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00:00The more time that goes by, are you feeling better that LeBron will be back?
00:04Oddly, yes, even though people are telling me I should not be.
00:08So, I don't know.
00:09Why are they telling you no?
00:10I don't know.
00:10Well, everybody in the national media, I don't know if this is what the kids call,
00:15is it wish casting?
00:18If they are just telling me I'm not allowed to be hopeful,
00:22but they're saying this is a terrible basketball fit for the Cavaliers and LeBron James
00:27and that he should go to Minnesota?
00:29I don't understand.
00:31Go to Philadelphia and hope that Joel Embiid can actually stay healthy for the playoffs?
00:36I love that you've had this opinion here.
00:38One, I agree with you.
00:40Two, I think it's very smart because the fit conversation,
00:45yeah, we are more concerned with fit than we've ever been.
00:49That's true.
00:50But on the same sentences, what do we know is fit anymore?
00:54What do we know is fit?
00:55There's been eight champions in eight years who are playing eight different brands of basketball.
01:01What the F is fit anymore?
01:03I'm dead serious, guys.
01:05What is it?
01:06Because LeBron, well, it doesn't fit.
01:08What is the fit?
01:09What is it?
01:10Like, there's no chance now with this new pseudo hard cap because there's a second apron,
01:17so it's a hard cap.
01:18With this new hard cap, what is going to be the right perfect fit?
01:25There's no perfect basketball team.
01:27And it's made for parity, and we talk still in these absolutes, like we know what we're
01:33looking at when the league has not been this challenging in years and years and years.
01:39I don't know if it's ever been this challenging.
01:41Because if you go back through the history of the league, there's always been a dynasty
01:43somewhere.
01:45There's always been one.
01:47Give it a couple of years, give or take.
01:49I don't know if there's ever been this many years in a row.
01:52I mean, I try to look back, has there ever been this many years in a row where there's
01:55been different champions, other than maybe the infancy of the league?
01:58And even in the infancy of the league, probably not.
02:01Probably Boston was the one who won predominantly more championships than the others in the very
02:05infancy, and then obviously going into the later decades as well with the LA Lakers.
02:10Like, I don't know if there's ever been this much change.
02:12And really, I don't know if there's been this much change over in professional sports
02:16for a team.
02:17So who are we to say what fit is what?
02:21We don't know.
02:22You take the best basketball player in the history of the game over the last 20 plus
02:27years, and you bring him in and you hope that there's going to be the right fit, but there's
02:30obviously going to be challenges that are involved there.
02:33So to bring up the fit, how do I know that Miami's going to be a better fit or Minnesota's
02:39going to be a better fit?
02:39Because you might like those players more.
02:41See, this is where I said, you know, they mentioned wish casting.
02:44I think that you might have some of the members of the national media wish casting here.
02:48If this is a term that we're going to use for this segment, hopefully put away because
02:51I don't like the term.
02:52But if that's the way that people are thinking here, you know, I brought this up before,
02:56and this is a very easy drumbeat us against the world type of thing.
03:00I'm not trying to do it that way.
03:02I'm trying to be as pragmatic as possible and look at the way that they've treated Cleveland
03:06in the four years when LeBron came back when you went to the finals every year.
03:10Now, by the time 2016 happened, there was less belly aching.
03:14But by the first NBA finals run and then the two after they won the championship, it calmed
03:22down after that a little bit.
03:24But there was still this, well, the national writers don't want to go to Cleveland.
03:27They made jokes when he went to LA.
03:29At least they don't have to fly to Cleveland anymore.
03:30They don't like being here when it's cold.
03:32They're mostly West Coast, sunny weather people.
03:35That's mostly who they are.
03:36They're either West Coast or East Coast.
03:37All right, and so in New York, New York's New York.
03:40Los Angeles is good weather.
03:42They can go and do whatever they want, go to the arena later on,
03:45and it's just kind of a cool vibe that they have.
03:47When you come to Cleveland, you are living in a fishbowl.
03:51And yeah, it's the Midwest.
03:53Sports is what we have.
03:55It ain't the weather.
03:56We all got bad weather in the Midwest, so we all look forward to sports more than some
04:00of the other countries, more than some of the other cities out there.
04:03And that's just always seemed to rub the NBA national media wrong.
04:08Plus, I mean, weather also has a factor to it as well.
04:11And I just think that if we're talking, real quick, I just think if we're talking wish
04:15casting, quote unquote, and they're kind of wishing that he doesn't come back, I think
04:18they're wishing he picks somewhere else.
