Transcription
I'm just joining us. We're having a lovely, sweet, nice conversation, pretty much between Max and Will, about if it's fair to compare Brady and Michael Jordan as the GOAT, considering they both now have six rings. Stephen, you kind of fell back in and just listened to that one, so I'd like to get your take as these two.
Lauren, opposite ends. Well, first of all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Mike, and let me also say, it's great seeing two white men yelling and screaming. It's normally me. Give me a chance to get my bum ass note together. It's tremendous. I was just sitting here sipping on my tea. I thought that I thought that it was great. You know, you got to know when to step back and just let the show be a show. And I want to say, I find myself incredibly proud of Will Cain this morning. I think Will Cain is absolutely 1,000% one of the money. And here is the reason why, because Max has already conceded we're not talking about Brady against Jordan as an athlete. We recognize the fact that there's one Michael Jordan and there is no one else. So if you take away the word athlete, per se, now we have to leave on the accomplishments while taking into account each respective sport, right? But I think that what Max Kellerman is trying to say is that when you take away the word athlete, that does not mean that you separate their individual accomplishments in the regular season and the disparity between themselves and the next best competitor. That's his point. Even though I don't think that his point is as cogent or as potent as he wants it to be, that's his point. That's why he's saying that this is not even a conversation, that it's not even fair to compare, because Max Kellerman believes that Jordan was so far ahead of his competition, while Brady pretty much was in the morass of other great quarterbacks in the 2000s, and he was viewed as a system quarterback throughout the 2000s. He just was. Peyton Manning was viewed as being a player who was better than him, who just could not get over the hump. And then around 2009, 2010, Aaron Rodgers was viewed as being the best quarterback in the NFL, pretty much until 2015. That's why I say Brady is is someone who is, we may have never seen him before in the history of professional sports, a player who was as great as he was for the first 15 years of his career and has actually been better over the last five years than he was for any stretch over those first 15 years. But Max's overall point is that Jordan was so discernibly better than everybody else that it's difficult to compare Brady to him. And when you take into account the sport of football, how important the quarterback position is, and then we look at the credentials of a Tom Brady, who's been in the nine Super Bowls in 18 years, having won six of them, having six titles, and the 14 All-Pro appearances, the list goes on and on, has been universally recognized, even by Max, as the greatest quarterback, if not the greatest football player who's ever lived. So if you're going to concede his greatness, not just as a quarterback, but as a football player, and we recognize we're not talking about quote-unquote athlete, what we're doing is saying in your respective sport, what do you measure up to? The reality is is that we may have, we grudgingly gotten to the point of recognizing Tom Brady as the GOAT, whereas we never had that kind of debate with Michael Jordan.
You know, well, I'm going to keep it 100, Stephen Naismith. Michael Jordan was recognized as the greatest player in the history of the NBA way too prematurely. They were calling him the greatest player in the history of the NBA before he even won his first championship. So that's why a lot of the resentment from the players of the '80s for Jordan comes from. And you can sense it from Abdul-Jabbar and from Isiah Thomas. Especially Magic Johnson kind of recognized early in what direction the wind was blowing. So he got on the Jordan bandwagon because he realized this guy's gonna become so big that it's not going to be advantageous for me to make an overt enemy of him. So let me just conform right now and go along with the Jordan stuff. But then they were calling Jordan the greatest NBA player ever in 1990, even before he won a championship. Now, fortunately for him, he was able to win enough championships and dominate the league to a high enough degree that