Transcription
All right, man. Peace.
So now, uh, Rob Parker, who's one of the guest analysts or guest journalists on the Skip and Shannon show, he confirmed something that I said a long time ago in regards to LeBron and Kyrie. I stated a very long time ago that when LeBron James was talking about how he needed help as far as ball handling and decision-making, he was talking about trying to trade for his boy Chris Paul. And obviously, he meant that he wanted to get rid of Kyrie. I said that a long time ago, and cats jumped on the video, "Oh, how do you know that?" Yada, yada, yada.
Look, man, when you know, when you open your eyes and you open your mind and your ears and you pay attention to people, they're pretty predictable, right? LeBron is a very predictable dude, and he tries to front and act like he has no idea what management is doing. Every major move they, you know, they have to go through him. And Kyrie understood that, but I think Kyrie let it go. But then when his name kept popping up in trades for Paul George and Jimmy Butler, I think that he realized that he was, uh, you know, he was in an environment where he couldn't trust the person who was supposed to be his, his immediate captain. And I think after that, he said, "You know what, man? [ __ ] this [ __ ] this whole situation. I got to get up out of here. Uh, we already have a ring. We're not going to win another one anyway, so why sit here and stick things out with this guy when he's probably going to leave after next year anyway? Let me leave him high and dry instead of him keep trying to leave me high and dry. All right, he's already tried to have me traded, and soon he's going to leave in free agency. So let's see what they have to say."
Kyrie Irving reportedly asked for a trade from the Cavs over two weeks ago because he wants to be the focal point of the offense and no longer wants to play with LeBron. Yesterday, Chanty Phillips removed his name from consideration to become the Cavs president of basketball operations. Earlier this month, said about Kyrie, "You're getting everything you want. Want you get all the shots you want. I don't get it." And please keep in mind, Chy Bips is a friend of LeBron James. He's also a friend of, uh, Tyo, so he's really not someone whose perceptions you can trust. One of the reasons why he turned down the job clearly was because he learned of the friction between Kyrie and LeBron, and he learned about Kyrie's perceptions of LeBron, and he realized that one or both of them would be gone within the year. So he made a good move by turning down that job because all that was going to happen was he was going to come to a team that was going to be winning 20 games for four years, and he was going to look like a fool. But for him to say that really shows, uh, who side he's taking.
We're joined by Rob Parker. Welcome, Rob. What's happening? Good morning. What's going on, Rob? You covered Chanty during his championship run with the Pistons. What's your shake on all this?
I could see where Chanty could look at this from the outside and not understand why this doesn't make sense, cuz, cuz he's right. Everything is there to win. You're playing with the greatest player on the planet. You get your shots. Obviously, you had the game-winner right to win the championship. So it wasn't like he couldn't do that. But my CWPS, that's close war, personal friends in Cleveland, remember that. Remember Jo, you know, this. I'm a reporter. I'm a reporter, reporter for 31 years. But they tell me the reason that Kyrie has asked to be traded is that he found out that LeBron was behind the whole idea of trading Kyrie away. So now there's a trust issue.
Well, [ __ ] Kyrie, I could have told you that a few months ago, man. Brother, you need to subscribe to my channel. I could have told you that [ __ ]. Anybody could see that LeBron was trying to get you out. I said that when he was bitching and complaining about them needing some help as far as the, uh, decision-making on the floor and, you know, the handling the basketball. I said in the video, LeBron was talking about trying to get Chris Paul, and that meant that they wanted to, that he wanted them to get rid of Kyrie. All right, that [ __ ] was clear as day. This is when for Chris Paul, when if you pay attention, then you know, you don't have a bunch of fog in your skull. When that back then, back, so you're going a year, a year ago. So he found out that LeBron was behind it, and now there's a trust issue. He feels he can't trust LeBron. That's why a guy would be willing to give up what looks like to be Utopia, you know, everything laid out for you. Once there's no trust, there's no relationship.