04:20So one, they have a fresh story to write, because a lot of this might be the same.
04:24And two, I don't think they want to come here.
04:26Did they just forget, though, that the Cavs did win two playoff series and won 50-some
04:34games?
04:35And do they remember what...
04:37I don't think that matters.
04:38I don't think that matters to them.
04:39Okay, anybody that is pining for them to go to Golden State, do they remember that Golden
04:44State went 37-45 this past year?
04:47That also, for all that they wanted to talk about James Harden, like, you seen Draymond
04:52Green lately?
04:53Does that seem like somebody that is ready to win a championship now is, like, the best
04:58defensive player on your team at his age, with all the mileage on his body?
05:02And that's why I put it, you know, if he were from Sterling Heights, Michigan, I think
05:07they'd be saying the same thing about Detroit.
05:09I frankly, I gotta tell you, I will throw Chicago in there, even with their rich history.
05:13I think if he were from Hinsdale, Illinois, I think they'd be saying the same thing about
05:17Chicago.
05:17Certainly Milwaukee, the same thing.
05:19I just think we all are a great big pile of snow to all those riders out there, and
05:24if you're not from here, you just don't get it.
05:26Like, people from the Midwest get it.
05:28But I think a person who really isn't from here is from either New York or the West Coast.
05:33They just see this as a place that they'd like to avoid during the wintertime.
05:36Sure, Kenny, you're talking about all the stuff that, yeah.
05:39But I think they're faking the reasons behind the fit, because I think that there's a questionable
05:44fit with every team that's there.
05:46Because you're not just, I will admit, I don't think they're the same dramatic reasons in
05:50the past, but you are taking on an entirely different animal in LeBron than you would
05:55be a lot of free agents.
05:57It's just fine.
05:57I remember Nick Wright, who came in studio with us during one of the NBA Finals runs.
06:04But I remember Nick Wright talking about how Kevin Durant was going to be a terrible fit
06:08with the Warriors.
06:09And I just think we overthink these things sometimes.
06:12Like, Nick Wright's a smart basketball guy.
06:14He gets the game.
06:15How could anybody think that just smart basketball players who are really good aren't going to
06:20just make stuff work?
06:21Like, I saw people say that James Harden was going to...
06:24But I worried about fit when it came to Jalen Brown coming to Cleveland if they were to
06:27trade away Evan Mobley.
06:28Yeah, sure.
06:29And then I always bank on guys just figuring it out that understand the sport.
06:34And James Harden was supposed to be a terrible fit with the Cavs also from some standpoints.
06:39I think it was mostly just Darius Scarlett fans hoping that he would be terrible.
06:42And then he had big playoff games and helped him get to the Easter Conference Finals.
06:47Yeah, they hit a wall then.
06:49But as I said, there were 26 other teams would have loved to be as far as the Cavs, to
06:54get
06:55as far as the Cavs did last year.
06:57And I just think it's hard for me to envision a world where LeBron, who is a massive upgrade
07:02over Dean Wade, wouldn't help the Cavaliers, which was an obvious point of weakness last year.
07:09The wing position.
07:10What does LeBron play?
07:11Wing.
07:12I don't know.
07:13I think he'll probably be okay with that.
07:14I would feel the same way.
07:17But also, I don't know any better.
07:18And I want him to come back.
07:19I really want him to come back.
07:21So I feel the same way.
07:22But I also know that there's going to be pitfalls.
07:23They're not just going to hand you the championship there.
07:25There's going to be challenges that they have to address.
07:27But I think it's the same thing with LeBron in any place he goes to.
07:30You go to Miami.
07:31I don't think, one, I don't think that Bam Adebayo is the player that people want him
07:35to be after, I know he's a whole bunch of points in the whole thing.
07:39I don't, he's a good, Bam Adebayo is a very fine player.
07:43Very fine player.
07:45I don't think he's in that stratosphere of where some people might want him to be because
07:49they want LeBron to go to Miami.
07:50I think what you just said about Golden State is right.
07:52I think that what a lot of people are saying about any of these other destinations, I just
07:57see Cleveland, I go, why is Cleveland such a bad fit compared to who else?
08:01What, what, what, because you, because we don't like James Harden that much?
08:04I get that the media does not like James Harden that much.
08:07All right, that, that's not lost on any of us.
08:09Donovan Mitchell has had a questionable postseason throughout his entire career and it's become
08:13a calling card, whether it's right or wrong.
08:15That's one of the stereotypes that go with him.
08:17Evan Mobley is a player that, yes, I think we've overrated to some degree because I was
08:21calling him the unicorn, but obviously he's still a fine player.
