Transcription
Alright man, peace. So, brothers, LeBron James has contended for the majority of his career that he's not a quote-unquote scorer. I have no idea, and I've never had any idea, why he would ever put up a protestation of that manner because it's very clear that he is a scorer. Saying as he scores, when we evaluate the top point-per-game averages in the history of the NBA, I'm pretty sure that LeBron James is top 5, definitely top 10, but might even be top 5. Because number 1 is Jordan, number 2 is Wilt Chamberlain, number 3, I believe, is Allen Iverson, number 4 might be LeBron. I know that LeBron, KD, and J. West are all around that 27-point-per-game area.
So, this notion that LeBron James is not a scorer is a pure media narrative. It always has been. LeBron James, of course, jumped on board with it because he wants to be viewed as this magical, mystical hybrid of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, and he can do everything. And, oh, by the way, I can score too. It's all a bunch of BS.
I've always stated that, in my view, LeBron James is more of a combination of Scottie Pippen and Carmelo Anthony when it comes to phenotype and outlook on the game. When it comes to player paradigm or archetype, I liken him unto an Oscar Robertson 2.0. Oscar Robertson was very similar, 25, 26, 27 points per game. Of course, Oscar would average more rebounds and assists, but that, to me, is who LeBron James harkens back to. I don't see any Magic Johnson in LeBron James's game whatsoever. Magic Johnson actually made his teammates better. That's what Magic Johnson did. They were so elated to be out there on the floor with him that many of them either left the Lakers or retired very soon after Magic Johnson was gone.
When it comes to LeBron, I believe that LeBron James is a very good passer, a bit overrated. He's not the passer that Magic Johnson was. He's not the passer that Larry Bird was. But he's someone that, because he dominates the basketball, and when I say dominate the basketball, I'm not talking about usage rate. I'm talking more about the system that they run is all about him, very similar to Oscar Robertson. There's a reason why we don't know who many of Oscar Robertson's teammates were. I mean, we know about Wayne Embry. I believe he played with Jerry Lucas for a few seasons as well. You know, when it comes to notable players, but there are very few of Oscar Robertson's teammates that we know about today. In the same way, LeBron James, how many of his teammates can we actually remember outside of D-Wade, Kyrie, Kevin Love, and Chris Bosh? It's very difficult because everything is always about him.
Well, LeBron recently was able to surpass his idol, his surrogate dad, Michael Jordan, in points scored. And suitably, the celebration for the milestone achieved was not met with much fanfare from the Laker crowd. I think that that would be a good thing for LeBron because that will help to sober him and help him understand that they have expectations for their team, not just that this is going to be a transition period for LeBron from basketball to Hollyweird. So anywhere they're going to talk about it on the scoring, some type of positive influence, I'm trying to figure out. LeBron James had this super-duper mother, right? That's what a lot of the Sims tell me. That LeBron had this great mom. But every time we hear him talk about his childhood, he looks miserable. Look at his face. The man said, "I needed some type of positive influence." What about your mom? I thought that your mom was a positive influence. You know, the reality of the situation, brothers, she wasn't. But I think that LeBron did learn a lot from his mom. He learned how to love dwelling in negativity and confusion, and that's what the most part is about. All he learned from her.
I was watching from afar, wanted to be like MJ, learn to shoot fadeaway. He's like MJ. I want to stick my tongue out on dunks like MJ. I wanted to wear my sneakers like MJ. I think it sounds like a stalker. Goddamn, I want kids to look up to me like MJ. So that's why you've created this, this political platform known as woke-ism or quote-unquote being more than an athlete because you know that you can't catch him on the floor. So just like that Benny Blanco mentality that you have, you're gonna try to kill him so that you can become him. Like Benny Blanco, or like Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley, that's who you are.
I agree. I agree. It is beyond crazy, brothers. The reason why, the reason why I say these things is because this dude supposedly admires Michael Jordan so much, but he spent the last four or five years relentlessly trolling his legacy as opposed to being respectful. That's how you know that it's disingenuous. It's phony. Not a damn thing. All it means is that the brother's a very talented offensive basketball player. He's been in the league long enough. He's been playing for 16 years. Eventually, he was going to pass Jordan, who played far fewer games to get to the same offensive milestone. People are gonna say, "Well, Jordan took 1200 more shots." I saw one of these debates between Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, and Shannon is talking about how many more shots Michael took. Dude, Michael Jordan was a shooting guard. His job was to take shots. But I find that LeBron James and his fanboys take far more shots than even Michael Jordan took in his career. They take shots at at other players' legacies and histories to try to elevate themselves and pull other people down.
