Transcription
Alright man, peace. So many of the members of the mainstream liberal sports media, as I've stated incessantly in many of my more recent LeBron James videos, are now finally starting to conform to the notion that LeBron has decided to turn the tide in regards to the focus of what his career should be. Of course, he still wants to win championships, but predominantly, he wants to accumulate career stats so that he can bolster his argument that he is a greater player than Michael Jordan. That is truly what he's concerned with, and that is why I liken him oftentimes to a basketball version of Adrien Broner.
For those of you brothers who follow boxing, you see the up-and-down relationship that he's had with Floyd Mayweather. I believe that LeBron has a similar dynamic with Michael Jordan, meaning what? He has a borderline obsessive and extremely one-sided relationship with Michael Jordan. He's upset that Michael would not reciprocate many of his advances towards him to establish a relationship because, for all intents and purposes, Michael Jordan was his surrogate dad growing up, and he stated that. And I think that it has hurt him that Michael Jordan has not tried to put forth an olive branch and build some type of a relationship with him, similar to the relationship that Michael Jordan has built with Kobe Bryant.
So now, I think that LeBron has determined that he wants to destroy all of Michael Jordan's records, his esteem. And since he can't get daddy to give him a hug and take him out to the park on the weekend, he's just gonna tear daddy down. So anyway, Stephen Naismith and Max Kellerman are going to put forth their respective hypotheses on why LeBron James wants to play 82 games this season. So, of course, they're gonna talk about it. I'm like, chime in. For the first time in his career, LeBron James, like, all 82 games in a season. His previous career-high was 81 back in Toledo in the land. Facts. Why do you think LeBron's played all 82? Now, because he wants to be remembered as the greatest player who ever lived, and he's still fighting to get out of the shadow of Michael Jordan. And that will be the shadow that he will be in for the remainder of his career and his life, whether he likes it or not.
I've stated this before in another video. Michael Jordan is on the Mount Rushmore of all sports, not just basketball. And when you're talking about the Mount Rushmore of all sports, these are athletes that almost transcend stats. So Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Jim Brown. These are almost unassailable athletes when it comes to their respective esteem. And LeBron is never going to get there. He's just not. There's not enough mythology, there's not enough folklore to mix in with reality with LeBron. And beyond that, he's almost held back by the fact that he's built like a machine. One of the characteristics of Michael Jordan that was so endearing to the populace is that he looked like a regular person. For the vast majority of his career, he was pretty skinny. As a matter of fact, from his rookie year all the way almost to his first retirement, he didn't start to put on any muscle until maybe like his eighth season. In the seventh season, he started to get low definition, he started to work out. When I say work out, I mean weight train in '89. But he really did not get any real mass until around '92, '93. So for the most part, he was just a tall, regular-looking guy. LeBron James would look like a Terminator, a cyborg, almost from when he first came into the league. And when you look at his physique, nice physique, just does not look natural at all. I'm just being real with you. And I think that that will hold him back in regards to attaining a lot of the esteem that he wants from the public and mass. And once again, in order to get to that mythological Mount Rushmore of sports, there has to be some mythology, some folklore mixed in with the reality. When people talk about Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Elvis, full of barbecue sauce on the reality of it. They're not gonna do that with LeBron.
Because Michael Jordan is the greatest player who ever lived. And by the way, Jordan played 12 full seasons. In nine of them, he played all 82 games. The other three of the full seasons he played, he was hurt a couple times, he retired and came back to partial seasons. The other three seasons, 81 games, 80 games, and 78 games. So a broad nose, look peak for peak, he can't catch Jordan. Even the advanced stats tell you that Jordan's a little better than LeBron in their prime. Well, that's the importance of the PEDs, Max Kellerman. Because the PEDs will allow him to have an even better tenure in his 30s than he had in his 20s. That's what he's going to truly try to establish any form of distance between himself and Jordan. He wants you to look back at his stats in his 30s and be like, wow, this guy was averaging 28, 9, and 9 on 55% from the field from the age of 31 and 38. Who has done that? Jordan never did that. That's what he wants. In terms of durability, and in any given season, like Michael Jordan at the age of 39, definitely played all 82 games, but averaged 37 minutes a game. By the way, dropped 26 and almost for shooting 45% from the field when he won. Even good anymore. When Jordan came back to play with the Wizards, he was still one of the top 10 players in the NBA. But because he was not the best player in the NBA by a mile, people have come to denigrate that time period in his career, in which he never should have came back in the first place. Had Jordan stayed retired and his career ended on that game-winning shot against Utah, there would be no question that he would be unassailable as the greatest NBA player to ever play. Just because of how his career went, it transpired like a storybook. It opened with a game-winning shot in a championship game against Georgetown at '82. It ended with a game-winning jump shot in the championship game against Utah '98. If Jordan's career would have been transcribed by an award-winning screenwriter, no one would have believed it. No one.