08:24Like this is a team you can win a lot with.
08:26And I just keep going back to your point.
08:27When the Knicks traded for Carl Anthony Towns, I did not believe that that was a move that
08:31was going to win a championship and neither really did the rest of America, including
08:35Knicks fans, including Knicks fans.
08:37So we know less about what works and what doesn't in the NBA than really we ever have in our
08:43entire lives because throughout history, we're going on a decade now, guys, of different
08:48champions.
08:48And before we had a history of dynastic teams that you can make the comparison to, you had
08:55this team that was built in the image of the Golden State Warriors or the LA Lakers or
09:00the Chicago Bulls or the Boston Celtics.
09:03You don't have that now.
09:04So now we're just kind of grasping at straws because we don't know what this league is going
09:08to be year to year to year.
09:09You have difference in salaries that are about to take off.
09:12You have a fit issue and now you have a strong salary cap, which you've never really had.
09:18And now you have to make all this work.
09:20So I think it may just come down to, and maybe I'm, maybe I'm guilty of this myself when it
09:26came to the Jalen Brown thing, maybe I should just revert back to, Hey, just get the talent
09:29and make sure that it all fits when the salary cap, get them out there on the floor and get
09:34the thing to work.
09:35Maybe I was overthinking it myself.
09:37Now we did have, uh, Danny Cunningham earlier and talked about, uh, Jared Allen could potentially
09:43be on the move.
09:44And it's not because Jared Allen's not a good basketball player.
09:47It's not that he's hasn't been helpful.
09:48He was massive in two game sevens, right?
09:51Yeah.
09:51In the first and second round.
09:53But you are trying to kind of retool here, right?
09:57You're trying to figure out a team that has the best fit around a team that would have
10:04Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, and LeBron James, Devin Mobley.
10:06And he is somebody that's valuable.
10:09You could get, you know, talented player or players for Jared Allen to help beef up your
10:15overall roster.
10:16So it's just something to keep your eye on.
10:17It's not that, Oh, we're waving the white flag that Jared Allen's not some good player.
10:21I do think they've had, no, you're going to have to give up something significant to be
10:25able to make this work.
10:26I think you've had structural problems with Allen and Mobley playing together that I do think
10:33over time, you'd have to be blind not to, not to see it or to admit that in this day
10:38and age in the NBA, it doesn't really make sense to have two bigs who are not real playmakers
10:43and, and not, you know, you don't have to guard either of them outside.
10:47I don't want to, I like them both.
10:48We wonder why our screen and roll game goes south in the post season.
10:52Well, that's a big part of it.
10:54You don't have to honor those guys outside.
10:56All right.
10:57Rick Buecher, who was one of the King LeBron haters in history, according to LeBron fans.
11:03Uh, he doesn't have the very nicest way of putting this, but actually he, he makes a
11:07considerable sense when he talks about LeBron coming back to Cleveland, the rich Paul propaganda
11:12about contacting every team in the league to determine the interest in LeBron.
11:16It's just window dressing teams were interested.
11:18He wouldn't have to reach out to them.
11:20It's a sign that LeBron and rich are struggling with the new reality, which is that LeBron simply
11:26isn't valued the way he once was.
11:27He does not have the leverage he once did, which is not an indictment.
11:32No one is going to invest in a player who is turning 42 years old next season and comes
11:37with all the outsized attention and servicing that LeBron does.
11:41The only place that makes any sense is for him to return to Cleveland where it all began.
11:46So rich Paul, this is a response.
11:48Now that was Rick Buecher on the, on the ball podcast with Rick Buecher.
11:51Cause you know, rich Paul had said that there's what 27 teams that have called about LeBron
11:57Rick Buecher's right about GMs and team presence.
12:01Rick Buecher's dead wrong about owners.
12:04This is where LeBron still holds the cards.
12:06This is where LeBron still has a great deal of people who want to see him.
12:12The owners, every single owner, if, if your GM isn't interested in LeBron and you own an
12:18NBA basketball team, if he's not willing to give you any sort of a conversation, that
12:23GM needs to be fired.
12:25LeBron is a cash cow for the league, for any team that he has.
12:29Well, especially in his final, if it's his final year.
12:31Especially in what could be his final year.
12:33So I wouldn't go, Hey, you bring him in and you make it happen.
12:37If I own the Phoenix suns or whatever, right?
12:41It, it, it's, it's a long shot.
12:43It's a long shot, but you damn well better call.
12:46Do you know how much money he can make this team over time?