Back in the Jordan era, shooting guards were not allowed to dominate the basketball, distribute, get all the rebounds, score all the points like you have today with James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and LeBron James. They were not allowed to do that and really were not expected to do that. Ever since Oscar Robertson had shown in the '60s that that style of play does not win, that style of play normally does not win championships. And even if it does, you have to be very, very fortunate to win a championship that way. But once again, Jordan stuck to what he was supposed to do. He did it better than anyone else, and he's the most proficient shooting guard of all time, not just when it comes to cumulative stats, but also, once again, when it comes to player efficiency rating on both offense and defense.
Well, we already know that he's one of the greatest ever, and we just can't take that away from him. It should elevate our appreciation for him even more so because this guy was a superstar since he was a teenager, and the expectations were the expectations, and in a lot of respects, he not only, you know, just achieved them, he exceeded expectations when you think about the career that he's had. I'm not quite sure about that. Steve Naismith, LeBron James came into the NBA as Skip Bayless would say, with the term "chosen one" tattooed on his body. And I've mentioned this in other videos, that term "chosen one" is a slogan or credo that is always associated with monarch athletes or MK assets. Tiger Woods was also known as a chosen one by his handlers. But just to get back to the point, LeBron was supposed to win at least five or six championships. The only thing you can't say about it is that he's an MJ. No, you can say a lot more than that. LeBron ain't MJ. He ain't Kareem. He ain't Bill Russell. He ain't Magic. And he ain't Bird. Sam J. And to give kudos and and respect and pay homage to MJ the way that he did, I thought it was incredibly appropriate because, you know, he's speaking as a kid from Akron, Ohio. Let's be very, very clear. Jalen can speak to this. He's a black kid from Akron, Ohio. Get out of here. LeBron James, black, Ohio.
When you're growing up in any inner city, the odds are stacked against you, which is something that LeBron James has alluded to on many occasions. Absolutely. Growing up in certain environments, the odds are stacked against you. And unfortunately for our people, we like to stack the chips against one another and against ourselves just as much as the so-called white man likes to stack the chips against us, or at least allegedly likes to stack the chips against us. Once we start being more concerned with creating positivity within our own life and our own environment, we won't be surrounded by the decrepitude that we become accustomed to today. You saw Magic and the smile, and you saw America embrace Magic, but it was assisted by his relationship with Larry Bird, and so every ivory and all of that stuff that made you more sellable, more marketable, etc., etc. MJ was on his own. His athleticism, the greatness, his competitive fervor, on the trials and tribulations he had to endure and overcome to get to the heights that he ultimately reached, doing so with style, with flair, with a lot of grace along the way as well, and swag. These are the kind of things that as a young black kid, you saw growing up that made you want to be him. His athleticism, sure, but the wardrobe stuff and everything else in between, the fact that Madison Avenue and beyond embraced him and allowed that individual, that black kid who used to wear Nike warm-up suits on the bench for the Chicago Bulls when he was hurt coming out of North Carolina, to then see him transition to wear those fly suits, what have you. All of that had an impact. Jalen Rose spoke about this months ago when he was talking about himself and the Fab Five and the baggy shorts or what have you, and how that ultimately impacted a generation of our youth, right? And Jordan was the first player to really make the quote-unquote baggy shorts prominent. It's just that the Fab Five took it to a whole other level and took the shorts below the knee. Jordan was the one who changed the style from those damn Daisy Duke shorts that players were wearing in the early '80s to shorts that were right above the knee, and then the Fab Five took it to a whole other level. Those are the kind of things that LeBron James was alluding to in being grateful to Michael Jordan because Michael Jordan gave him the inspiration to be everything he has now become today. And I really, really appreciated hearing him say that. So now he should be more respectful than he is. That's why I believe that most of what he was talking about was pure fluff and [ __ ] articulating those thoughts because it's true for a lot of us in a lot of different ways. Before was Dr. J, then it was Michael Jordan. Someday is going to be LeBron James that impacts a whole bunch of people, if he isn't