So you're hearing after they won the championship together, soon after that, that LeBron was encouraging the front office to go ahead and offer Kyrie up to get Chris. That's, that's what I'm hearing. And so this would make somebody want to leave what looks like a perfect situation. So I get it. I, I'm right here. I got to say this, I applaud Kyrie. I really do. I think that he is showing people he's his own man. First of all, he does not want to be left at the altar by LeBron, who can walk out on him at whenever he wants. He already did it in Miami. He did it in Cleveland before. Same thing. I already said that's the reason why Kyrie is leaving. People keep claiming that he should want to stay because they have a chance to win a championship. They do not have a chance to win a championship. All right, Kyrie already knows in order for them to beat Golden State, both Steph and Durant have to be hurt for them to have a chance to beat Golden State. That's just not going to happen. All right, not with the, you know, not with how fractured their team is now. All right, they won one game against Golden State in the finals last year. They have no chance of beating him. So Kyrie's attitude is, if I'm going to lose, I might as well lose on a team that I'm leading, where I don't have to worry about this dude and his [ __ ] and his social media whole antics where he's going on making all these subliminal comments and trying to act smarter than he is and, uh, bobbing his head to music to music that's making subliminal messages to his teammates and all this other silly [ __ ]. You know, dude has a lot of damn female traits.
So this guy's already had a history of doing it. Number two, he's bucking the trend of this "AA" mentality which has ruined the NBA, started by LeBron James. Because look at the teams that, uh, his wish list that include the New York Knicks. And to me, a guy who is willing to go there and start all over, a team that hasn't won a championship since 1973, tells me a lot about his character. That this guy believes in his own talent, believes that he is that player and can be that number one guy and that player. And the other part is, which is great for him, is he has a championship in his back pocket. Exactly. That's what I already said. Kyrie can leave Cleveland with no problem knowing that he already has won a championship and that he was a key component to that championship. All right, even if you don't want to give him credit for leading the team or being the most important team in that final series, he was 1A. He wasn't even two. I'll say if LeBron was one, Kyrie was 1A with the way that he was able to, uh, to dominate the basket, basketball game, especially from, from, uh, games three to seven. The way that he played, uh, in every game from game three in the 2016 finals, he definitely deserved consideration as 1A. LeBron was the MVP, but Kyrie made the biggest shot of the series. Nobody can take that away from him. So I love that part about him. And yeah, sure, could you win more and have more chance of winning with LeBron? Yes. But I also like a guy who's willing to step out on his own and say, "I can do this. I don't need to gang up with everybody else." The trend that's going on. So that's what I'm hearing.
And Kyrie comes off to me as a dude, you know, LeBron wants to have these big team-wide text message threads, and, "Yeah, son, yeah, yeah, you know, let's go to the bar tonight. Let's just hang out and bug out." You know, even though we're all 35 years old, let's hang out at the bar and bug out and make stupid faces. And Kyrie probably sent a text message, "Nah, I'm good. I'm chilling, man. I'm just going to stay at the crib," or "I'm going to the museum by myself." Some [ __ ] like that. Kyrie comes off to me as that type of guy, you know, who they would probably call a killjoy. He doesn't seem to me like much of a follower in regards to LeBron's antics. A lot of times when people see that you're not willing to follow them in their [ __ ], they try to trump up other charges against you. Right now, LeBron knows that he needs Kyrie, but the fact that he's tried to execute numerous trades to replace Kyrie tells me that it's a personality clash, right? Not even so much a style of play clash, it's a personality clash. LeBron wants somebody who's going to be one of his, uh, one of his doers, all right, you know, somebody who's going to be a yes man to him. Kyrie's not going to do that.
Yes, would you see that as betrayal? If LeBron, in fact, I absolutely would. I absolutely would. I don't care who my, and I got some best, best, best friends that played on other teams, but if I got a very close friend, my teammates, and that's why I always defer. Give me John. You know, I like Jo. I like all these other quarterbacks, but they didn't help me win championships. And I'm going always go to bat for the guy that I went to champ. Now, the other guy might be better now. I don't know in what aspect. Maybe defensively. Does LeBron think Chris Paul is better than Kat Reed? He probably thinks that Chris Paul has a higher basketball IQ. He probably thinks that Chris Paul would be easier to play with because Chris Paul would be more likely to give the ball up or move the ball. But Chris Paul plays in a, you know, a four-round-one type of offense where he just has the ball at the top of the key. You know, some guys, they just dominate the ball even though they're getting a lot of assists. Chris Paul's one of those guys, all right? He's a ball dominator, even though he gets a lot of assists. But, you know, LeBron wants to play with him because he knows Chris, and he looks at Chris as a brother, right? He looks at Kyrie as an eccentric, which is what Kyrie is. Even though I, even though I get on him about the Flat Earth thing, you could tell he's definitely his own man, all right? Even though certain things like those type of wild philosophies, he just hasn't done proper research. You know, but like I've already stated in other videos, a lot of these cats today, um, they mistake being a contrarian for being an aidite, right? Just because you say, "I don't believe in something," doesn't make you informed. It just makes you a contrarian, right? So whatever philosophy you embrace, you have to, you have to understand what you're talking about. All right, in regards to the Flat Earth, then cats try to hide behind the scriptures. No, don't try to hide behind the scriptures for your, for your low-level reading comprehension. All right, it is what it is. Okay.