12:48And we're talking about a guy in his last year, possibly in the NBA or last couple of
12:52years in the NBA, a guy who has found a way to ride shotgun next to Luka Doncic, a guy
12:59who I never thought was ever going to be able to ride shotgun has found a way to be in
13:02the
13:02passenger seat with Luka Doncic, a guy who he probably doesn't care for too terribly
13:07much because he's not obsessed with basketball the way LeBron is.
13:10It seems if he was able to do that, what can we do here?
13:12You at least need to make that call and see what it is and make some sort of a concerted
13:16effort to figure it out.
13:17We don't need to let our business out there.
13:18We, if I own the Minnesota Timberwolves, I don't need to be talking about trading away
13:22big pieces publicly to be able to bring in LeBron.
13:25That's not it.
13:26That's not what I'm asking, but you owe it to the business of the game to the owner owns
13:31it to himself to have somebody call and make a legitimate play for LeBron.
13:37Rick Buecher's right.
13:39He's 41 years old.
13:40What more could he possibly do?
13:43He can rise up and play well every now and then.
13:45He can't take over a game every night.
13:48Well, he probably could for a few weeks and then he'd gas himself.
13:51Yeah, you wouldn't want him to have that kind of workload anyway.
13:53You wouldn't want him doing it.
13:54This isn't 25-year-old LeBron James anymore going into his prime.
13:58This is a man who has seen it all, played it all, and will probably be ramped up to
14:03the postseason at some given point whenever he decides to sign.
14:06But I don't believe for a damn second that he doesn't have some sort of a power because
14:10you have owners in this league and they know exactly what he means to them.
14:14Yeah, I do.
14:14I just think this is...
14:16Maybe I'm being a little bit...
14:17Maybe I'm being a little crazy.
14:18You can call me out on it if you want.
14:19This is far different from the LeBron of, man, the one that came here in 2014 or the one
14:26that went to Los Angeles and won a championship, the bubble title with Anthony Davis.
14:30This is a different LeBron.
14:32And I think we saw that last year in how he was able, surprisingly, to take a backseat
14:38to Luka and even to Austin Reeves.
14:40But when those guys went down with injuries and it was, again, LeBron and a mixed nuts
14:48cast of characters in the playoffs, he was the best player in a playoff series.
14:52Still, at his age, all these years in, with all the mileage and all the playoff minutes
14:57added up, one of the most durable athletes we've ever seen in any sport, he was still there.
15:03So I question the notion.
15:05I've seen some people say, you really want LeBron at this age?
15:08I'm like, you just didn't watch him last year then.
15:10You didn't.
15:11Now, again, regular season.
15:12Well, did you watch the Cavs last year?
15:13He's not going to be playing defense in a regular season.
15:16I don't care.
15:17It's a regular season.
15:18I think we've never seen more of a chasm between the regular season and the playoffs
15:24that we've seen the last few years.
15:26So I'm not, it's really, to me, of no consequence if he can't play defense in a regular season.
15:31I fought this for a long time.
15:32I know you and I had these discussions years ago, a couple years ago, on is this Cavs team
15:38when they were winning 17 in a row?
15:39Are they more fun than the 2016 team?
15:42And there was some of it where I thought, yeah, even though what Channing Frye got a
15:47hold of it, and I think he kind of misconstrued it a little bit, where I, it was either him
15:50or Richard Jefferson, one of the two, because I went, well, this is homegrown.
15:56I mean, LeBron came here and everybody else came in.
15:59I mean, again, Donovan they traded for, but all the other pieces were homegrown, basically.
16:04And it didn't feel like the type of team that it was before.
16:07Okay, well, they still lost against the Indiana Pacers.
16:09So clearly, I'm the one who's wrong here.
16:11I'm definitely wrong.
16:12What makes him a good fit, though, isn't just about, when you talk about the age, it's not
16:18about the age and people going, really, you want him back at 41 going on 42 years old?
16:22No.
16:24If you didn't watch LeBron, it's have you watched the Cavs?
16:27Because I don't think anybody thinks that this team, as currently constructed, is a
16:32championship team.
16:34They can, because you've had eight different ones in the last eight years, but they are
16:38not what you would consider the, one of the odds on favorite to win a championship.
16:42Again, they came back in a tie for seventh, right after the NBA finals for best odds to
16:47win a championship.
16:48And it's not that LeBron guarantees a championship, not by any means necessary, but it makes you
16:54feel better about their chance to win one with them than it does without one.
16:57Because if you run this back, I've made the argument going, hey, maybe they will run it
17:02back.