doing so already. Obviously, it's an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to LeBron James. Boy, I hate to be this guy. I really do. Because if I... no, be the guy that you're supposed to be and just say what you need to say. Because if I heard someone say this on this day and I'm watching TV at home, like, "Shut all the way up. Just congratulate the dude." But we're here to talk about this stuff right now. Like, what does this mean? This is the consolation prize. Kobe got it too. They're not gonna catch him with championships. They're not as great as MJ. They're lesser players. They're amazing, but they both aimed for Jordan. Kobe wore 24, should've worn 22. [Laughter] I like that line. I think I'm gonna start using that more. Talking about Kobe being, what, 24 should have or 22? I like that. LeBron should've won 22 million. Kobe should have won 21. I mean, like, "Ooh, Max Kellerman shooting Todd said at ya, boy, Kobe being, he said he's two steps below Michael and one step below LeBron." Damn. Shots fired. They aimed for him. Congratulations for aiming as high as you possibly can. The pursuit is noble. You almost stop there. But these are this consolation prize. I mean, absolutely. I mean, who was it in in Greek mythology? Was it Daedalus who, uh, who was astride the the horse with the wax and wings, and then when he got near the unknown? It was Icarus who got on top of the horse with the wax wings, and when he got near the sun, the wings started to melt. That's LeBron and Kobe. I mean, people celebrated almost his recognition of that. Michael Jordan was about scoring, but it wasn't about his compilation of the scoring. You know, the career scoring totals. Jordan missed most of his second season when he broke his foot, came back into the Celtics, 63 points across the garden and playoffs after averaging 28 points and six and a half assists. Almost six. People don't understand the only reason why his PPG is down at 30.1 is because he came back and played those two seasons with the Wizards when he was trying to help out David Stern and was hoping that he could make inroads to own the Wizards. He was gonna stay retired after he retired from the Bulls in '98. The dude was averaging for his career well over 31 points per game, shooting well above 50% for his career. He came back with the Wizards for those two seasons and it [ __ ] up all his stats. Smith, a little piece of that fourth season. So really, Jordan played in 14 years, but we had it all barely over 13 seasons, and he's down on the list because he averaged 30 points again. He has the all-time scoring average. That's the real Jordan record. But I do want to say that, so like, passing on the scoring list, that's fine. That's not what Jordan's about. The career scoring totals, it's about the scoring average. If you want to talk about it as a scorer, especially in an environment in the second half of Jordan's career, it was tough to score points. Absolutely. That mid-90s era, very difficult to score opponents. But I do want to say this. The first modern players, if you define modern as as a three-point shot absorption of the ABA teams in the NBA, anyway you want to talk about modern NBA, degree. The first greatest modern players were Magic and Bird. Bird and Magic, whatever. Well, you can make that case, or you could say Dr. J. You know, some people might say Dr. J and George Gervin are the first wave of modern players. But I understand where you're getting at. If you make the line of demarcation the 1979 draft, you want to put them in. They were the first great ones. They ushered in the modern era. Really, Jordan was the greatest modern player. And since Jordan, and I brought this up in the past, there's a literary critic named Harold Bloom. We talked about Shakespeare and the anxiety of influence. Every writer after Shakespeare, did you know, came before you has the anxiety of being influenced by Shakespeare. How can you ever get better than that? Kobe Bryant's a great example. He is, was still in the modern era because he was trying to be like Mike, just like the rest of the world. And Kobe just about got there. No, he was nowhere near as close as you're trying to make him out to be. LeBron James has actually gotten closer to Michael Jordan than Kobe Bryant did. And of course, a lot of his fans are gonna get upset. I don't give a [ __ ]. Kobe Bryant was a player who tried so hard, like, I mean, LeBron is scary with his infatuation of Jordan. Kobe Bryant, I give me, he really was on some psycho [ __ ] copying his mannerisms, his walk, talk, spoke, his tongue dangling out of his mouth when he went to the basket. And then was really psychotic about Kobe's infatuation. Is that at least LeBron admits it? Kobe will still tell you that, "Oh, I grew up and my Magic Johnson, like [ __ ], you never pass the ball." What are you talking about, man? That's how you know Kobe Bryant is bugged out upstairs, man. The thing that impresses me about LeBron is not the scoring. It's that