longevity goes.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Good job, Jack. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you. Way to go.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
That's not what my stats say or scream.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
All right, let me just remind you, when Jordan made clutch shots, they really, really mattered. They endured, they were historic clutch shots because he first introduced himself as a freshman at North Carolina in the 1982, the college, the NCAA championship game. He makes the walk-off shot, a jump shot, and Dean Smith called his number, not James Worthy's number, not Sam Perkins' number.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He called Michael Jordan's number as a freshman. He was called Mike Jordan at that point. And then, remember, he introduced himself to the NBA world against Craig Elo in Cleveland, game five. This is the closeout game. This is for all the marbles. And he hits a hanging walk-off shot jumper over Craig Elo and it became iconic. We all see it.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You can just call it up on YouTube right now and look at the highlight and look at his celebration. It won the series, okay? His first playoff series. And then obviously I was there on press row, court side, game six at Utah. A little subtle push off Brian Russell against the Jazz, and he hangs and holds the pose just beyond the free throw line and rips it, and it's a walk off.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Stockton got some heave at the buzzer, but it was a walk off. It won the championship. It won game six. It closed them out. All of his shots had magnitude. Jordan, but then I look at LeBron, and all of his walk offs, and I'm giving him that little tip in the other day. It's a little buzzer here. let's call it seven walk-off shots. They didn't matter. They didn't get you anywhere.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
There are three in the playoffs and they're pretty good. But what did they say about the blind squirrel? He finds an acorn every once in a while. If you're going to play 71,000 minutes, you're going to hit a few walk-offs here and there when you play that much longer than Michael Jordan did.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Thank you. Everybody did great. Thank you. My next claim is Patrick Mahomes is dramatically overrated.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And Bill Belichick cost him two Super Bowls.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. So, but this is about Patrick Mahomes, and I think you're ducking and dodging the issue. What are you talking about? Because you got to defend his Super Bowl performances.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You remember the 2018 AFC Championship game where Patrick never touched the ball and the Chiefs wanted the rules changed. They didn't do it, but they did it for the Buffalo Bills. Do you remember what Tom Brady did in your house? Three times in a row, he faced third and ten. Three third and tens in a row.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Let's get to the facts here. Let's get to his first Super Bowl against Jimmy Garoppolo.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. You guys are down 20 to 10, late third quarter, and he throws a horrendous interception where I'm saying, what are you doing, man? Then early fourth quarter, you're still down 20 to 10, and he throws an even worse interception. And you're sitting somewhere, I guess, at home, and you're saying, Patrick, what are you doing? We're dead. And all of a sudden, it gets to be third and forever.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And all of a sudden, Patrick Holmes drops back, and there's a rusher in his face, and he basically goes like this. Like, let me just throw it as far as I can. He throws a punt that Tyreek had to come back and wait for a fair catch. That's how bad it was. And that saved the game. And yet Jimmy Garoppolo in the fourth quarter goes three for 11 with an interception for 36 total yards.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And he missed Emmanuel Sanders or we're having a different conversation. That's how you survived the first Super Bowl. The second Super Bowl is against Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
No offense, I keep hearing that. Five of us could have been out there. But it was 31-9. Tom Brady never lost at Super Bowl with a blowout loss.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, yeah, that's what I keep hearing, but I think he was just bad in that game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Against the first Eagles Super Bowl against Jalen. Jalen throws for 304 to Patrick's 182. He only threw for 182 yards. And the Eagles are driving to make it 21-7. And Jalen Hurts, late second quarter, just loses the handle on the football. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? And it bounces one time to Nick Bolton, who scoops it and scores with it.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Takes it to the house, and it changes the game because it saved you from 21-7 down. And Patrick, in the fourth quarter, Kadarius Toney returns that punt. Do you remember that? 65 yards? I do. Okay. I didn't think Patrick played all that well in that game. Jalen outplayed him.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But when you watch- It feels like you grew up more on COVID, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Could not have been better. I gave you the one at Las Vegas. That was tremendous, because every once in a while, Patrick Mahomes can be really good, and he was really good. Most talented quarterback ever. And then just recently, we had to watch 40 to 22 Eagles, and Patrick Mahomes had a QBR in that game of 11.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