17:02Maybe they have to.
17:03But I don't know if anybody's really excited for that possibility.
17:06I don't think anybody's excited for that possibility.
17:08He didn't guarantee a championship when we first had him.
17:11There was no guarantee we were going to win.
17:12The second time we had him, there was no guarantee we were going to win.
17:15Remember, it was the Warriors that won the 73 games.
17:19Like, that was no guarantee.
17:20If anybody's looking for a guarantee and you're mad because we can't guarantee that they'd be
17:25in the driver's seat, well, then this isn't the sport for you.
17:28You know, go watch, go watch it something else because this isn't for you.
17:31I think it's pretty clear that the improbable has been happening more and more in this sport.
17:37Nobody thought the Knicks would win a championship.
17:39And I went back and listed some of the other titles, the Kawhi-led Raptors.
17:44Who had that team winning the championship?
17:46I did not.
17:46The Andrew Wiggins as the second best player on the Warriors the year that they won the
17:52championship in 2022.
17:53Nobody had that team winning the championship either.
17:56Who had Indy poised and ready to win a championship in a game seven?
18:00Not me.
18:01Just a year and a, you know, two years ago.
18:03The only ones I think you could see happening were Los Angeles because of the bubble, because
18:07it was LeBron.
18:08We talked about that leading into it.
18:10And the other one would probably be OKC with how they had established their nucleus.
18:13But I got to tell you, I thought that that was maybe a year too soon.
18:16Yeah.
18:16And you know what?
18:18I've been just as guilty of this in being definitive on a lot of this stuff.
18:22We all thought the Boston Celtics, you know, over the last few years would go a lot further
18:27than they did.
18:27Oklahoma City last year, who had them losing?
18:30I know they had problems with San Antonio in the regular season, but we just thought,
18:33all right, Oklahoma City would just be back into the finals.
18:35Yeah.
18:35And would probably beat whoever came out of the East.
18:38And instead, we had one of the youngest teams in the history of the NBA get to the finals in
18:42the San Antonio Spurs.
18:43So we've got to stop talking in the declaratives with such certainty.
18:49Like, would you be shocked if the Knicks got eliminated early next year?
18:54And it only takes one injury, too.
18:56Injuries play such a huge part of this.
18:58And what you are getting right, and what a lot of people might be, I think it's not lost
19:04on people in Cleveland.
19:05I do think it's lost nationally.
19:07Yeah, there probably would be a better fit in Philly.
19:09There would probably be a better fit in Minnesota, a better chance to win a championship.
19:12That's why we're talking about those two teams.
19:14Minnesota kind of out of nowhere.
19:16Philadelphia, because of the move they just made with Jalen Brown, makes a lot of sense,
19:19right?
19:19But when it comes to the Cavs, again, I keep bringing up, we don't feel great about this
19:24team as is.
19:25I don't know how LeBron could hurt that.
19:26And we look at this team as a team that probably has to break it up within the next
19:29couple of years anyway, because Donovan Mitchell is going to be a 70 plus million dollar
19:34player.
19:34And I don't see a lot of Cavs fans lining up around the block to make sure he's a 70
19:38plus
19:39million dollar a year player.
19:40So this is probably going in a negative direction with or without LeBron after this coming year.
19:46So I might as well try to get all my chances going.
19:48We know that he's obsessed with it.
19:50We know he'll be obsessed with trying to win a championship.
19:52We know that if he chooses here, it's not just to take one final bow to the crowd and to
19:58have
19:58his jersey retired.
19:59All these things could possibly happen, but it's not like you're playing on a bad basketball
20:03team.
20:03So I have a chance to kind of get everybody to fit in with his program, which gives me
20:09a better chance of what I've had recently.
20:11I mean, frankly, let's call it what it is.
20:13People have thought differently about Donovan here over the last couple of years.
20:18People have felt differently about Donovan over the last couple of years with or without
20:22Darius Garland.
20:24You know they felt some sort of way about Darius Garland for a while, and then they trade
20:27away Darius Garland.
20:28People ran away from those opinions that they have.
20:30When they fought me on the air tooth and nail about the guy, we brought in James Harden.
20:34Clearly, they don't have a lot of excitement over James Harden or a lot of confidence in
20:40James Harden.
20:40So if not a lot of people have a lot of confidence, I don't understand where he bothers any of
20:46it.
20:46This isn't 28-year-old LeBron anymore, where you have all this set of circumstances.
20:51There's a finite amount of time, and that's with or without him.
20:56So you might as well bring him in.
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