Transcription
Alright man, peace. You know, brothers, with Michael Jordan making his appearance on The Today Show, I knew that the snippet that the mainstream liberal sports media was going to harp on and hone in on was the portion of the interview pertaining to Mr. Steph Curry. When they interviewed Craig Melvin, he asked Michael Jordan if there were any updates to his all-time starter five. For those of you who don't know, many years ago, there was an interview in which Michael Jordan was asked who his all-time starting five would be, and he listed Magic Johnson at point guard, himself at shooting guard, Scottie Pippen and James Worthy at forward, and Hakeem Olajuwon at center. That's Michael Jordan's own personal starting five.
Of course, the haters have flocked in abundance to claim that Michael Jordan does not know how to pick teams, he does not understand what talent is, another NBA player, so on and so forth. It's been people like Jay Williams who've got about trying to castigate Michael Jordan for how he appraises NBA talent. It is what it is. Jay Williams is just a burnout who should count himself fortunate that he's even on television today. But that's neither here nor there.
The point being is that once again, Michael Jordan stuck to his guns, and he's very consistent. He comes from a very strong patriarchal atmosphere, a very strong fatherly environment, and those of us who are raised in those environments know that we were taught a certain way. You cannot put the wagon before the horse. That's an old saying from back in the day. Don't put the cart before the horse. Meaning what? Finish the curriculum, finish the path, finish what you start. And that's all Michael Jordan's point was when Craig Melvin asked him about Stephan Curry. And Michael Jordan said that he's not in the Hall of Fame yet.
Originally, I was not even gonna make a video about this, but I said to myself, "Now that I've thought of a theme or motif to link to this story, I'll just do a video on it." Because we all have to earn what we get in life. I tell you brothers this all the time: you're too good to be working in the white man's corporate offices. They're not for the so-called black man. A lot of you brothers have visions for yourself, and you fill yourself well, you don't seek after your vision, or you don't take advantage of the gift or the gifts that the Most High gave you. When you sit up in a cubicle all day, knowing that you're miserable, having to deal with the [ __ ] from the liberal black woman on the job and the other races on the job giving you a hard time, you're only hurting yourself, and you're taking years off of your own life. You're hampering your own happiness. That's all that you're doing.
Michael Jordan understands that when he embarked on his mission to become a great professional athlete, he had to follow all the steps and finish the route, finish the path, finish the curriculum. And he's holding Stephon Curry to the same standard. He knows that if Stephon Curry retires tomorrow, he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Everybody knows that. But he's not retired yet, so Michael Jordan's not qualified to put him in the Hall of Fame. But just to get back to the point, when you start on that pathway, on that mission, on that crusade, whatever you want to call it, make sure that you finish what you start.
So anyway, they're gonna talk about it. I'm gonna chime in. And by the way, Klay Thompson will not be gone for the entire season. He will be back sometime right after the All-Star break, no doubt in my mind, late February, early March. That's a very small team. They're gonna have to run whoever they play off the floor. In that hypothetical tournament of greatest fictional teams of all time, I was talking with people about Michael's starting five, and I was telling them that team is very small. But the person I was talking to said, "It doesn't matter if you're able to fill the squat like that or bring the team like that onto the basketball floor." They couldn't beat everybody because they have all their bases covered.
In my view, if they were to face a team that was tall, especially in the frontcourt, say they faced a team that had Larry Bird, LeBron James, and Bill Russell, or Kareem, or Shaq in the frontcourt, that would be very difficult for Michael Jordan's team. And for the people who thought that Michael Jordan was being petty or silly when he chose the players that he chose, understand that there was a rhyme and a reason to every player that he chose on the team. At center, Hakeem Olajuwon was the player who was chosen ahead of him in the 1984 draft, and Michael Jordan has always held Hakeem in great admiration.