That's why I picked the Eagles to win it all in August. You also picked the Ravens. I did. Okay, but again, the Eagles won it all.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And that's a fact. But let's look at the last three years, can we? Because very quietly, under the radar, with no real criticism at all, Patrick Mahomes' passing yards have dropped for three straight years. His touchdown passes have dropped for three straight years. And he's still only 29. It's not like he's at the end of his career. So he led the NFL in QBR in 2022.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And then in 23, he drops to eighth. And last year, he was eighth. So he's become just a pretty good quarterback. Truly a quarterback.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Quick point of order though. Our guy, Tom Brady, in New England under Belichick, They win six Super Bowls with six game-winning drives in fourth quarter overtime from Tom Brady. So you've got to give him that because that's extraordinary. That kind of slams the door on the debate.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And I do point this out. In the first Eli Super Bowl, Brady did what he's always done. He drove the Patriots all the way down, hits Randy Moss for the touchdown with two minutes left.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And all of a sudden it's 14 to 10 Patriots. So wait a second. Eli needs not just a field goal. He needs to go score a touchdown. He goes 83 yards in 12 plays against the vaunted Belichick defense. And it took the David Tyree face mask catch. And he jumps a little too early and comes down a little too early and can't hang on to an interception.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
All right. But again, that defense was hellacious good. And they knew they were good.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. But didn't Brady do what he should have done to beat that hellacious defense? Isn't it 14 to 10 Brady at that point? Shouldn't Belichick be able to stop Eli freaking Manning? Should have. Right? Should have. When you got 83 yards of turf in your favor. Yep. You just got to shut him down. Somewhere, somehow, you got to stop him. It is tough. Because he can't kick a field goal.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And then the other one for Tom Brady that just slays me, I have nightmares about. I wake up in a cold sweat over it, is that Belichick's defense allowed the backup quarterback of the Eagles, Nick Foles, to score 40 points. Yep. Because Malcolm Butler mysteriously is benched for the entire game. The guy who played the most snaps on your defense in the regular season is benched for the whole game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Why? Nobody says why. I still, to this day, I'll go to my grave not knowing why Malcolm Butler was benched in that game. And yet you said, well, Brady didn't end the game with the game winning drive. Remember, he threw a Hail Mary, a beautiful Hail Mary to Gronk in the end zone and they tackled Gronk. Like seven guys tackled.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It was a great play by Brandon Graham. He got sacked. He got rocked.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Are you saying that Patrick Mahomes is better than your guy Tom Brady?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Over the last two regular seasons, Patrick Mahomes' 25 interceptions thrown is second only to Baker Mayfield's 26. So all of a sudden, he's trying to live up to the hype. He's trying to do too many things. He's holding the ball too long. And it's not working the way it worked for the first four years over the last three seasons during the regular season. I mean, his... All right. Good job.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Can you explain what happened to Jalen just losing the handle on the football when you're driving to go up 21-7, you're already at midfield?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Did Patrick Mahomes return that punt in the fourth quarter?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It was 31-9, but there was two touchdowns.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
To your point about all those AFC championship games, you realize that he lucked into playing into the worst division in football over his seven years. Because if I look at the Raiders over those seven years, they have the sixth worst record. The Broncos' ninth worst record. Oh, my God.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
To your point, is Patrick Mahomes the best quarterback right now? I'll take Joe Burrow over Patrick Mahomes.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Did Joe Burrow not beat Patrick Mahomes in an AFC championship game at Arrowhead? He did do that. He almost beat him twice.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
No, but most people think he's already better than Brady. A lot of people believe that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's the most. Significant, yeah. When's the last time he went to the Super Bowl? Okay. Well, they're betting on the come on that one. They are, yeah. But he's shown you a lot and he was the MVP. For sure.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, you're going this past season or two years ago? This past postseason where we lost. Okay. Oh, you're a wee.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But you realize he's gotten to play 14 home games in the postseason, right? Yeah, he's earned it. And he's played 21 postseason games. So if you take the five Super Bowls out, that means only two road games in the playoffs other than the 12 innings.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