There are a multitude of reasons why Michael Jordan came back to play with the Washington Wizards in the first place, but it definitely was not the right decision in hindsight. And I believe that he's already acknowledged that. If I remember correctly, Ray Lewis has stated that when he spoke to Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan told him that if he could have done it all over again, he would not have came back with the Wizards. But once again, he did it for a multitude of reasons. Number one, he never really felt like he got the closure that he wanted when he finished his career with the Chicago Bulls. He wanted to go out on his sword. He didn't want to go out a winner. He wanted to go out knowing that he had nothing left, and he didn't have that feeling in 1998. Also, the NBA needed Michael Jordan to act as a band-aid from the end of his initial career with the Bulls in '98 until they could hopefully carry over for when LeBron was coming into the league. Because the NBA knew about LeBron for a very long time. LeBron is an asset, just like Jordan was an asset. They knew that LeBron was being prepped to carry them through the 2000s. In addition to that, the NBA had a lot of bad image issues in the Allen Iverson era. You know, a lot of the so-called thug culture that crept into the NBA that was hurting them. But Jordan also had hoped that by playing with the Wizards, that would give him an inside track on owning the team. That's what was basically promised to him by a poll, who of course reneged. That's the reason why Jordan got so upset. He drove off a very legendary story. He had a meeting with a poll and a poll and basically told him that it wasn't working out. Jordan got furious, cursed a poll out, drove off in his Ferrari, and that's when he decided that he was going to make the deal down the line with Bob Johnson to try to gain ownership of the Charlotte Bobcats. That's how that transpired. And beyond that, on an esoteric level, Jordan went from being a Chicago Bull representing the red to a Washington Wizard representing the blue.
So, so he knows he's not going to be able to match Jordan in terms of an in-season durability thing, minutes played with games played, all that sort of thing throughout the course of his career. But he can't check this off the box, you know? Even if he doesn't get the six championships, even if this peak isn't quite Jordan's peak, even if the durability within the seasons that they played full seasons isn't quite what Jordan's is, he knows that look, he eventually plays with his son as he'd like to and he plays that many years and he will do that. I can certainly see LeBron doing that. He's enough of a narcissist to not to not want to leave the NBA until he can pass the baton to his son, much like Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. Even though, of course, Ken Griffey was nowhere near the baseball player, senior, I'm talking about was nowhere near the baseball player that LeBron James is a basketball player. But that's the last time that I can remember a notable professional athlete playing at the same time on the same team as his son. And believe me, if LeBron James does last until his son gets to the NBA, LeBron James Jr. will be on his team. And he has several great Finals performances to go with the disappearing act, you know, against Dallas. Well, you know what, man, you hit it on the head. The man had a disappearing act against the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. That's not going away. I don't care how many more 28, 9, and 9 seasons shooting 55% that he has. That's he, that series is not going away. And LeBron James, the superfans, they can get mad about that all they want. That was the biggest flame out of any major top professional athlete who's supposed to be a superstar in a championship round in sports history. Already make the case that look, even if he's not why he's good at his best, did you'd rather have his overall career than Mike's? And that's what he's doing. He's checking another box off the list, trying to be the GOAT.
