← Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul
Game Over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul
Potential LeBron Landing Spots, Plus NFL and MLB Talk With David Jacoby and Anthony Dabbundo | Game Over
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- [00:01]
A
Morning decisions.
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B
How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink?
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A
Or sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe?
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B
Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.
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A
Dave. Jacoby. Look at this. No Rich today. Rich is on vacation, undisclosed location, but I have Dave Jacoby stepping in and pinch hitting. Look at this.
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C
This is so much fun.
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A
Yeah.
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C
One thing I love about you, Max, and I haven't brought this up. We've known each other for so long that you call me Dave.
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A
Yeah. Instead of Jacobe. Yeah.
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C
But I. I love it. Every time you pick up the phone, you're like, dave.
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A
I go back and forth. I go back and forth a little bit.
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C
No, no, I like it. I appreciate this. Everywhere I go, people call me Jacoby. I like that you call me Dave.
- [01:04]
A
That's how you know who you know from way back, right? With the user first name. All right, listen. Rich isn't here to deny everything that's going on with LeBron. So we need to go over the landing spots. Dave or Jacoby. We need to go over the landing spots because there are four main spots that people seem to be down to, right? There's Cleveland, Philly, Golden State, and Miami. And we need to go over each of them. All right, that's what I want to do right now. First of all, Cleveland, where it seems as though there are people right here at the ringer who shall remain nameless, who seem to think it's a done deal and he's going to be back in Cleveland. That would also have been my guess, except that my guess would have been originally that he stayed with the Lakers. And according to Rich, Paul. I don't call him Paul ever. I'm not like, hey, Paul. Like, hey, Jacoby. It's always.
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C
Doesn't make.
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A
Doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work like Jacoby. But. But, you know, Rich was saying, look, when I. I called him, and it was like, I'm 80% returning to the Lakers. And then it started diminishing. Every week he would call, and it's down to 50. It's down to 30. It's down to, I'm not going back. So at one point, I think he also thought he was going to go back to the Lakers. That's now off the table. My guess would be Cleveland. What do you think about the fit with LeBron and Cleveland?
- [02:29]
C
One thing I love about it is you finish where you started. Where the book opens on page one, you're drafted into Cleveland. And when it closes, you end in Cleveland. And I love that, by the way.
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A
You were born there.
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C
Basketball fit. I think people get that confused. Akron and Cleveland are not the same place.
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A
Close enough.
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C
But I do love the story of it. However, we have seen this Cleveland nucleus, which we had. We don't know what's going to happen with James Harden. We've seen bail in the playoffs over and over and over. Yes, they did get to the Eastern Conference finals, but they got swept by the Knicks. But that is also a selling point. Guess who it takes to get this nucleus over the hump? LeBron James. I did it for you, Cleveland.
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A
Right.
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C
I did it again for you.
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A
And also, you go home, you're comfortable, you're familiar with it, you come full circle, you're from there, you were drafted there, and maybe, maybe you can win a championship there. James Harden, the best I ever saw him play in his whole career, and that includes in Houston winning, where to his credit and Daryl Morey's credit, that system that I always sit around and say, well, that'll never win a championship, came, you know, within one bad shooting game of winning the whole thing against an unbeatable team. A 73 win team that added Kevin Durant was in a game seven at home against James Harden without even Chris Paul. Right. Based on the way they were playing. But, you know, the danger is, of course, you go cold in if one guy's monopolizing the ball, and they did, et cetera. But the best I ever saw Harden play in his career was, I thought, when he was in Brooklyn, and it seemed like Steve Nash was kind of rolling out the ball and being like, okay, guys, go ahead and play. And Harden was playing a beautiful point guard. Really, you know, it wasn't Kyrie on the ball. It was Harden really on the ball, running that offense. And the three of them were never healthy together, like KD and Harden and Kyrie. But when any two of them were working, I remember at one point, I think it was no kd, it was just hardening. Kyrie, they went on a West coast swing and won most of the games against good teams, with Harden really doing the kind of pure point guard thing. So I think Harden could. And LeBron could play. LeBron's probably exactly what James Harden needs in order to bring out that kind of best version of him. And like. But I don't know if that's a champion. Well, then. Then what you forget is they also have Evan Mobley and Mobley, all of a sudden, with LeBron on the team, you start thinking that that guy might actually start to fulfill what it looked like he was going to do a couple years ago. Is that a championship team with LeBron on it?
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C
Well, you said a lot there. I have to push back some. Push, push back on one thing. The best James Harden was was when he was with the Rockets. I don't think so. And when he was the mvp. And, and as you said, you did, you said bad shooting night. They missed 17 threes in a row.
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A
Give a. Why do you think that is?
- [05:37]
C
Coincidence, luck, no curse, I don't know.
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A
But in game seven when no one's hitting any shots, that's not a coincidence.
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C
That's fair to say. But the best he was was a Zaraki. And the idea that you can't win with like a heliocentric team, I just think it hasn't happened yet. Yet. We might see it with Luca one day, but I think that James Harden was this close to taking down the Warriors.