What happened? And he went and beat Lamar on the road.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He was really good, especially in the first half at Ravens going back two years ago. I give you that. But you're trying to scrub his resume of 31-9 loss to Brady and 40-22 to the Eagles in which he had a QBR of 11. Okay, what about John Elway? And he stunk for about three and a half quarters of his first Super Bowl.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, Elway's career was a little overrated because he couldn't close deals. But can Mahomes close deals? And they had a very good defense. So can Mahomes not close deals? Well, he hasn't closed. He had one great Super Bowl with a game-winning drive in overtime at Las Vegas. I give you that one. I've given you that from the start.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But I still think Jalen outplayed him twice in Super Bowls because Jalen was better than Mahomes in the first one. And Jalen made one crucial error that cost the Eagles that game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
of Kobe in LA. Okay, so you're making the case that Kobe is dearer to your heart than Magic was. He has a bigger place in your heart. And I'm making the case that Magic had greater impact consistently than Kobe had because Magic was the driving force of the Showtime Lakers and Kobe was not the driving force of the three-peat, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Have you already concluded he's better than Tom Brady?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Do you think his regular season performance has dwindled over the last three years? It's starting to erode slowly but surely. Who's his receiving core? Okay, it's always some excuse with it. He's got the greatest play caller I think ever, right? 100%, but if you don't have hands and you have people who make stupid off the field decisions. Well, he's got the greatest pass catching tight end ever.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I know he's on the downside a little bit, but he's really, really good.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Skip, I'm so sorry. Good shit, man. My next claim is, Bill Belichick is overrated. The Patriots dynasty was 80% Tom Brady.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. I give you Bill Belichick was a really good defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells. He wasn't the leader. He wasn't the CEO. I agree. He didn't set the tone in the locker room, but he was really good, and then he became a head coach. Yes, sir. And if I look at Bill Belichick's head coaching record without Tom Brady, without Tom Brady, he's 64 and 85.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And when he got to New England before Tom Brady fell out of the heavens into his lap, he went 35 and 47 in New England without Tom Brady. Okay. That's 35 and 47. So that's man, that's 12 games under 500 and his total head coaching record without Tom Brady is 21 games under 500.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Well, that's overrated because once Tom Brady was gone from New England and they'd won six Super Bowls together, four seasons elapsed. And did you see what happened? Bill Belichick got exposed. Oh, here we go, here we go.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Because I didn't see that coming. Tom Brady's going to Tampa Bay, but he knew that the cupboard was not bare in Tampa Bay. Yes, sir. Okay, well, that's just being a wizard. To me, that's being a genius.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, so four seasons without Brady after he's gone to New England. Bill Belichick's still the head coach. They had the seventh worst record in the National Football League.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
33 and 50. He picked him. He picked him 33 and 51. So you can see that Belichick was nothing without Brady. They played one playoff game. Do you remember the playoff game at Buffalo against Josh Allen? And it was 47 to seven. And it was the immaculate game because the Patriots, that the Bills were never forced to punt.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So Bill Belichick's vaunted defense couldn't even make Josh Allen punt one time?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
They went 11 and five. 11 and five. Missed the playoffs.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So many expatriates have told me that that locker room revolved around Tom Brady because they did not, to your point, they didn't like Bill Belichick. He was a tyrant. He was old school. But are there not different types of leadership? He's going to cuss them out. He's going to humiliate them in film sessions. And Tom Brady would always whisper, it's okay.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm Skip Bayless. I've been a sports commentator for many years on ESPN and on Fox. Now I host the Skip Bayless Show on YouTube. Right now, I am surrounded by 20 NBA and NFL super fans, and I wish each and every one of you the best of luck today because you're going to need it. My first claim is, Magic Johnson is the greatest Laker of all time.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay. But there's a great defensive coordinator give up 41 to a backup quarterback in a Superbowl.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But I think that's what he was for the Patriots dynasty. He was the defensive coordinator and Brady was the quote unquote head coach and quarterback. Brady was the leader of the team. Brady controlled the locker room. Brady set the tone for that Patriots culture that again, it spilled over everywhere and Brady started it. Yes, but now you're talking about culture, right?