You're not wrong with your assertions, you're just incomplete. It's not just about checking the box off in terms of trying to be the GOAT. He's trying to change the narrative. Because if we focus on this, at age 33, 15 years in, be playing every game, playing the most minutes, you know, the condition in which I marvel at every single time I watch it. This man is in phenomenal condition, phenomenal shape, something special to behold. He needs to give us all that secret up. Did you guys hear that? They go, Stephen A. Smith, implying something once again. You say he needs to give us all that secret. Why would it be a secret, Stephen A. Smith? Why can't you just assume that he's in the condition that he's in because he trains hard? What is it that you know, Stephen A. Smith? Why would you use that term secret? Let me rewind that back one more time. Checking another box off the list, trying to be the GOAT. You're not wrong with your assertions, you're just incomplete. It's not just about checking the box off in terms of trying to be the GOAT. He's trying to change the narrative. And Stephen A. Smith has been on LeBron hard about LeBron's incessant need to control the narrative, meaning the storyline about his life. And if I was going along with him, that's why as soon as it got to be a little hot around LeBron MVP, the allegations, all of a sudden we heard about this former US Marine or Navy SEAL, whatever he was, the biochemist working with LeBron is helping him keep his body in tip-top shape, blah, blah, blah. LeBron is nothing but a politician. And I give him credit, he has a great PR team. He's nothing but a politician. He made sure that he has countermeasures for everything that emerges about him. Job well done to his team. But I'm not buying what you're selling. Because if we focus on this, 33, 15, playing every game, playing the most minutes, you know, the condition in which I marvel at every single time I watch it. This no, you don't. You don't marvel at it. Even if you know what the truth is, stop bullshitting, brother. Just do it. Expose. Since you always talk about how you have the inside track on, give us the list of steroid cocktails and PED cocktails that this man is taking. How many syringes is he going through a night, Stephen A. Smith? Allegedly. Phenomenal shape is something special to behold. He needs to give us all that secret. He needs to give us all that secret. When I, allegedly.
The other side to all of this, Max, is that if we're talking about that, we're really talking about the abscess of another radiology. And see, that's what this really, really comes down to. Because when I see this and his commitment to play all 82 games, and how important this appears to be to him, obviously, it's just my opinion, the stuff that I've heard from anybody else, no inside information, it's just my opinion. I think it's of the mods that they walked into the season expecting to come up short. Ding. He walked into this season knowing that, you know what, I'm not gonna win the championship this year. I've been agreeing some other narratives for folks to focus on. Well, damn, Stephen A. Smith, welcome to the land of the living, bro. I'm gonna say an apple for a year now. I mean, goddamn. As opposed to it just being all about the chip, because the likelihood is that I'm gonna come up short again. So rather than do that, let me focus on these other things. I gotta play the games anyway. Play it to the best of my ability. Play as many games as I possibly can. Let me make sure I have people marveling at my individual excellence because I can't play all five positions and I can't be on the court by myself. And, you know, the funny thing is that Skip Bayless used to tell Steven A. Smith this three years ago, and Steve Smith used to get so irate. How could you say that? How long are you gonna keep disrespecting LeBron James? And now all of a sudden, he's finally figuring it out. That look, that for the most part, Skip Bayless has been right about LeBron. A lot of people may not admit it. Why is that? Because Skip often times goes into the realm of the absurd when he speaks about LeBron and when he hates on him. But for the most part, if you truly analyze much of what Skip has stated about LeBron, he's been correct. He is a stat chaser. A lot of his machinations and movements have been Machiavellian in regards to his obsession with Michael Jordan and his obsession with being considered number one. The blatant disrespect that he's shown to the bevy of players that are certainly better than him in history, legacy-wise, and the multitude of players that you can make a case for. Because look, even though I myself would take LeBron over Kobe, someone could easily make a case for Kobe Bryant over LeBron. I myself would take LeBron over Kobe, but one can make the case for Kobe over LeBron, no doubt about it. People can make a case for it for Shaq, for Wilt Chamberlain, for Hakeem Olajuwon, hell, Isiah Thomas, Malone. You can make a case for these players over LeBron. But LeBron just keeps talking about Michael Jordan. Like, dude, you have a lot of guys to leapfrog on my list. You still haven't passed Larry Bird. Yeah, I don't care how many stats you accumulate. And it's not just for the championship. I do have teammates, all of that stuff. The things that he's going to adopt, if not having not done so already, he'll eventually adopt emotionally because he'll have no choice. Because again, I think they have a chance against Houston. I think they have no chance to be Golden State. And as a result of it, I think since I think Golden State's going to the finals, and he probably thought that coming into the season as well, if you can create another narrative to be discussed about when it comes to you on an import age, your excellence is an individual phenom, your greatness, the conditioning, the commitment to excellence, the role model extraordinaire that you are, etc. If we're talking about all of those things, cons of sort in the blow about losing another title. Ding. Good job, Steve.
I don't have much to add to that other than is becoming more and more apparent to a lot of the people who are on television covering the NBA that LeBron James is for the most part someone who prefers to have the spotlight on himself. And in the process, if he can be a part of an ensemble cast that can win an award for their movie, that's cool, but he's fine with just getting the award for Best Actor. He's good with that at this point in his career.