One of the more prominent hypothetical or fictional debates to this day is who would have won in a 1994 Finals matchup between the Chicago Bulls and the Houston Rockets had Michael Jordan not stayed retired. I promise you that one person who does not want to know is Michael Jordan, because he knew that the Bulls had no answer for Hakeem. They played in 1991, '92, and '93 six times in the regular season in total, and I believe that the Bulls just won one time. Now, of course, we know that's the regular season, and in the playoffs, they would have time to game plan for Hakeem. But take it from me, and anyone else who saw how Hakeem Olajuwon played, he was unstoppable. He was the best passer from the low post in the history of the NBA. He had the best low post and mid-post moves of any center in the history of the NBA. He had the best handle of any center in the history of the NBA from the mid-post position. He revolutionized low post play with the intricacy of his moves. He and Michael Jordan had the most intricate low post and mid-post moves of any players in the history of the NBA. Kevin McHale, of course, had tremendous low post moves, but his moves did not really extend out to the mid-post and to the elbow like Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. So that's why Jordan chose Olajuwon.
Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan chose because a lot of people don't know this, Magic Johnson was Michael Jordan's hero all the way back in high school. While Michael Jordan was in high school, he looked up to Magic Johnson. Even though Magic Johnson was just in the NBA in 1979, Michael Jordan admired him. And as a matter of fact, one of Michael Jordan's nicknames in high school was "Magic" because he used to get a lot of triple-doubles. As most of us know, he played with James Worthy in North Carolina, and he also played with Scottie Pippen in the professionals, and he won championships with Scottie. He also won a championship with James Worthy in college and a gold medal with Magic. So that's why he picked those players.
What would truly be interesting is if that reporter had followed it up by asking Michael Jordan who would be the five players on his team coming off the bench. That would be more entertaining than anything else. It wasn't that funny. Michael Jordan, one of those guys that when he holds court, all these dudes like Steve Naismith and Michael Wilbon, they know they better laugh at everything that Michael says, or they're probably gonna get kicked out of the party. [Laughter] Magic Johnson dared to come back. No, I'm sorry, was it Doc Rivers dared to comment on Kawhi Leonard? What happened? Fine. Tampering fine. Michael, whoa, Bart. I promise you, Michael Jordan's comments had nothing to do with the fear of tampering. All he was doing was answering the question the interviewer asked him why Steph Curry would not be on his team, and that's how Michael chose to answer it. Had nothing to do with him worrying about being fined by Adam Silver for tampering. He could care less about that [ __ ].
Why would Michael Jordan say that when that was not the question that he was asked? [Music] Michael Jordan was never asked, "Do you think that Steph Curry is a Hall of Famer?" He decided that he was going to state that Steph Curry would not be good enough to make his all-time team because he's not in the Hall of Fame yet. If any of you cats have gotten a chance to see the Dream Team documentary that sometimes comes on NBA TV, Michael Jordan stated in that documentary that there would never be another Dream Team or NBA Olympic team that had 12 Hall of Famers on the squad. So that's very big to him, and for him, that he's surrounded by his peers, that being Hall of Famers, he takes that very seriously. Even though, to be quite frank with you, the professional basketball, or the Basketball Hall of Fame, I should say, is a big joke. They let everybody in. Vlade Divac is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. So I mean, there's only so much that you could take seriously about the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Bird, Michael Jordan can't comment on the state of the game, individual players. That's Mike. And I have argued with the league about the league officials, but he's not saying Steph Curry's not our favorite. He purposely named his Dream Team guys. Well, some of the guys that he named won the Dream Team. You can't say that he named his Dream Team guys because out of the five members of Michael Jordan's hypothetical team, only three of those guys were on the Dream Team. James Worthy and Hakeem Olajuwon were not on the Dream Team. Michael Wilbon, so it's very obvious that you're so desperately trying to defend Michael Jordan, you don't even understand what your argument is. All you have to say is that Michael Jordan sets very strict parameters for what's acceptable for him. He knows that there is a pathway that he had to take, and that every person, every player that he's going to accept into his zone, into his room, has to go down that same pathway. And he's letting Stefan Curry know, the 25-step path, you've only completed about 20 steps. You have five more steps to go.
