Transcription
I'm at peace, so now it's all starting to come out. All the things that I was, that I've been saying for the longest time, starting to come out. I knew it, man. Tyrese finally starting to come out and admit that he did not want to play with LeBron, that a lot of LeBron's ways were annoying to him and vexing to him. A lot of what was going on in Cleveland was a vexation to his spirit. That there was tension, not just between him and LeBron, but him and Tyronn Lue. I told you, brothers, that he did not like Tyronn Lue's quote-unquote style of coaching. And it's all starting to come out. Like they say, if it does not come out in the wash, it will come out in the rinse.
But anyway, they're gonna talk about number one, chime in Tyloo. Earn's general manager, Kobe Altman, to keep earning. Now, according to our Dave McMenamin, Lue based his opinion on the Lakers' denial of Kobe Bryant's straight request that was in 2007, which allowed the sides to all work things out. Stephen A, apparently, Lue wanted to keep Kyrie. Talk to me. That's something that's being said. Let me say this before Stephen A starts in his rhetoric. The difference between the Kobe Bryant situation with the Lakers in 2007 and the Kyrie Irving situation with Cleveland is that I believe that the Lakers were more sure that they could build a championship team around Kobe than the Cleveland Cavaliers were that they could build a championship team around Kyrie Irving. This is, of course, based on the, you know, the presumption that LeBron James is going to leave. I believe that Tyronn Lue wanted, wanted Kyrie to stay because he believes that LeBron is going to leave.
We wanna reach that. Do you see the tone? If Steven A. Smith, boy, there's certainly some tension between Steve and A. Smith and LeBron James's camp. I believe that I've mentioned previously that I believe that Stephen, that Stephen A. Smith is frustrated with LeBron because LeBron will not give him and his sit-down interviews. I'm also pretty sure, based on Stephen A.'s tone, that it has, it has gotten back to him that LeBron James is not a big fan of his. Whenever you see Stephen A. start with that derisive tone towards anyone, it's because he's heard that that person does not like him. Stephen A. is very, very sensitive, despite what he says about sensitive athletes, quote-unquote. He's by far the most sensitive of any sports personality on the air today, not even close.
Now, listen to what he just said. He said that there are things that have happened between Kyrie Irving and LeBron James on a personal level, and they're no one's business. I wonder what that could be. One must wonder what that could be. If you guys remember, and one of the previous conversations about Kyrie and LeBron, I believe even mild Karam chimed in, was there a woman involved? Seems to me, it would shock me if LeBron James may have done something with one of Kyrie's previous paramours. Who knows? I mean, what else could that be alluding to? I'm sure that it was not alluded to any type of physical altercation. So what else could it be alluding to that may have occurred between Kyrie and LeBron James that would be, quote-unquote, none of anybody's business? I guess we'll find out eventually. Things tend to come out eventually.
LeBron James, it really was about Kyrie wanting out. But Kyrie had a couple of years left on his contract. He didn't have, they didn't have to oblige. And if, look, I'm already on record of stating, I believe that Kyrie Irving told them that if they don't trade him, he's going to retire. Just my opinion. People might say, well, that sounds a bit far-fetched. I mean, I mean, you guys got to think about it like this. When in history has a team ever been so desperate to get rid of someone that they traded him to an in-conference rival? I mean, I can't think of, I can't think of anything like this in all my time watching sports where a team has traded one of their prime players, in their prime, to their, to their intra-conference rival. I mean, this is incredible. And they were, and Boston was not even on Kyrie's list.
Now, I don't, I believe that Kyrie was done. I believe that mentally he was done with LeBron's antics. I believe that he knew that LeBron was going to eventually leave at the end of this season, especially if he happened to stay, and that he was going to, that LeBron was going to leave him high and dry. And he said, "I want out." Especially after he found out, as was reported a long time ago by Rob Parker, that the Cavaliers attempted to make a deal involving Phoenix and the Nets and the Indiana Pacers, in which they would receive Paul George and Eric Bledsoe with Kyrie going to Phoenix. I believe that once Kyrie found out about that, he understood that LeBron James was aware of it, that he basically had been betrayed, and that he was done. And I believe that he went up to the office after that trade fell through and he told them that, "I want to be traded. These are the teams that I want to be traded to, and if I don't get traded to these teams, I'm going to retire." I honestly believe that. And they may have tried to rebuff him or tried to calm him down. I believe that he was so resolute. They've known him for five, six years. They know how he is. He probably made it known to them, "No, I'm going to retire." So I believe that they organized the trade with the Boston Celtics because that was, that was the, that was the team that was left that could provide them with the pieces that could still make them a championship-contending team and appease LeBron and hopefully put them in the best position to pick up the pieces once LeBron leaves. I think that they would, that they looked and said, "Well, you know, we're gonna have to trade Kyrie to an intra-conference rival, and we're just gonna have to deal with the repercussions and hope that by the time Boston is good, we're no longer good enough either."