those claims that he's the greatest player ever are actually justified. But they were calling him the greatest player ever far too prematurely. The bottom line is most human beings have, you know, realized the error of our ways in doubting the greatness of this man. And that's what this comes down to, which is why to me, Will Cain is right on the money. We have to ask ourselves, what are we talking about when we say greatest? Or are we really comparing apples to apples? And I understand it's cross-sports, so you, it's hard to find a common denominator. What I am trying to explain, and since you two perhaps don't understand, maybe I didn't do a good enough job, because if you understand the point, you simply man-killed me. He loves calling that route because he knows it's gonna piss them off. He barely just said, you know, you got to stupid to get what I'm saying. What sometimes it's the case, sometimes you talk to people and they're not quite swift enough to understand what you're getting at. This point is so correct. Who could possibly argue when we say greatest, we're not simply talking about career accomplishment? LeBron James may be able to pass Michael Jordan if we're simply talking about overall career value. Maybe Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was already ahead of Jordan. We're not just talking about career value, we're talking about the heights reached. Tom Brady here and there in his career was considered the best player in the league in a given season. Concrete, actually most seasons, certainly regular season. Peyton Manning was considered better than Tom Brady. Agree. I was someone who saying, I'd rather have Tom Brady because I don't trust Peyton under pressure. Agree. That wasn't the argument for most, for many, many years. It was many years unclear who was the best player in basketball. Right through the middle of Tom Brady's prime, it was never unclear who was the best player. Considering football, it was never unclear who was the best player in basketball when Michael Jordan was in his prime. So, well, it's debatable. I mean, it depends on what you consider his prime to have started at, because if you were to say that his prime started in 1987, which is when he won his first MVP, he won his first MVP in the '87-'88 season. You could certainly make the case that as an overall player, Bird and Magic were still more impactful than him, even though Jordan was putting up astronomical individual numbers that season. That Jordan had in the in the 1987-88 season is arguably the greatest individual season that any player has ever had. The dude averaged 35 points a game on 54% from the field, led the league in steals, had over 100 blocks. He was the first player to have over 200 steals and 100 blocks in one season, and that was actually his second consecutive year doing that. The year before, when he averaged 37 a game, he also had over 200 steals and 100 blocks at the shooting guard position. I considered Jordan's prime, overall prime, that started in 1990, when he won his first championship, the 1991 season. By then, he was discernibly the best player in the NBA. So if you're not just talking about like career accomplishment, longevity, how long did you last? I don't think that's just what we mean by greatness. It, but it's Jordan in the same color. But it's part of it, I think. And I'm sure you're gonna tell me I don't, but I do think I understand your argument. Your focus clearly on the word dominance. And in a lot of the times, Max, listen, I do my best to understand your arguments. Forgive me for my intellectual failings and sometimes not measuring up 100% to the conclusions that you reach. But I encountered this with you a lot. I feel like this happened with Aaron Rodgers. There's time, great debates. You do focus on dominance, you do focus on talent, you do focus on eyeballs, what you said a moment ago, in-game moments. But you also just acknowledge there's another aspect to this, longevity. Dominance comes in many forms, period of time. How much did you exceed your level of competition, including accomplishments? Tom Brady, nine Super Bowl appearances. What's the next closest again, in his category? What's the next closest ending in football? It's fun. It's fun. It's almost half of what he accomplished. Six football wins. What's the next closest in this category? For 5400% more? 50%? One? Tell me if that math.