If you train five months to run a marathon and you quit after the 24th mile when a marathon is a little bit over 26 miles, that's even worse than never having trained at all because you started something that you did not finish. Yeah, Jay Williams was trying to rank on home Michael Jordan. He was trying to play the dozens on Michael Jordan's suit. As a matter of fact, Michael Jordan's suit cut was modernized in that interview with Craig Melvin, so you couldn't even say that he was walking around with the baggy suits from the '90s. But it's very clear Jay Williams has a personal issue with Michael Jordan. A lot of these guys, did you see on TV, got talked trash to by Michael Jordan back in like 2000, 2001, well, he was prepping to come into the NBA, and they still haven't gotten over some of the things that he said to them because Jay Williams even stated that Michael Jordan and Gary Payton were the two biggest trash talkers that he ever competed against. And I said to myself, "When did Jay Williams go against Michael Jordan?" I said, "Maybe Michael's first year with the Wizards when Jay Williams first came into the NBA, or maybe back when Michael Jordan was prepping to come back into the NBA when he was playing against many of the top college basketball players and some of the pros." But it's obvious to me that Michael said some things to Jay Williams that Jay Williams probably didn't like. Keep in mind that Jay Williams went to the Chicago Bulls, so knowing Michael, he probably said all types of [ __ ] like, "You'll never take my place. I got six banners up there. You know, you'll be lucky to get one of them." Jay Williams also played for Duke, so you have that Duke-North Carolina issue as well.
They frequently, and the position is consistent. This is intake, just so y'all know. He's not saying that you're not going to the whole thing. MJ's thing is, he don't want to hear a damn thing for people who are still playing. Finish to be finished, the process. His whole thing is, don't tell him off the form, off the map, don't play like garbage for the last 10 years of your career, and not even so much that. Really, what Michael's saying is that you should be still in the moment. Why would you want to presume something when you still have the opportunity to take your legacy and amplify it to heights that maybe you have not even dreamed up yet? If you were to tell Michael Jordan at 29 years old, "You're gonna win four more championships," he probably said, "Wow, I believe it, but wow." You have to live your life day by day, set goals, and accomplish your goals piece by piece, and then after everything is done, then you could look back and admire your handiwork. When a painter is in the midst of a masterpiece, he doesn't stop ten percent of the way through and look at the canvas and say, "Oh man, this is tremendous." It's after it's done that he looks and he admires his handiwork.
Damn, Steph was giving it to him right there. [ __ ] Steph was giving it to everyone. It's back a little bit. That's embarrassing. If I was the coach, I'd better call time. I'll pull his ass out the game. You let that guy do a Curly Neal and you like that? Come on, man. Follow. They own people like made people bilingual. One another's accountable for is Paul. The famous despised when we crowd people and put people on their level and not force them to go through the same process those guys had to go through and whoop to it. They really have a personal problem with us. Yes. And that's why Michael Jordan was so disgusted at LeBron James when LeBron's dumb ass sat down and said he became the greatest player ever when he defeated Golden State back in 2016. I mean, talk about a joke. But LeBron James is a big joke.