"I want to stay, but if you doesn't want to stay, what can I do?" So LeBron James can't be blamed for that. But I don't want to hear Tyronn Lue saying that right now, because this happened in the summertime. Well, you might not want to hear Tyronn Lue say it, but what else is he gonna say? I could sit here and say, "I don't want to hear you talk about things that happened between Kyrie and LeBron," but that's their business. We live at their business. You should've alluded to it. Neither speak on it or don't bring it up at all. And I love Tyronn Lue. I happen to believe in him as a coach, and I love him as a person. But I respectfully don't want to hear that from him. That, well, of course, he's gonna say no. When you look at the halfway point, the Celtics on pace to win 60-plus games, even with the bad stretch that they went through, they're still on pace to win 60-plus games. Two, I believe they're gonna win 60-plus games. No, most likely not. That's probably in the season somewhere around 54, 55 wins. But Tyronn, I'm looking at Boston, and he's looking at how they play, and he sees that they're going to be a threat. And he wants to levy a preemptive strike to say, "Look, in case we lose to Boston, I did not want them to trade Kyrie." That's what that's really about.
It's clear not enough was done to assuage the feelings and the emotional state of mind that Kyrie Irving was in. Not enough was done. We hear Jackie McMullen, I watched on SportsNet last night alluding to how there was an incident in practice where Kyrie Irving, Tyronn Lue wanted him to push the ball up the floor, and Kyrie Irving wasn't trying to do that, and essentially alluded to that being LeBron James. "I, you know, 'cause Tyronn Lue, you push the ball up before you get shots for other people." Understand. "Akari was like, 'What, you worried about before I get my shot? No matter what, am I gonna stop me? Forget my shot.'" He was like, "Well, what about everybody else?" And Tyronn Lue reportedly said, "Hey, that's LeBron James' job." So you mean Kyrie Irving said that LeBron James's job? In other words, that's Kyrie's frustration that Tyronn Lue, you wouldn't let him play point guard. That's really what Kyrie was saying. Kyrie was saying, "You have me out here basically just utilizing me as a weapon, as a scorer, and now you're telling me that I'm in charge of the pace, and that you cannot tell me that I'm in charge of the pace when you want the ball in LeBron James' hands all the time?" And then on top of that, LeBron James came and kind of hit Kyrie with a, you know, with a little subliminal insult when he demanded a trade for a ball handler, basically for a distributor. So really, what are you saying, LeBron? You want, you want to run the LeBron system where you have the ball in your hands all the time? You already have a quote-unquote point guard there that you will not use in that capacity, and now you're asking for a distributor, a distributor and ball handler? I stated at the time that LeBron was clearly asking Cleveland, Cleveland's front office, to trade for Chris Paul. I said that at the time. It was obvious to me. And Rob Parker came out months later and said that's what it was. And it's obvious. I mean, what else could it have been? You have Chris Paul, who was a malcontent with the Los Angeles Clippers. He and LeBron are close friends, as close as two guys could be in the NBA, along with D. Wade and Carmelo, etc. LeBron James, of course, heard directly, most likely directly from Chris Paul, that he was unhappy. LeBron thought he could make that happen and play GM once again. LeBron most likely got frustrated with David Griffin, that David Griffin was not willing to make that happen, and that may have led to some, some ripples in the locker room, some issues in the locker room.