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Good job, Kate. You were great. Thank you.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Go Cowboys. Why is it upside down on your app? It's fashion.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm not a Drew Bledsoe fan because I think he's got a loser syndrome about it. He's the guy who's going to make the bad throw. He's going to throw it to the other team when you least needed to have it thrown. And, again, they had just gone 5-11 the previous season with Drew Bledsoe at quarterback, and they were 0-2 when Brady took over because Mo Lewis crushed –
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Drew Bledsoe's sternum or whatever it was and he's gone, right? Okay, so then they take off and they got a huge break with the tuck rule. Tom Brady changed everything because in the tuck rule game, he was really good. He was really good in Vinatieri helped close deals because he's kicking- That was gonna be my next point. Okay, he's kicking field goals in the snow in the tuck rule game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
If you conduct six game winning drives in all six Super Bowls, that's saving your coach. And if you go to the AFC Championship game in 2018 at Arrowhead, and again, is a coin flip and you won the coin flip, but that's what Brady does. He wins coin flips and then he wins games because he was blessed. Okay, good job. Thank you. You're back again.
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It was a great choice. I didn't see it coming. Did you?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
What was that team the year before? I'm a little foggy. It was like five and 11 or...
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Nope, that was good. I'm going to give Belichick that one because that was, again, they got rid of their quarterback because of that game, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
All right. you're a smart guy and a good Patriot fan. I got to hit you with Spygate because I never quite got over the fact that Bill Belichick needed to cheat so badly that he outrageously cheated until Eric Mangini, his former assistant, then the Jets head coach said, Bill, if you do it, if you tape my signals, I'm going to turn you in. And he turned him in and they got busted.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Well, then they had a Deflategate scandal, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I do agree with that, because once they inflated the football to the right proportion, Remember in the second half against Indy in the AFC, is the AFC championship game? Or no, it was the semifinal, right? Yeah, Brady threw a party in the second half with a properly inflated football, right? Okay.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So as a Patriot fan, how do you explain what happened after Tom Brady is pushed out the back door and he's got four years to prove himself, Bill Belichick going solo, and they're terrible, right? It's 33-51 without Tom Brady. Good job on that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Although if you watched him against Alabama in his Orange Bowl game, the last game of his college career, he was really good.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, so you're okay with Kobe pouting in a game seven at Phoenix against Rajah Bell?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, but if Brady wins six Super Bowls with game-winning drives in the first quarter or overtime, and he wins the AFC Championship game with three third and ten conversions in overtime, he's saving Belichick from himself because there are times when the defense is not living up to its billing of the regular season, where it's getting torched too many times in playoffs.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I give you the early ones, but... as Brady took over the team in year three, four, and five, the Patriot way became the Brady way. And I think he never got enough credit for running the locker room and keeping the locker room from rebelling against the tyrant who was Belichick. So Belichick doesn't last that long as the CEO of that team without a Tom Brady as the leader of the team.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Although Brady in the fourth quarter against Seattle, he threw for 124 in the fourth quarter. It was two touchdown passes, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And remember, Russell Wilson is torching them all the way down the field and then they get to the fateful moment and everybody says run beast mode and they call a pass play. And I didn't have a terrible problem with it because I thought Russell threw a pretty good pass. And Malcolm Butler just jumps the route and swipes it and Brady's jumping up and down like a little kid.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
For a kid undrafted out of West Alabama who'd never played. He's thrown into the fire late because they benched the other corner.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He did, but he bounced right back the next year in 85, and he shoots a baby hook shot. And Kobe bounced back the next year by going to the finals. Okay, he did. Yeah, after the...