Magic Johnson clearly is the point guard. This is like, like it's like distraction. Magic, Magic, six-foot-nine point guard who ever lived. Was James Worthy doing on that team? North Carolina teammate. Well, this guy didn't do it on that team. Chicago Bull. He took his best teammate from college and his best teammate from the pros. He wasn't gonna leave those. He wasn't gonna leave those guys off. And the question was, who does he wanna run with? Right? The fact is, if you had that team, you wouldn't have Worthy, even if you didn't want LeBron, you'd have Bird, and you wouldn't have Pippen. You'd have absolute. Like there's a, there's a better team choice. Work together. The question is, who does he? We have based on what you just said, explain to us what your thought process is when Michael Jordan has been on the record in the past saying he'd take Kobe over LeBron. Explain. Well, before you explain that, let me also expel know what Max Kellerman was alleging for the reasons why Michael Jordan picked till he picked. I wouldn't say that it was agenda-driven. I would say that it was experience-driven. Michael Jordan is someone who, and a lot of men are like this, we become set in a certain route, a certain way of doing things, and we start to lean on people who we can count on, especially when we know that it's a crucial moment. Michael Jordan knows that James Worthy is going to be great in crucial moments. People forget, even though Max Kellerman tried to marginalize James Worthy, he had a nickname, "Big Game James." When the going got tough, James Worthy made big shots. It's difficult to understand that because Magic Johnson got a lot of the, you know, he got a lot of the press. Curry got a lot of the credit as well, but James Worthy was arguably one of the top five players in the NBA in the mid to late '80s. And Scottie Pippen is arguably the most underrated player of all time, at least for those people who did not see him play. In my view, he's properly rated. I will put Scottie Pippen somewhere in between 30 to 40 on the greatest players of all time. But when it comes to Hakeem Olajuwon, I've already stated, Hakeem Olajuwon, you can argue he's as high as sixth greatest player of all time in my view, or as low as 10. I have him somewhere around 9 or 10 on my list. I have to put Tim Duncan ahead of him, even though I think Hakeem was greater than Tim Duncan was because Tim Duncan won more championships and had more accolades. Mike, Kobe, basically LeBron is like, to me, the first postmodern player in the sense that he was an MVP level player who was a way who said, "Nope, I'm not gonna just try to be like Mike. I'm gonna be like Magic. It might had a baby. You know, I'm gonna do my people." Many television pundits like Max Kellerman love to make the comparison of LeBron James to a hypothetical hybrid of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and that's not really accurate. LeBron James, as I've already stated, is really Oscar Robertson 2.0. A great passer with very high individual basketball IQ. The difference between Oscar Robertson and LeBron James is obviously LeBron is larger, he's faster, and he's a greater natural athlete than Oscar Robertson, but Oscar Robertson has a higher basketball IQ and understands how to be a part of a system more. He also knows how to play off the basketball better than LeBron James. The difference is once again, not only errors but also their physical characteristics. But LeBron is Oscar Robertson 2.0. He really does not have anything in common with Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan had far greater body language than LeBron James. LeBron, he just seems to be like this oversized dump truck that just comes down the lane and barrels over people. Michael Jordan was extremely graceful when it comes to passing. People love to compare LeBron James to Magic Johnson. It's not even close. Magic Johnson is about two or three levels above LeBron James as a passer. LeBron is not even as good a passer. Is the fact that one of the things that has been religiously held against LeBron James is that he came into the league wearing the same number, he's on the court cover of Sports Illustrated, and "The Chosen One," and he talked about what he wanted to be, and he identified Jordan. He only go to my tummy. That's not the point. He told you what his objective was, and the only time it changed was when he failed. Absolutely. Well, that's already known. LeBron James did not spell listically resemble Michael Jordan, but he did try to act as if he was Michael Jordan's unclaimed illegitimate son. He conducted himself like he just showed up at Michael Jordan's proverbial door and said, "Daddy, let me in." And I think that's one of the reasons why Michael has always been very uncomfortable with LeBron.
I go over this motif many times on this channel, the importance of the patrilineal connection or the father-son connection, the patriarchal energy or the patriarchal archetype. That that dynamic that has become so, so much of an anathema in current society. Well, Michael Jordan is an embodiment of the production of that type of energy, and LeBron James is the embodiment of the production of the mother goddess energy. He has that, that spirit of the quote-unquote divine child, the spoiled brat who has both male and female characteristics. And I think that subconsciously, that's the reason why Michael Jordan's not really feeling him like that. He more feels Kobe because Kobe also resonates that patriarchal aspect or that, you know, that male energy per se. Obviously, having studied the greatest who ever did it and said, "I'm gonna be a better version of him." LeBron said, "No, I'm gonna be a new set up." No, what LeBron was that, I'm talking about when he started and the kind of imagery he gave off, and you can tell him in here, Michael, he, that's what is what, that's what he was held accountable for because he quickly learned what Magic, what Michael did, what Kobe was trying to do, and ultimately did was something he couldn't do because he didn't had that same makeup.