Max, um, there's a lot more. Okay, Dick Bradshaw, thank you. We also have to understand, though, that when you're comparing him to Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, once again, especially Joe Montana and Bradshaw, for that matter, they were allowed to hit the quarterback so much harder and everywhere back in that era. The NFL actually changed the rule on where you could hit the quarterback because of Tom Brady. When he got his knee snapped back in 2008, it's because of Tom Brady that they changed the rule. So it's just different. I mean, who knows what may have happened to Brady in the last few years had they not lessened the pressure on the quarterback that the defensive line was allowed to exert? They just can't hit the quarterback like that anymore. Like the hit that Leonard Marshall laid on Joe Montana in the 1990 NFC title game, he'd probably got kicked out of the game for that today. It'd definitely be roughing the passer or, you know, some type of excessive contact law right now. You have to lay the quarterback down gently and all that other stuff that aids and you putting up many of these Super Bowl appearances and playoff appearances and things that I nature. I know I told you it doesn't measure up 100%. The point is, Max, Tom Brady has dominated his category in a way that puts him in comparison with Jordan. I don't, it puts him in conversation with Jordan. I wouldn't say in direct comparison. I don't think I've argued, nor Steven, I argue he would win the argument in the end, because you're right, there's a level of dominance that Jordan, the chief. But don't pretend like this is a debate. Don't pretend like this is a conversation. You're just changing it to win it. No, it's not a conversation. In fact, what we saw in this last Super Bowl is the extent to which it's Belichick and not Brady. The fact that Belichick was able to go 11 and 5 with Matt Cassel, and by the way, just the other year with this AVG and us that coming 3 and 1 means that 14 and 6 without him. But he's winning more than twice as much as he's losing. Tom Brady won a very good quarterback throughout a lot of these playoffs and that they, the Super Bowl now. Was he clutched when you needed him to be? Absolutely. I would say Brady in this last Super Bowl is like a slightly diminished version of Eli Manning in his prime, a game manager who, when you needed him to be excellent, was excellent. Sure, but he won the Super Bowl not because it was Tom Brady, but because he was being coached by Belichick, because the defense played lights out, because they could run the ball when they needed to, etc. I mean, that's why they against the blitz threat, the twenty-five, once again, that is why I likened Tom Brady, like I would never compare him to Michael Jordan. I likened Tom Brady more to Tim Duncan. Remember Tim Duncan became a diminished version of himself down the stretch of his tenure with the San Antonio Spurs, and he decided, along with Pop, of course, that they were going to run the offense more through Ginobili and Tony Parker, and then later on to Kawhi Leonard, because he understood, I'm just here to be a part of the team now. I'm not here to be the focus of the team anymore. Tom Brady's the quarterback, so he's always going to be the focus to a degree. But with the way in which they run the football now, that's pretty much a revealer as to how he understands some of his skills have diminished, and Belichick understands that his skills have diminished, and that's okay. But when you have a winning mentality and your football IQ is that high, really, when your IQ is that high in any field of endeavor, it's going to assist you in winning championship matches that you probably shouldn't win. If you, it would be just to compare athleticism versus athleticism or proficiency versus proficiency. That's why I stated in another video that this will reminded me a lot of some of Muhammad Ali's fights late in his career in the mid to late '70s, where certain people say he got a gift decision, how he knew how to survive over the course of 15 rounds even when he was not in the best shape, or Floyd Mayweather and some of his latter fights, maybe the rematch against Marcos Maidana or his last fight against Andre Berto, when it was very obvious that he was done with the sport, he was looking up at the clock late in the rounds, but he knew how to win. The Patriots know how to win.