he's the greatest player of the post-modern era, meaning he's the first super-duper star who wasn't a big to come along and say, "I'm not just trying to do MJ, I'm doing me." It's a new thing. That's a valid point. That's a valid point. LeBron was the first super-duper star wing player who did not try to just copy Michael Jordan's style of play on the basketball floor. LeBron James, no more like Oscar Robertson 2.0. So, so the scoring thing is great. For anyone else, it would be the career milestone. I know it's important to him and good for him, but to me, that's not his significance. The fact that he can score is just so great, and he can't help it. It's that he is the first postmodern player, the first best of the best to come along and say, "Then escape the anxiety of influence. I'm not just Jordan, I'm something new." Ten minutes into the show, I'm gonna tell you what makes LeBron James unique. It's because he's the only player in the history of the NBA not to only be in the top 10 in scoring, but also in assists. That's a distinction between he and Michael Jordan, who was obviously a deadly scorer. Once again, Oscar Robertson 2.0. At one time, Oscar Robertson had those same rankings. As a matter of fact, I believe he was higher. Oscar Robertson was the all-time leader in assists all the way up until about 1991. And I'm sure that he was probably top 5 in all-time scoring because the only players who scored more points than him, I believe, were J. West and Wilt Chamberlain for a very long period of time. Michael Jordan provided a blueprint for LeBron James that he just followed. And that's what you hope from the people that you idolize. Thank you for saying that, sir. Because if you let LeBron James and many of the modern-day woke, woke to tell you, "All Michael Jordan did was make sneakers that provoked black people to kill one another." Supposedly, Michael Jordan's sneakers are the reason why so-called black people are shooting each other over sneakers. And that's why sometimes they say, "Never meet your heroes." Thank you, sir. I say that all the time. They never are. You know why that is? Because it's not their job to be who you want them to be. That's why you're not supposed to be a fanboy. So, number 23, the powder talks. He's a Nike ambassador. He's a mogul. Why he's playing? And the last time I checked, he's even redoing Space Jam, like literally. He just followed in Jay's footsteps, owned it off the floor, and took that blueprint and became something special. I'd be interested to see if his Space Jam is going to be a remake or is it going to be a sequel. But here's also what makes them different. Michael Jordan didn't have a political voice. He wasn't socially able to not only play basketball but be an influence in the community. Not true at all. Michael Jordan was far more influential to his quote-unquote community than LeBron James ever was. The difference is that Michael Jordan did not go out of his way to create and concoct public gestures to try to cast himself as some new pseudo-revolutionary athlete. That's why Michael Jordan was far more sincere in what he was about, and he was always about what he felt comfortable with. That being sports. He was a basketball player. He contributed where he felt like he should and left it at that. LeBron James, because of the, the financial freedom that was created for him and other players today by Michael Jordan and in melding the sports world and the corporate world, now can talk all that [ __ ] because he's gonna make 70 million dollars a year guaranteed. So that's the difference. You put LeBron James in the Jordan era, in the Magic Johnson era in the '80s, where you have players making 1.5 million dollars a year and off the court making 500k a year in endorsements, I guarantee you LeBron James is as quiet as a church mouse. So that's where the context is left out when it comes to a lot of these woke, evil comments about the difference between LeBron James's activism and Michael Jordan's activism. Once again, the biggest and the best activism that our people need is for the so-called black men to take my control over his household. That's what's going to help our people now. LeBron James and his empty rhetoric, and LeBron James as a modern-day player and a superstar, continue to break those barriers. But like Michael Jordan, who bought away of the Detroit native, I voted against him his entire career because I was a Bad Boy fan, but there was never any denying that MJ was the GOAT. And Max alluded to this as well. He missed two seasons in his prime. We talked about LeBron having three championships, and that's wonderful. Michael Jordan had three championships that he won twice, and he missed two years in the middle. Now look at those scoring averages. One averages 30, the other averages 27. If MJ plays those two years, that's about 4,000 more points on his numbers. That's greatness, by the way, to average 30 even with those bad Wizards seasons at the end. Absolutely. That's