I told you for many years, the number one thing I know that LeBron James is phenomenal and great, but the one thing to be held against him that's undeniable, and he still hasn't gotten up as far as I'm concerned, here's this: he failed so often before he got to that point. I'm talking about mentally. Michael came into the league as a killer. Kobe came into the league as a killer. Look, broad had to Pretoria time. You know what you're talking about is the makeup maker. This is different. And I Wilfred, I don't really, that's why the comparison between, we're going to historically compare LeBron James, Michael Jordan, whether it's champion, totally different. When Michael looked at Kobe from day one, he saw someone who was more similarly suited to follow him in that lineage from Elgin Baylor to Julius Erving to Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant's. Right? LeBron is outside of that. It is a different type of player, a different type of person. To me, yes, yes, of the Oscar Robertson lineage, really, if you want to go there, is Oscar Robertson, and you could kind of say Magic Johnson is an offshoot of the Oscar Robertson lineage, but not a direct descendent per se. And then a kind of sorter picks up at Scottie Pippen as another branch, and Grant Hill as another type of branch, and LeBron James is kind of a combination of all those players per se. But they say that he's of direct descent from Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. No, no. Ron is not in that. My point to you is that I totally agree with that. That's an accurate depiction. By initially coming into the league, that's not what he expressed as his intent. Well, we also have to take into account that yes, LeBron James did admire Michael Jordan, but I also believe that he understood that the NBA wanted him to market himself as the next Michael Jordan. And I've touched on this in many videos. The NBA, and just like the NFL, it's a television show, and in order for you to have a long-running TV program, you have to have storylines that blend into each other. When Michael Jordan retired in 1998, that left a huge gap in the league that they were not able to fill right away. That's why they needed him to come back. The year after Jordan retired, the San Antonio Spurs won the championship, and that was a huge problem for the NBA because nobody watched. That's why they needed Phil Jackson to go coach the LA Lakers and try to build up a young, burgeoning, very talented team in a major market that they could hope would possibly fill in when the Chicago Bulls, the most popular dynasty in the history of the NFL, had left a major void, a major vacancy. Of course, the Lakers won in 2000 and then won again in 2001, but there were still issues in the league because not only were they dealing with that void, they were dealing with declining ratings, and they were also dealing with the quote-unquote thug hip-hop image that would start to permeate into the NBA through the prominence of hip-hop at the time, Jay-Z and other artists that were very influential on the NBA players, of course, Allen Iverson and the impact that he was having on the league. This was hurting the image of the NBA, as well as their ability to develop business dealings and business partnerships, because major corporations did not want to align themselves with an Allen Iverson themed league like they did a Michael Jordan themed league. Therefore, they begged Michael Jordan to come back, knowing that in a couple of years, they were going to be able to build up the entrance of LeBron James. That's why Michael Jordan stayed for two years. Once he leaves in '03, who comes in? '03, the next season, LeBron James. So the overall point is, LeBron understood what they wanted from him. LeBron understood what the NBA wanted from him, that been for him to buy into the notion that he is the prodigal son returning home, he is the direct descendant of Michael Jordan, at least that was the narrative that they wanted LeBron James to propagate, and he did so. He was very obedient.