Wasn't there any time? Yeah, well, that's not quite true. Michael Jordan had a few stinkers, especially in that second three-peat. There were some games, but he did not shoot well, but he always played well because defensively he was always, you know, he was always ethereal. That is flat-out false. I'll give you a perfect example. Game six, Chicago Bulls versus Portland Trail Blazers, 1992. What happened in that game? Michael Jordan was not playing that well down the stretch. He got tired. They sat him down. Scotty Pippen and the bench players like Stacey King, they actually led to come back. And then Jordan came in with about five or six minutes left and finished off the Trail Blazers. That's a great, that's a great comment by Stephen Naismith. Forgot about that. Let me refresh your memory. Michael Jordan was on the bench. Michael Jordan was struggling that particular game. And the Chicago Bulls, with the wedding zuv the world, 101 intent was not on that team. It was Desi King and Scott Williams and I believe maybe Bill Cartwright. I was on the floor. Well, Purdue with the bench player, he might have been on the floor instead of Cartwright. Either way, the bench players got that team going because I think they were down big in that game. They may have been down 18 points and entity going into the fourth quarter, and they had a huge comeback. That was also a pivotal play where Pippen, I believe, he hit the ball off of Danny Ainge's back on an out-of-bounds play. I think Jordan came down and stole the ball from Buck Williams after Buck Williams had gotten the rebound under the basket, and Jordan stole the ball and laid it up. But yeah, that's, that's a great catch by Steve Naismith. But if I were to think about some of the games in the finals where Jordan did not play well, you can go to a bevy of games in the late '90s in that second three-peat, because he did not play great against the Seattle SuperSonics. He only really had one real Michael Jordan type game, that being Game three. I mean, offensively anyway, he was great in the first half. He's got like 27 points in the first half. He was cooking everybody. And the second half, you know, they didn't let him score too much. They blew, they blew C out on that game. Against four, five, and six, he did not shoot well. They made anyone at the Portland Trail Blazers with Magic, with Michael Jordan on the bench, waving his towel, cheering them on. Yep. One, it was not one of his greatest. Before now, ultimately, Phil Jackson put him in the close one. But the point is, Game six of the 1992 NBA Finals, Max Kellerman, we know you're gonna go watch it to verify. Game six, that was the closeout game. That is that is ignorant. There's no Game 7 in football. So I mean, every game is Game 7. This is the Super Bowl. I'm glad you called him out on that, dumb Steve Naismith. It's the Super Bowl. Okay, so we all understand that. Oh, did you get to a Game 7? Excuse me, you can't win a Super Bowl without getting to the damn Super Bowl. Is that a seven-game series of football, Stephen? Stop doing that. My point is this, Michael, Joe, I'm just making, I'm just addressing your calorie, calorie. Michael Jordan's regular season performance by the most advanced metrics was qualitatively better than Wilt Chamberlain, for LeBron James, and our eyeballs tell us the same thing. Michael Jordan in the regular season is the monster, bleep, the greatest player who ever lived. His postseason numbers by every metric were better than his regular season numbers. Now, let me compare that to Tom Brady. Tom Brady's regular season performance is not the highest standard of all time, and his postseason performance only exceeded his regular season performance later in his career. It's not the same thing. That anybody in football is, it's not anyone, exactly, because it's a different sport. Right, right. There's never been a Michael Jordan of football. You know, so you're also giving Michael Jordan credit for having not been. I'm not quite sure about that, Max Kellerman. The Michael Jordan of football with J. Rice. When you look at how far ahead he is of everybody else in touchdowns and yards from scrimmage, once again, there's a reason why I say that J. Rice is the greatest football player of all time. Okay, this guy has like 23,000 yards from scrimmage as a professional football player, has over 200 touchdowns. I mean, it's unbelievable. You use for LeBron James, Tom Brady, you point out at 41, at 41, something no one has ever done, just won yet another Super Bowl, led his team to another Super Bowl, and you're pointing out, wasn't his best performance? What? And I think Jordan wins this debate. So let me put that category out there. In where was Jordan at 41? You're giving him credit for not having sub-sub-Jordan performances later in life, not being in the finals. You're doing the thing. What I would say is this, if Michael Jordan played in an era where you weren't allowed to do things to the offensive player, maybe he could have, you know, if not really a caveat, right? Beer, Max Kellerman does make a lot of caveats. But you asked a pretty asinine question there, like, why would you ask where was Michael Jordan at 41? Basketball is not a game that you can dominate at the shooting guard position at the age of 41. Everybody knows that. In the NFL, at quarterback, you can play until 41 because there's not that much movement involved. There's not that much explosiveness that is asked of that position, whether you're 21 or 41. Now, depending on your speed, your coach might ask you to do some sprint rollouts or even bootlegs