the crazy thing about MJ. When people call him the great, I'll call him the greatest. The peak. We've already seen LeBron speak, and we've seen MJ speak. We've seen Will. Everybody speak. Jordan had the highest peak of all time, according to every single way you can measure that. Bet that argument already over. So the only way that that LeBron or whoever could try and catch MJ is in career and longevity. If he wins another championship, if he does things that Jordan. And I think also Jalen's point, Stephen A., about LeBron's voice off the field of play and the fact that he's been active. You know, Michael Jordan, Stephen A., you often give him credit for doing things quietly behind the scenes, but publicly made comments that made people think, "Whoa, wait a minute. Are you willing to take a stand?" And LeBron has been taking a stand against what people. People always want you to take a stand. They're the same ones weighing on how you back. They're the same ones now. What LeBron James knows, and this is something I've touched on in numerous videos, is that Nike is always going to have his back. And Nike took him aside and said, "LeBron, we need you to stop making certain statements." I promise you, or at least in the seminal portion of LeBron's career, Nike got taking him aside and said, "LeBron, we need you to keep the politics out of it." That's what he would have done. Definitive about the stances he's taken. Well, it's a different time, though, right? I'm never gonna. I'm never gonna charge Michael Jordan to the degree that some people do for that because Michael Jordan, oh, people say things, they set the stage for other things. Thank you, sir. Think about the folks who followed the Fab Five. What made the Fab Five special was because they did things. They were renegades. They did things that others ultimately followed. You've got to crawl before you walk. When you think about Madison Avenue, when you think about corporate America and the willingness to ingratiate yourself, or for them to agree to allow you to ingratiate with them, to position yourself to make some money and to be a global iconic figure. Yes, there was the insistence of the NBA, obviously, Nike, and others. But the fact of the matter is, you had to be that kind of special individual. Wait, Max, color me. You've often brought up Branch Rickey, who was the older than Dodgers, who brought on Jackie Robinson to integrate baseball. Well, there were baseball players that were arguably better than Jackie Robinson. But Jarrett, there definitely were. Jackie Robinson's temperament, his demeanor, combined with his game, made him be, combined with the fact that he was a Luciferian. Jackie Robinson was a Mason, as was Branch Rickey. And Jackie Robinson's job was to act as a Marxist pawn to make sure that he could be the initial person, that first person through the door to quote-unquote integrate baseball. As above, so below. We must bring together the opposing forces or the opposites. The Jackie Robinson experiment was something that was really on the minds of many of the more prominent Marxists that were trying to push his force behind the scenes for the previous 10 to 15 years. So they had to find the right person, and through Jackie Robinson, they were able to find that person. That's the reason why they gave Jackie the number 42. Once again, as above, so below. Ideal choice for Branch Rickey to utilize to ingratiate, to integrate baseball, because he knew that some other dudes wouldn't be able to take the vitriol and in their direction. So when we talk about LeBron James and his willingness to open his mouth and to speak out on a plethora of issues, absolutely positively, he should be applauded. But what set the stage was the Magic's and the Michael's and MJ's of the world who basically preceded him and then set the path that he could ultimately follow and springboard to another level. We can't forget that historically, that has always been the case. Thank you, sir. Stop trying to always stand up for your man, Jalen Rose. I mean, goddamn. Malik Aaron, I get it. You like the rock that he's given you. But what Steven Naismith was saying is that what people like Jalen Rose don't grasp, and Jalen Rose, another person is, we what Michael Jordan has has created. He's one of the people who signed major contract deals in the 2000s because of what Michael Jordan laid out there. There's a reason why you can get on TV and talk all that [ __ ] about race and I'm being woke, he's woke, and white people on stuff. It's because you're making so much money that you can afford to actually lose your job, and there's gonna be a platform for you to speak in other venues or through other means. LeBron James, to me, is not courageous. He's an opportunist. He's someone who has the opportunity to speak his mind, and he now does so. But he lacks the scope to grasp what what previous generations had to endure and the different environment which creates a different form of expression. But anyway, P.