I agree. If you want to say what's really underneath it with Mike, I agree with you. Late, and I agree with you that Kobe had him in the Bama mentality right there. There was more similar to Jordan's. LeBron's mentality was not as strong in that way, at least to begin his career. He had to get there first of all. So the point that, look, that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are apples to apples. They are straightforward competitors. Right? They had to paint coach, for crying out loud. Noah, and I, and when you match them up, Jordan is a little bit better. Like you can see the comparison. No one's arguing really seriously, Kobe over. There are plenty of people who try to make that argument. Max Kellerman, you'd be surprised the level of the idiocy of Kobe Bryant's superfans. They really are that dumb. But no, it's not like Michael Jordan is just slightly better than Kobe. He's discernibly better than Kobe Bryant was. It's a tougher comparison to me. And so Jordan has a feeling of competitiveness with LeBron that is toward LeBron, that is different than toward Kobe. He wants to make, think it's harder for him to make the point against. Real quick, if you're Michael Jordan, you're asked that question of who you want to run with, why wouldn't you? We can look back historically, this guy, he was criticized a lot, particularly before the driver. Michael Wilbon makes a good point, but to me, that even more highlights the level of respect that Michael Jordan has for Hakeem Olajuwon and Magic Johnson, because he never really played on a real team with either one of them. He never played with Hakeem at all, but he chose him. That showed you how much respect Michael Hoffer Hakeem. Hakeem Olajuwon was without a doubt the best center of his generation, stemming from the mid-'80s all the way through to the mid to late '90s. He was better than Shaq. He's better than Ewing. He's better than Robinson. He was better than an older Kareem. He's better than an older Moses Malone. He's better than all those players, and discernibly so. Underrated. Remember the Bulls, Michael and Phil, is what's winning as they did. They did. Phil did later on in the team, but they did. The Chicago Bulls, you know, validate your point. Jordan retires, and if it wasn't for that's the squid garden, because I know you, I stated to this very day, and I love my brother Kenny Smith, you know that, but let me tell you something, King Smith with a large one of those boys, they don't beat the Chicago Bulls. They do. Hugh Hollins, he has something out for the Chicago Bulls. Not even just that serious. Hugh Hollins will make some of the worst calls that you could ever see against the Chicago Bulls. And no, I do not agree with Steven Naismith. I don't believe that the Bulls defeat the Houston Rockets in '94 without Michael Jordan. They don't have enough offense. They would not have had enough offense to to win a slugfest like that, because they would have come into the series with a better player. You could make the case that Scottie Pippen could nullify Patrick Ewing to a degree. When you look at everything that Scottie brought to the table, he was going to bring 22 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, and nonpareil defense. Patrick was going to bring 24, 25 points, 10 rebounds, probably three or four assists, and great defense as well. They were going to nullify one another, offset one another. And the finals, Scotty would not have been able to offset Hakeem. Hakeem was too much. Well, that's debatable. Max Kellerman, I will say this, throughout the 1993-94 season, there was some vacillation over who would be considered the MVP. For the most part, it was Hakeem, but there were some moments where Scottie Pippen took the lead momentarily. Eventually, Hakeem was declared the MVP winner of that season because he deserved it. He was the best player in the world. It was relatively close here and there. I'll say this, I'm not quite sure that we can discernibly state without a shadow of a doubt that that Scottie was a better player than Charles Barkley that year or David Robinson that year. But put him over the most part, I agree with you. To give when first returns from LA, and we got a good debate for you guys. Buckle up for this. Many, but I've basically hit on that. We'll see how things go for Mr. Steph Curry over the course of this season. I'm sure that he did not care one bit that Michael Jordan stated that he's not a Hall of Famer yet. As a matter of fact, that recently viewed an interview that Stefan Curry had in response to Michael Jordan's statements, and even he, even he understood that it was just an issue with, as Steph stated, a wordsmith issue. He knew that Michael Jordan kind of worded it awkwardly, but he plays golf with Mike, and um, he knows that Mike, because it is a jokester, someone who likes to get under your skin, it is what it is. We all know that Steph is going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer should the time come. So, peace.