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
But Brady's fighting with Aaron Donald, and they couldn't block him. And Brady's running for his ducking and dodging. He couldn't run, so he couldn't run for his life if he can't run, right? But he's ducking and dodging for his life, and yet he still had a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter of that Super Bowl, or they might have lost that one.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Brady threw in the fourth quarter an overtime for 200 and something. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. All right.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Will came in pretty early and made a very smart and impassioned case for Kobe Bryant, and I appreciated it, so I'm gonna go Will.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Other than that... He definitely had a better Space Jam movie. We can agree on that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah. He's a force. 6'9", 260. Exactly. Maybe as a rookie, 235.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He was winning an NCAA championship for the Carolina Blues.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Which was all-time stupid, right? Was it not? Sam Bowie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Behind Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah. Except when you get to the moment Dean Smith, the great Dean Smith, calls the last play of the game against Georgetown for the kid Mike Jordan, the freshman.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
In terms of LA and LA- Okay, but if you look at Shaq's numbers in those three finals, and I give you that the big men, the Tim Duncans, were over on the other side of the bracket, right? But he goes 38, 17, and two in their first finals. 33, 16, and five, and 36, 12, and four. Look at the assists. He's averaging five assists a game in the NBA finals.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, how can you say LeBron is the GOAT when he's a career 35% three-point shooter and he's a career 73% free throw shooter? Trust me, by superstar standards, that's pathetic in both cases. He's a lousy free throw and three point shooter. And in the three point shooting, which he's improved dramatically in year 22, he's still high volume.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So he's cost his team a lot of regular season moments because he takes way too many threes and he's way below average. So it's disqualifying as the GOAT when you're a lousy shooter, because Jordan was an 84% free throw shooter, which is credible to me. It's 10 percentage points higher than LeBron.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I mean, they didn't win the championship, but yeah.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And by the way, Scottie Pippen refused to go back in a game against the Knicks.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
OK, how do you defend LeBron on what I call his many epic fails? Yes. And let's start with his final go around in Cleveland, the first stint against Boston. They're up two games to one and they lose four, five and six. And he was pretty pathetic in four, five and six. Dan Gilbert, his owner, subsequently accused him of quitting. Did anybody ever accuse Michael Jeffrey Jordan of quitting?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
So that's the first one. That's an epic fail.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Then he goes to Miami the next year. They're up two games to one. He goes back to his hotel, according to Stephen A. He makes a list of, I told you so. I'm going to tell him. I told you so, you so, you so. And I was number one on that list. Skip Bayless says, I told you so, okay? Right. And right on schedule, game four, five, and six. chosen one becomes the frozen one. And it was epic.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It was like, what just happened to the superstar? Because I've never seen a worse superstar failure on a final stage.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I got it. I'm going to continue on epic fails. 2013 game six. How do you explain what happened to LeBron down the stretch and that Ray Allen saved his bacon with that greatest clutch shot I've ever seen? Did that not happen?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Him and Reggie McGregor. The next year against my San Antonio Spurs, they get blown off the court by a record finals margin in five games. And go look at what happened, because it's one to one going back to Miami. Go look at LeBron's game three and four at home in Miami. Seven turnovers in the first game. They lose by 19. They lost game four by 21 at home. And I'm saying, what's wrong?
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Listen, those three years, and I've been doing this a long time, I was actually covering the Kareem Lakers pre-magic out here in LA.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
What's happened? It looked like he had shut down. I don't know. But that's an epic fail to me. And then- Do you remember what happened? There's gonna be failures when you climb higher mountains though, Skip. But Jordan climbed lots of high mountains and never failed.
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Yes, he would. Okay, so? Skip! Okay. You can't do, come on now. Okay, but that was a lot of Steph's fault too, because Steph, you got to close that deal. Is that what you're talking about? Three games to one?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, well, I buy that, and I give you that. I mean, we never seemed to like it, but Steph has come up even smaller than he is in a lot of big moments in finals games. He needed Kevin Durant to save him from LeBron.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
That's what I'm saying. But Kevin was the MVP of the next two finals, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He called everybody. He called the Avenger, right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm going to throw one more epic fail at you. This is the game one of 2018. And again, are they overmatched against Golden State? Mm-hmm. I guess so. But game one at Oracle, LeBron had the greatest final shooting night in his history. Yes. He is crazy hot. He's the GOAT. He's got 40-something. He's the GOAT. He's the GOAT.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah, he was about to be the GOAT lowercase of this game, as in the reason they lost the game.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