So that makes Kyrie look selfish. That, how can that be? Max, when Kyrie Irving showed up here now? Well, no, it took me, it didn't make him look selfish. It made it, made him look like, it made him look like someone who's basically, "Well, you guys marginalized me, and now you're trying to act like I'm in control of what's going on with the offense? You're the one who has designed this unimaginative offense that's dominated by LeBron, and now basically you're gonna try to make me complicit and why the pace is so slow and why these other guys not getting the ball? You can't blame me for that when LeBron is the one that's handling the basketball." And you cannot call Kyrie selfish for his appearance on your show, and he was, when he was basically attacked and he defended himself. The one thing that I think you could appeal from here is that there was a respect for Tyronn Lue that did not seem that evident to ours. And when you consider the fact that he was, if two hours of, you know, over an hour, over an hour, we consider the fact that he was here for over an hour. Let's take it to a consider hour and a beat like, but if you look at him and when he came, everything that he was saying, it didn't seem to have the profound respect that Tyronn Lue, let's say that he asked for Brad Stevens. I mean, why would he have respect for Tyronn Lue? I told you guys, I told you guys my did that series on Kyrie Irving when he, when he did the sit-down on First Take. I stated that, you know, you could tell about how Kyrie was expressing himself that he had no respect for Tyronn Lue. Kyrie is an extremely intelligent person. You might not always vibe with his ideologies, but his brain functionality, his cognitive function is unquestioned. And people like that oftentimes have a disdain for simple-minded people. That's just par for the course. Intelligent people oftentimes have a very low level of patience for stupidity. Kyrie can see the game in a way that, that Tyronn Lue cannot see the game. LeBron can see the game in the same way that Kyrie can see the game. But LeBron, LeBron wants to be able to control all the chess pieces on the chessboard. And Kyrie, someone who will not allow himself to be controlled because he's not a pawn. He views himself as a king also. So you can't have to, you know, you can't have two kings. One of them has to go.
The moment in time about what may have transpired in practice and beyond and all this other stuff, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Tyronn Lue was willing to say something like that to deflect attention away from any kind of friction that may have existed between us. Just ironic about that. He wants to coach the team, get paid, go home. On this business, mean about all that drama. That much I could tell you about him. And that's what, that's the only way that I can make sense out of this happening right now. These words mean that way. Yeah, right now it seems self-serving for Ty Lue to say that. But how he's having a fantastic year. He's a fantastic player. And I can, when she was on the show, I want to revisit that since you brought it up today. I'm sure, I'm sure you do want to revisit it because you got embarrassed and you still have not gotten over it. Like most Caucasian liberals, whenever you're faced down by a so-called black person, particularly a so-called black man, that is when your true vitriol comes out because once again, you have the white man's burden mentality. And when you get rebuffed or rejected, it's hurt to your heart. And you barely wanted to call him a [ __ ] but you couldn't. Other than him saying that he's very much walk. Where if someone suggests the earth is flat, which he's done since then, again, they're not very much walk. They're the opposite. Very much all right. Yeah, I get it. But move past that. Just keep it about basketball. I mean, really, who cares? Well, I mean, I mean, look, if it's a stupid thing to say, you say so. You say stupid things on every episode of this show. So, okay. Well, Kyrie said was stupid then. Now he's in the same club as you. The difference is, you're in the VIP of stupidity. No, he just, he just got past the bouncer.
It's none of our business, your personal relationship with LeBron James, and that may be the reason you're leaving. Just tell us. It's none of our business. And I'll, well, the reason why you were telling him to tell you that it's no your business was because you were going to try to use that statement as an admission by silence or as an admission of an indirect or, you know, a circuitous way of acknowledging your own personal narrative that he and LeBron going back and forth like cats and dogs. Kyrie was not ready or willing to go there because he wasn't in a positive mode. He was moving forward. But, you know, like everything else in life, once people have had the closure that they need, then they're willing to talk about things that, you know, that were negative and that they move past. But he was not going to allow you to tell him how to answer so that you could help foster your own narrative. He was not going to do that. You wanted to kind of control. You, oh, I see. LeBron wanted to control the narrative. He wanted to control the narrative. Kyrie, too. Well, that's what kings do. Kings control. So you just have to deal with that. Kings control. That's why I stated that they're both kings. They cannot be on the same chessboard. Kyrie had to go find his own chessboard. A king is not going to allow you to dictate the rules of engagement, verbally, intellectually. It is what it is. If you, if you want to defeat Kyrie, then you're gonna have to defeat him, but you're not going to get him to submit. He wouldn't want to be perceived as selfish because, in fact, the reason LeBron's