or run with the football, but it's just two totally different positions. That's why it's tough to have this conversation. The question is, is it fair to compare Tom Brady or Michael Jordan? The answer is yes, it is fair to compare. Now, if we want to ask another question, is the conversation worth having? Well, we already know the outcome. That's a whole other question. I think that you guys are arguing two different questions. Stephen Naismith and Will Cain are responding to the question. Max Kellerman is responding to the second question, which is whether or not the conversation is worth having. He feels like it's not, because we're, I know what the answer is. And as first evening Smith and wall Cain, they've shown that they already know what the answer is. That around on you and say Jordan, you, er, absolutely. That's the best point, sir. Let me, let me drop the mic on this, especially for Max Kellerman here, because obviously, you know, what we're all in there. They, we just, you just can't comprehend. That's the only reason to justify. Does not really matter. We can't comprehend. Well, Michael Jordan never won a championship without Phil Jackson. Cool. Obviously. Basketball, inch, absolutely, because Phil Jackson was his handler. Changed his game in order to learn how to win championships. Well, that's not quite fair. We can't call Phil Jackson one of the great coaches a long time because of Michael Jordan. When he had almost equivalent success with Kobe Bryant and Shaq, and then Kobe and Pau Gasol. People will say, well, he was supposed to win, he had all that talent. Well, the fact of the matter is that there was only one championship won by all those great players outside of the attending with Phil Jackson, and that's when Shaq won a championship with Dwyane Wade, and they happened to have Pat Riley as their coach. So there's always going to be a symbiotic relationship between great coaches and great players. Always. Be very clear about Michael Jordan before Phil Jackson ever got there. Michael Jordan had some of the greatest seasons of all time, maybe like the one, two, or three greatest seasons of all time before Phil, before he knew Phil Jackson, right? That's number one. Or oh, not quite. You got to know Phil Jackson. I believe in 1987, in the '87-'88 season, was his best individual season. Phil Jackson was not the head coach, but he was an assistant coach. Phil Jackson was basically a spy that was planted and dug college staff by Jerry Krause to make sure that Doug Collins was doing what Jake Ross wanted him to do. So Phil Jackson eventually was there as a, as a mole, as a spy to snitch on Doug Collins. There Collins never really trusted him, and of course, eventually Doug Collins got removed for Phil Jackson. And two seasons, number two, first time Michael, no, Michael Jordan was not already the best ever. Let me rewind it back a little bit. No, Michael Jordan actually had his best overall seasons with Phil Jackson, not so much as the head coach, but as the assistant coach, because his season in '88 and '89 were probably his two best individual seasons. He knew who, he knew who Phil Jackson was. Phil Jackson was on the coaching staff. No, sir. Michael Jordan did not become the best ever basketball player. I will say not until he won his sixth championship. Like that's what he definitively became the best basketball player of the modern era, which is from that 1979 up to now. Number two, with another all-star, it was Scotty Pippen. He took the defending champion Pistons to Game 7 and didn't play in Game 7. He lost. No, Pippen actually played. He just had a migraine. Pippen folded to the pressure, and he admitted that. The next time you played with an all-star who's Scotty Pippen again, this time he was healthy, they never didn't win the championship again at under seven games. So to say it's a cup Jackson, Jackson, not very good. I do things to take away from doing the toughest play. Let me, what's that? I said, pick the play with the my gradually grave because I got he was right. Tip, tipping, and the Bulls were going to lose that game anyway. They just were not ready. The Pistons were the better team. The Pistons were going to beat them even with a fully healthy Scotty Pippen. They were not ready. Product of still Jackson. That's ridiculous. I promised the Belichick. Are you not entertained? Yes. This is first time. Are you not entertained? This is not why you were here. Benny. Well, that's basically it on that. I enjoyed this debate because a little factoid to come out about both Tom Brady and Michael Jordan. But just to sum everything up, is it fair to compare Tom Brady and Michael Jordan? Yes, it is. Is the conversation worth having? Well, it depends on how close do you think the comparison is. I don't think that the comparison is close enough yet. I think that Tom Brady has to win at least one more championship to be right there with Michael Jordan, because Jordan was able to accomplish the same amount in less time. But anyway.