Well, it's not that you're wrong, Stephen A., it's just that you were incomplete. See, even if you're right about him doing that to address certain issues, that doesn't mean he's trying to control the narrative. What it means is he may have come into this season looking at Golden State, thinking, we can't beat those guys. Battle may be true. I'm with you up to them. But at that point, what can he control? Well, for example, he could play all 82 games. He's never done that before. Look at this. But first, he can become as good a passer as Magic Johnson. He was already on that Magic-Bird level. But you know, the passes that LeBron has made this year put him in the conversation. You know, he might be the greatest. This might be something. The greatest passes ever made. Give me a break. Just knock it off. LeBron is a great passer. I would say that he's probably the best passer in the NBA today, right now, him and Chris Paul. But they played him on a level Magic Johnson or Larry Bird. A big joke. Just stop. Larry Bird used to make touch passes that LeBron James couldn't even dream about. And LeBron is a great passer, but everything with LeBron is all about power. He doesn't have any type of nuance to his game. And that's what separates him from a player like a Larry Bird. In regards to Magic Johnson, Magic's vision is on a whole other level from LeBron's. And LeBron has great court vision, but not on the level of Magic Johnson, sorry. And yes, I agree with Stephen A. Smith. He did come into the season, LeBron James did, with a preconceived notion of how he needed the season to go because he understood that he wasn't going to win a championship. That's why he was having a mental breakdown during the preseason when the dude was singing into the camera while he was working out, talking about they want to see before he able to do was having a total mental collapse. It was hilarious. And that's when he said to himself, you know what, I'm not gonna win this year, but I do have a series of records that I have a chance of breaking. And believe me, his team makes sure he's aware of all the records that he has a chance to break over the course of a regular season. And those are the goals that he set. It's not anything particularly wrong with that. But you know, when you start to evaluate his legacy, you can't put him up there with some of these other players when he has not accomplished what they've accomplished in regards to team success. Go YouTube LeBron this year. He's doing things on the court that are unprecedented, even in terms of his passing. It's it's like power passing. It's unbelievable power passing. It is their step for that, Max Kellerman. Power passing. I tell you, you know, LeBron is even better at passing the buck than he is at passing the basketball. Get adjusted his offense like he can adjust his game so that people are even asking the question. I think it's incorrect. Is he better than he's ever been? But at least he's maintaining this incredibly high level. Whether you can say, look at that, another season where LeBron James really, he fell off in certain ways, but he compensated. Another, another. So like, wow, look at his career. When all is said and done, that was 15 straight years of essentially being the best player in the game and just about the best player of all time. That dude is the greatest player of all time. That's what he's doing here. I don't know. It's about controlling that narrative, that historical narrative. I don't think it's a distraction technique because he knows he can't win a chip this year. The way and the reason that you know that it is in fact the distraction technique is that there's precedent for it, Max Kellerman. When they lost the NBA Finals last year, what's the first thing that he did? He posted his stats and he said, I'm just doing my part. That's not something that a good teammate does. When you're talking about what he can control, Max Kellerman, ultimately, what are we going to chronicle? What are we going to discuss? That's the point. But go ahead, Molly.
I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I was just gonna say, I think he's trying to say that he's the MVP. That's part of it also. But that also feeds into the notion that he's trying to compete with Jordan's legacy because, as we all know, if he wins another regular-season MVP, he'll tie Michael Jordan for most regular-season MVPs. And that in and of itself alienated the former cast of teammates that he had. Players like Jae Crowder and others who were on the team with him before that group got jettisoned out, stated that they felt like LeBron was playing for stats, that he was stat-padding. Well, well, let me explain. He's not the MVP to me because, but, but it's not about his talent or his excellence on a basketball court. It's because I attached the entire roller coaster ride. Absolutely. You have to. How could you just forget about January? He was basically just out there walking around like a mummy that Cleveland has been on this year absent the health of Tyronn Lue. Everything else has been associated with LeBron James. You don't get off the hook with that. But as a talent, he should look at himself as the MVP. He's the greatest in the world. Agreed.
All right, coming up back down. But anyway, that's it on this issue regards to why LeBron James is so doggone pursuing playing 82 games. And I don't necessarily think that it is just about playing the 82 games. I think that he knows that he has to play as many games as possible to attain as many goals as he set out to attain at the start of the season for the sole intent, number one, of trying to catch up to the marks that were set by his idol, by a surrogate dad, Michael Jordan. And also, a Stephen A. Smith alleged to control the narrative and create a distraction, a diversionary technique, so that he has an excuse for when he does not win the big one. He could say, well, I did my part yet again. But anyway, peace.