Get that all be that his mate. Now, see, I thought it was because Kyrie's name came up in the Paul George, the Jimmy Butler situation. It did. It came up again. But that's, and so I thought that was, I thought that was Dan Gilbert and David Griffin. Like, there's no way I'm giving up. So, so if you're Kyrie, and you help LeBron win a championship, and you hear this, yeah, how would you feel? Would you be, would you be hurt?
Yeah, me personally, yeah. I'm going to give him a two-piece. I would be hurt. I would, I would, I'd be like, "John, after all we've done being through, no, I got to whoop your ass now."
Oh, you give him a two-piece? Yeah, I'm about to go give an orca a two-piece. Yeah, yeah, with a biscuit and a lot of butter. Skip, like my grandpa used to say, "Boy, you get [ __ ] biscuit, you make sure you put butter on it." Yeah.
I got to. Wow, bro. If I just, hold on. I make, man. If John Elway, if I had just helped John win a Super Bowl, and this dude going to talk about, "I want Tony Gonzalez or I want Big Coach." He and I going to have a problem. He and he knows I'm going to have a problem. We're going to have a major problem with a capital P R O B L E M.
So to Rob's point, Kyrie on his wish list didn't Golden State in Houston. You know, he doesn't want to join forces. He's just saying, you know, that's, that's out of the question. Skip, come on now.
Well, but but that's the way the kids think today, or even the kids, everybody. And also, Skip, you know, that $200 million that's out the window too. I mean, I mean, he's given up a lot. He's his own guy. I gave, I gave him credit for that because he knows $200, the max $200 million is off the table, and he's willing to forego that to say, "I want to be my own man." Kudos to it. Kyrie's one of them dudes like Kyrie's probably think like, "What's the difference between me getting 165 mil and 200 mil when I have the second bestselling shoe at Nike?" Like that's Kyrie's attitude. Kyrie don't give a [ __ ]. Kyrie just wants his own team. Like I said, Kobe was in his ear. I'm sure Kobe was telling him, "Look, dude, you know, you know, Kobe, Kobe's a straight shooter. Look, dude, LeBron is full of [ __ ]. You know it, and I know it. He going to smile in your face, but he has his own plans. He's going to be out here in LA playing for the Lakers within a year and a half. All right? So prepare yourself mentally to move on to your own." All these things are signs that he's delivering to you. Your name keeps coming up in trade talks. LeBron is going to leave you if you don't leave him. So either way, you guys are going to separate. So figure out what you want to do. All right.
And Chon is being a little naive here. And again, I assume he's hearing most of the inside stuff from Tyo, who's a very close friend of his, and it was one reason he didn't take the job. But Rob, you did cover that. What was it, the '04 Pistons team? Were they not all sort of interchangeable cogs? I mean, they were all very good, but treated equally.
Exactly. Yeah, but that was a different era. That early 2000s era, that was, you know, that was a wrestling type of era, you know, everything was super physical. That was the most physical era in basketball history. By the way, everybody talks about the '80s. No, the most physical era in basketball history was from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, all right? That's when guys could barely score, you know? I mean, you had games in the 70s in the early '80s in the playoffs because guys could barely score, you know? The power forward, the four-man was normally some big brute who was just there to clog the lane and get rebounds and be an enforcer. Now your four-man has to be able to shoot threes and stretch out, which allows, you know, it allows an open floor for your one-man and your two-man or your three-man to take his person off the dribble. You know, the mid-2000s, that was a different era. That team, that Pistons team was configured for that era. They, they, you know, it would be a little bit different now, you know, I mean, even though you have a stretch in Rasheed Wallace, it would have been a little different because Ben Wallace would have been, you know, he would have been a problem for them when they went against other teams. And plus, when the NBA made those changes to the, you know, to the hand-checking, that took away some of their effectiveness defensively.
And see, that's the difference. I think when Chanty was in a situation where there was no top dog, right? Every day it was, uh, Rasheed Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Chanty, and Ben Wallace. I mean, they had, and Larry Brown was the sixth guy, you know, they were all on par. So I think it's totally different. He's never been in a situation. And those guys were a real team and unit where they all worked together. And then I think it would, yeah, well, they blew the 2005 finals though. And I was rooting for them. They blew that series against the Spurs. Really dumb basketball in clutch moments.