on-ball or was on-ball when Kyrie was in Cleveland was because the team functioned best that way because LeBron is the most brilliant player. Well, LeBron is also terrible off the ball. LeBron's been, been playing LeBron, the LeBron James system for his entire life, from junior high school. And LeBron is a basketball genius. There's no doubt about that. But sometimes you can use a genius's know, sometimes you could use a genius's brilliance against them because sometimes genius can lead to hubris if they're not used to being checked, if they're not used to checking himself. And if you notice, most of LeBron James's failures have been from him trying to do too much because he has, he has succumbed to his own brilliance and greatness. You can use it against him. Kind of like the Incredible Hulk. There were ways that you could use the Incredible Hulk's might against him. Same thing with LeBron. LeBron really only knows how to play one way. I've mentioned this before. He only has Plan A. His Plan A is the LeBron system: dominate the ball, yell at everybody else if they don't do what you, what you think that they should have done. He didn't know, he's not really, he's not really as multifaceted in regards to his, to his ability to, to move fluidly in various roles across the court as the media tries to make him out to be. For what he can do, he is a wunderkind. There's no doubt about that. But no, Kyrie could never have played point guard for that team because LeBron is not a catch-and-shoot player. He's not somebody who's going to catch the ball on the wing and and make a quick decision. LeBron likes to hold the ball and survey the floor. So that's why he's always talking about how he's a distributor. But LeBron James wants to be a point guard. That's what he's always wanted to be. You know, sometimes, sometimes somebody could have too many gifts. LeBron, one of those people who has almost too many gifts. And I think that it's kind of held him back. That's why I compare him a lot to Wilt Chamberlain. Great. Kyrie showing this year, not a selfish player. Kyrie is a team-oriented player whose numbers and scoring averages, assist average, and stuff, it's not what he's about. You can see his numbers are lower than you would anticipate as the primary ball handler because he's just trying to win. He's also playing defense in high-leverage moments. But the point is, he was used off-ball a lot because the team functioned better that way. And so for him to ask out, seem selfish because of a personal relationship with LeBron, because he wants his own team. All seem selfish, and he doesn't want to appear selfish. No, the reason why you guys in the media try to catch him as selfish is because you have a love affair with LeBron James. Kyrie Irving has a ruling class mentality. So he understands that in order for him to maximize his potential and accomplish what he wants to accomplish in life, he has to understand what his goals are and pursue them. That's how he can become happy. I touched on this numerous times, especially the so-called black man has always been encouraged to just go through life and deal with the drudgery and just accept depression and accept marginalization. When you have a ruling class mentality, you don't succumb to that. Kyrie Irving did not succumb to that. He made his own destiny. So kudos to him. Unselfish, fantastic brand of basketball. I understand why you wouldn't want to be perceived as a selfish player. He's not.
Listen to what folks in Cleveland today, meaning people that are there today, have said. No [ __ ] today, meaning people that did know. No [ __ ] Stephen A. Well, what did you think that we thought? You mean yesterday, Dan Gilbert won a Kyrie going. Thank you, Bree. What a Kyrie gold. Because you know what? He was excited about the prospects of that first of all, given the top pick in the draft with you, which, you know, supposedly with Boston was obviously well, in the surrender along with the fact that the uncertainty of LeBron James left them a bit flummoxed. Excuse me if LeBron James was going to leave. But Kyrie wanted to stay. What do you have? You have an all-world guard who's spectacular and already won a championship for you. I'm not buying that by a long shot. I understand that people didn't want Kyrie going. I'm not accusing anybody of wanting it going. What I'm saying is the measures that needed to be exhausted in an effort to keep him to stay and make him want to stay were not exercised. On fourth, let's be real. Dr. Buss, far too many occasions. Well, look, basically what happened with Kobe was that Dr. Buss, Shaq called me down and told him, "Look, big Tom, look, boy, you're not going anywhere. This is the entertainment business. I'm the owner of the LA [ __ ] Lakers. You don't tell me what to do. I tell you what to do. So you're the one who marched into my office four or five years ago and told me that you wanted to have your own." I sold off that fat-ass Shack. I even let Phil Jackson go. I even begged for them to come back all to appease you. If you think that I'm gonna trade your black ass right now, you have another thing coming. So you gonna sit down. I'm gonna call up Commissioner Stern. We're gonna organize this trade, and you're gonna do what you're supposed to do. Now get the [ __ ] out of my office. All right? That's, that's what Jerry Buss told Kobe. Dan Gilbert wasn't going to tell Kyrie Irving that. You know why? Because Kyrie Irving was not his top piece. The top piece that's there is LeBron. So Dan Gilbert is still scared to look LeBron in the face after what happened back in 2010. So the politics there are completely different. I believe that Dan Gilbert felt like Kyrie was expendable. And worse comes to worse, he'll have Isiah Thomas