You already know it. What happened at the end of that game one? This could have been a goat case that you're making LeBron James. And at the end of the game, he gets the switch. He gets little Steph on him at six feet. What do we give Steph? Two or three? I'll give him three. Six feet three. Okay.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And LeBron, they're down one, so this is the scary situation for the guy without a clutch gene, like, uh-oh, I know I gotta make this or we're going to the locker room and we lost. And he starts to go up to shoot and George Hill, who used to be a San Antonio Spur, flashes open and he says, I gotta kick it to George Hill. I never liked George Hill when he was a Spur.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
They dominated those teams. Because you had the greatest offensive force I've ever seen, including Jordan, where he was unrefereeable at that point because I never knew whether it's offense or defense, you know, on the foul.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
No clutch gene, no clutch nothing. And he kicks it to him to take the shot of the game, and Klay has to tackle him to foul him. So George Hill goes to the free throw line predictably and makes the first one and gags the second one. And then J.R. Smith loses his mind because he gets the offensive rebound and the clock runs out because he's dribbling outside.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And LeBron goes and sits on the bench and pouts through the timeout before overtime. Skip, he wants to win. He pouts. Jordan would never pout. Do you want him to... Jordan will never pout. Heck no. Heck no. He would have rallied the troops.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Part of that was because of how he pouted. No, not pouted. He would pout over their performance maybe, but not about, but he didn't go sit at the end of the bench. No, he would get in their face and say, you're going to suck it up and you're going to hit this shot or that shot.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I was pleasantly shocked by the super fans who challenged me repeatedly with high intellect, high energy, high charisma. They made me laugh.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm highly impressed that you could find that many people who could hang with me.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Yeah. He was big. That was the greatest achievement of his career. Yeah. Yeah. Good job.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
We haven't, all right? Let's look hard at Kareem's career. So he wins his first ring in Milwaukee, helped by Oscar Robertson kind of at the end of his career. So that's 1971. Then he goes four more years in Milwaukee and nothing really, they were pretty good, but they weren't great. Then he comes to LA in 76, his first year with the Lakers. And again, there's no magic yet, obviously.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And they miss the playoffs the first year. The second year they get swept by Portland in the conference finals. The third year of Kareem, no magic. they lose in the first round to Seattle and the fourth year, Kareem, no magic, they lose in the conference semifinals to Seattle. So they're floundering with Kareem because he was a follower and not a leader.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I give you every point you made about points and about rebounds and about blocks and about sky hooks and all that is sensational. But there's a missing ingredient called leadership, charisma, whatever that greatest intangible is that Magic had greater than anybody this side of Jordan. Yeah, no, I give you that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Without Kareem, you mean? Without Kareem?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Before he got injured in game six. He could have gone to Utah or wherever he would have gone. I just think he would have been rookie of the year. But he was the perfect fit at the perfect moment for this team. And it became a super team. It was Showtime and they had Big Game James, obviously, and they had Byron and they had Michael Cooper guarding the way nobody could guard on the perimeter.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I give you all that. But it gelled around the new son, S-U-N, who was Magic, right? And he lifted them into what was nine finals. And he is the driving force. Kareem was really more of a Robin, but you can make a case he was the greatest Robin of all time. Okay? I give you all your numbers because clearly it took LeBron playing now 22 years, but it took 21 years to break Kareem's record.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, but you grew up in the Mamba mentality era, am I right?
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
Okay, all right, you do, and I give you that. But Magic Johnson was the greatest NBA leader ever, beyond Bill Russell, beyond Michael Jordan, beyond, we got Brady over on the other side in the National Football League, so that's another argument. But on just NBA leadership, Magic on charisma, on winning time, as he called it, winning time.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
In my generation, winning time was more important than, because we didn't know mama mentality yet. I want winning time. I want magic time.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I think Kobe was a Jordan-esque leader and he modeled every bit of his action, his very body language after Michael Jordan. And he led like Jordan did. And it wasn't a pretty sight because he could be a real, you know, just a tough leader. Like he gave nobody any... He pushed, he pulled, he cursed. He did it the way Jordan did it. And it was scary.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It was like an intimidation, leadership by intimidation. Magic did it with a smile, but Magic, listen, I got to know him in his rookie year. He was as tough as they came. You wouldn't want to mess with him.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
I'm with you, but I'm looking at the first four years with no Shaq. And Kobe really struggled by himself because he couldn't figure out yet how to lead because he was a solo act of solo acts. So it took Jordan a while to figure out, hey, you actually need those four other guys along with eight, nine other guys to get this done.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
And with Phil's help, he finally figured that out when they broke through. But even... after the Pout game in game seven, if I look at Kobe winning the championship, getting even with the Boston Celtics in that game seven, he shoots six of 24 in a game seven. Well, that's not Mamba mentality. And I didn't love that.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
It's like, remember, Ron Artest, Metta World Peace, hit the shot of shots in that game with a minute left. He hits a big three that gave them the cushion. I'm a Celtics fan. I watched that. It broke my heart. There you go. Thank you, Skip. Way to go. Good job.
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1 Sports Analyst vs 25 NBA/NFL Fans (ft. Skip Bayless)
He did. He was still 12 years, but it should have been 20.