It would have hurt. It would have hurt somebody to hear that. Wait a minute. I just helped you win, and now, and now I'm going to get, I want to get rid of you.
Yeah, it would be like, Skip, you and I win an Emmy. Joe, we win an Emmy. Like, yeah, you know, I want this other, right? You, I would not. Skip, I thought I was going, I thought I was your favorite [ __ ]. How we going to win an Emmy and you going to go get another [ __ ]? Not do that. I have to get you the start. I ain't going to hit you in the face. You have to hit me in the stomach. You hit me in the face. I would take that. But I think Kyrie is getting a bad rap because for whatever all these reasons are, he's just tired of sharing whatever with LeBron on and off the floor. Yeah, yeah. He's just, he's just tired of LeBron being a [ __ ], you know, that's all it is. You know, allegedly, he's just tired of LeBron being a [ __ ], acting like a hoe, you know? Well, these dudes, they act like hoes, man. It's something else.
And Chanty can't relate to that because Chanty is just seeing the bigger picture of, "Oh, but you're in the East, and every year you're going to be a poss, you're going to get to the NBA Finals." Right? No, Chon is looking at himself trying to be an executive in the NBA. He knows for a fact that LeBron is going to be a major player in the NBA for the next 40 years. He does not want to take Kyrie's side against LeBron. He does not want to alienate himself against LeBron. He has future interest in the NBA, and anybody who has future interest in the NBA is going to have to take LeBron's side to a degree because LeBron is going to, is only going to get more clout as he gets older. All right, they are going to set him up with a team. Right, he is, he is the one of the co-heads of the NBA Players Association, so he is definitely not a guy that you whose toes you want to step on unless you just don't give a [ __ ] like a Kyrie. That's right.
But Kyrie doesn't have a problem sharing the candy with, uh, uh, LeBron if what Rob is saying is true. He was upset that LeBron wanted to share the candy with Chris Paul, even though he had just helped me win a, helped you get a lot of candy. So now you want to share? Hold on, bro. This dude, they helped you win nothing. I know he's your best friend. You guys go on vacation together, and you can continue to do that. But for me to have, for us to have gone through what we've gone through, we were down 3-1, and to come back and to win it in dramatic fashion in which we did, and in the process, not a mon, I don't care if it was 10 years, you should never say, "I would rather have rather played with Chris Paul than Kyrie Irving."
Well, I said in that same video that I was referencing when I said that they were trying to for Chris Paul, that is that is one of LeBron's dreams is to have a team with him and Dwyane Wade and Carmelo before it's all over, all right? That's always been a dream of his. Now, that dream got eradicated for the most part when CP3 signed with the Rockets. But, or I pardon me, when he orchestrated the trade to the Rockets. But believe me, that's still in the back of LeBron's mind because once that guy give you a championship, I mean, help you get a championship, that's just the way I look at it. Now, obviously, guys, they view things differently. Skip, and like I said, I'm looking at it from a football perspective. And Skip, you know this, you got 53 guys in basketball, there's bigger egos, and they're the face of the team. But I would be, if I'm Kyrie, if this is true, and I'm Kyrie, I'm disappointed. And that's why to me, it sounds true because that would be a reason for somebody to want to break up a situation that looks like it's so ideal and so right.
I agree. Like I said, it's like a relationship. If the person you're with is always talking about how they want somebody else or how they think somebody else is better, after, like, "What the [ __ ]? You okay? The [ __ ] you here for? Head on out, scad." That would be the breaking point. What else could be the breaking point? Never know what's going on behind closed doors. Everybody look happy, ain't happy. Skip, see, remember, everybody look happy, ain't happy. It's like my granddad used to tell me, "Boy, you think they happy? Pick through their window at night. [ __ ] you [ __ ] what you see." And if you don't [ __ ] act like you saw it.
CWPS, close war, personal friends. I don't know about. Get you going. Put that on a shirt. The letter. If they're just close personal, are they war? Some warmer than others. Of course, you got to be close if they're warm like that. Watch, watch, watch. Should the charger say RG3? Skip, but yeah, anyway, like I was saying, Kyrie, but I could have saw this from the start. Kyrie knows what he's doing. He knows why he's doing it. The only question is, are they going to acquiesce to his, uh, uh, to his hopes of getting traded? Are they going to accommodate him and send him to the Knicks or somebody of that, you know, of that nature? We'll see. But LeBron is, you know, LeBron is the, is the hidden hand behind all this. LeBron wants to be a good guy out in the open, but he wants to, you know, he wants to, uh, you know, execute a lot of nefarious methods to get his way behind the scenes. But anyway, peace.