there. Maybe he could sign DeMarcus Cousins if LeBron ends up leaving. But I believe that Dan Gilbert knows that he's working with house money. And that's another thing. Jerry Buss is in the business of winning championships. The LA Lakers have a championship pedigree. The Cleveland Cavaliers had never won anything. The city of Cleveland had not won anything in a championship in 1916. Okay. Jackie McMullen pointed out because remember, there was talk about an Eric Bledsoe trade, right, coming to Cleveland. All right. Kyrie was aware of that. Oh, well, I love you. You really got to give the credit to Rob Parker because Rob Parker was the first person I heard break that story. Well, I shouldn't say him. Him along with Chris Broussard. They had that story out two months ago. That should have nothing new. All right. And I'm sure there's gonna be a lot more tidbits that come out as this season goes along, especially if Boston continues to play as well as they're playing and Cleveland kind of continues to falter. Right now, they're 24 and 13. If the Isiah Thomas experiment blows up in their face, expect a lot of finger-pointing and expect a lot of, "I didn't want Kyrie to leave." "Well, I didn't want Kyrie to leave." "Well, I didn't want Kyrie to leave." That's a lot of the potential luster off of LeBron James. You know, may start to cause people to point towards him, and then he has to defend himself. We'll see. For the Lakers, cold. They told me this story personally, and it's a well-known story that Kobe, when Tim, I want to be traded. Say, Kobe, I have a five-carat diamond. I'm not trading it for five one-carat diamonds. You know, it's not the equivalent. There's no way to get equivalent value for you. That did not happen in Cleveland. Was that a mistake, Stephen A? Or does Cleveland properly recognize that you need chemistry to win a championship? Did that, trading Kyrie, it could get deeper. They have Crowder to play defense. We'll see what Jinuk turns into. They have a second-round pick, and Isiah can approximate Kyrie on offense. Cuz Cleveland is not LA. Once LeBron is gone, Cleveland's over. Absolutely. That's the point I just made. Good point, sir. No one else is going to want to stay there. That's been the history of Cleveland basketball. It's not like agents are pounding down the door. Right. I think that they may be able to resize and Isaiah Thomas, especially. They could bring in at the market, I, DeMarcus Cousins. But I mean, well, we'll see. That's way down the line, and that's, that's predicated off on LeBron James deciding not to come back. So maybe that plays into a two-hour window. Is LeBron's window? They're the same thing. And if Kyrie is gonna interfere with that, let's get rid of him and bring a piece of thick of how I see two. But yeah, and I get all of that. You're not wrong about the human scene. Makes perfect basketball sense. I'm just saying that I'm seeing dudes trying to control the narrative. Obviously, you dudes trying to, you know, gloss over what really, really happened. You see how the, how the television media, sports media, are first-rated. They are at athletes' abilities to actually control the story that's told about them. They don't want that. At one time, the print media was pretty much unchecked. They were proverbial gods. You know, they were, they were messengers. They were like the mythical Hermes. They were the ones who communicated the, the news, who let everyone know who they liked and who not to like, and things of that nature. Now, with, with social media and, of course, the internet, outlets like YouTube, etc., people can actually, you know, give you their own take. And of course, you have the, you know, the, the Players' Tribune, set up by Derek Jeter. Much of this sport media has been disempowered, and it's frustrating them. That's what I'm seeing right now. I'm not buying it. I'm in no way saying that folks wanted him gone. What I'm saying is they didn't do enough to make him want to stay. And that is what everybody is trying to shirk responsibility from. Everybody's trying to act like, you know what, we cool, but he just, like they had nothing to do with it. And I believe that when Stephen A. says "they," he's talking about LeBron James and his crew because, remember, Stephen A. is in contact with LeBron James's crew. He can't get in contact with LeBron, and that frustrates him. So now he's gonna start to out them. But know that they were not going to. When I say "they," I'm talking about LeBron James's clique. They were not going to try to appease Kyrie. They believed that Kyrie was replaceable because they, of course, they venerate LeBron. And though LeBron is great, it's a player, once again, I have him in my top 10 all-time, around number six right now. He still needs, he still needs a lot of help. He needs, he needs who can bring certain things to the table that he doesn't bring, like great spot-up shooting, hustle plays, great one-on-one defense. These are things that LeBron is not doing right now. You know, his shooting is up, but he's not playing good one-on-one defense anymore. So these are things that are going to show in a play, especially against teams that will, that will and can spread the floor. I do believe that should they meet up with the Boston Celtics, I would totally give Cleveland the edge because of their experience factor, their experience advantage. But what would shock me have cleared if Cleveland would lose to Boston because of Boston's coaching, their game plan, and their youth, which can be used to wear down Cleveland as long as Boston plays smart. If they play dumb, they'll make enough mistakes for Cleveland's, for Cleveland's experience level and their experience advantage to shine forth. But we'll see. Anyway, peace.