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A
Yeah, but wait, that close? But Dave, if you say a heliocentric team can't just hasn't happened yet, then if it does happen, it's the exception that proves the rule. Just like Jalen Brunson. You're not going to win with a guy under 63 as your best player. But it's only happened twice in history. Steph doesn't count. He is 6 3. I'm talking about like actually little guards like Isaiah Thomas. 1 2. And that was really at a time when Bird and Magic were not like their teams weren't quite what they were and the Bulls were not quite what they were going to be. Isaiah, an all time great grabbed two. It didn't happen again until Jalen Brunson. So it's not that it's impossible because. But Jalen Brunson didn't prove he's the exception that proves the rule. It's much more difficult to win that way. Luka hasn't done it. Jalen Brunson did. Jalen Brunson only did it when they started running the offense through Catmore. So it's less heliocentric. Right. And in the end, James Harden didn't get it done even though he got close. It may be fool's gold, right? Or it may be that those little mazes that you got at McDonald's when you're a kid and you think you're going to get all the way to the end, but actually it's just a dead end. Right? So it's just the same as just going somewhere else. That doesn't get you apparently close. I don't. I think he was only apparently close to beating the warriors, and that style is not sustainable at that level because the guys around you get cold, and when you call on them in the moment of truth, no one can hit the shot. And that includes James Harden, by the way. He couldn't hit the shot either. So I, you know, I give him credit for getting as far as they did, But I don't think that player, that player was asked to do much more, but I don't think he was a better player making better decisions with the ball than the guy in Brooklyn who was working with much less, because they were always hurt. One of those two guys, three guys were always hurt. And. And they went on whenever. When he was healthy, they started winning a lot. Anyway, look, I. Not to get close.
- [07:58]
C
I also think. I also think that his first year in Philly was sort of a great example of him. Point guard James Harden. But we are. I didn't even answer your question. Yeah, any team that we talk about is a contender with LeBron James, any single team. And that's simply a function of the math of the salary structure.
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A
But, but when you say a contender, do you mean this happens in boxing sometimes, Like a certain guy's being ducked. He's not as spectacular as, like, the champion, but he's really good. And just as a kind of exercise in moral rectitude. Right. People will be like, oh, he really needs a title shot. But then you say, yeah, but do you think he's going to win? And they're like, no, I don't think he's going to win. It's just. He just deserves the shot. Right? That's a contender. But. But I'm not asking, are they a contender. I'm asking, can they actually win the championship, The Cleveland Cavaliers, if you just parachute LeBron onto that team?
- [08:55]
C
Absolutely. 100%, yes. And also, be honest with yourself. I would have filed the New York Knickerbockers of last season as a contender, not as a favorite, not as someone who I think is going to win the championship. A contender. So sometimes those, quote, unquote, contenders end up as winners.
- [09:14]
A
You're right. And I think. I think a couple things have distorted the way we think about the NBA, which is much less predictable in recent years than it was, you know, decades before. And that is the Michael Jordan era, where you knew in the beginning of every season when he had a squad, oh, well, they're going to win. And that was followed in the not too distant Future, like future by the Shaq Kobe era, where I know they had that, you know, they had to come back in some games and everything, but then they won three in a row, and I think those six with the two, you know, the two years in between that the Rockets won and then the three peat for the Lakers, you know, that all happened in a relatively compressed, you know, number of years. Left us with the feeling that, oh, we know who's going to win the championship every year. The last eight, 10 years, it hasn't been that way. You know, you have an idea who the five or six best teams are going to be, but you don't know who's going to win in the beginning of the year.
- [10:05]
C
You're absolutely right, but you're also skipping over an era. And me and you have been doing this for a long time. As the producer of the show, I want to move along to the next topic. I'll say this, you're forgetting the inevitable Warriors Cavs finals. It was like, when you do this job, it's October and you're like, I know who's going to be playing in the finals, 100%. We'll do the dance. But I know who's going to end up playing in the finals.
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A
Yeah, the LeBron James. LeBron James playing with two other All Stars and Steph Curry playing with two or three other All Stars, will certainly meet in the Finals every year. Yeah, that's true. Yes. All right, Philly. And there's Philly.
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C
No, let's go to Golden State. Now. I just try to give you a transition.
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A
Well, I mean, I don't know. I just have it written down in order. Golden State. Golden State is not a championship team with LeBron on it.
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C
Tell me more.
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A
You're okay. Here is the starting five. You know, in an ideal world, if everyone's healthy. Steph, Jimmy Butler, LeBron James, Draymond Green, Chris Staps Porzingis. Okay, championship contender. Oh, if they have a bench at all, you could win the championship. The odds that those five guys are going to be able to make it through a whole playoff season, let alone, you know, a series, let alone season, are extremely slim. Steph Curry is old, everyone's old. Jimmy Butler coming off injury, Steph Curry, Old. LeBron James, Ancient, Draymond Green's old, and Kristaps Porzingis is a seven footer with a long injury history there. That's not a championship team. It is it. You can't say it would be impossible for them to win a championship, but they would have to get so lucky in terms of health that I don't think that's a chance. I think it's safe to say it's not a championship team. You disagree?
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C
I don't disagree. But I do want to bring up some things that our friend Rich Paul has said.
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A
Okay.
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C
LeBron James has to do nothing more for his legacy. It's written in stone. Like, he doesn't have to win another championship. He doesn't have to quote, unquote, ring
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A
chase, depends to do what.
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C
But what I'm saying is just, he said it's happiness. Do you think he wouldn't be happy playing for Steve Kerr with Steph Curry and Draymond Green? And let's not sleep on another thing that our friend Rich Paul says. Golf, bro. The golf. Yeah, the golf. The golf. Oh, no, we're not talking about close to the family. Like, this isn't just about winning a championship. It's so hard to win a championship. You have the best team. Doesn't mean you win. It's about happiness. And this might be the happiest LeBron
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A
could possibly be, and also the happiest we might be. Watching him with Steph and Draymond and everyone like that. That I would be. I would really dig it if he went to Golden State. I think it would be a ton of fun. But what I'm evaluating right now, or the question at hand is, is it like, what does it mean for each team? And I don't think. I don't think the warriors are like, the warriors, yes, they could do it, but as I said, luck in terms of health. Right. And also the idea that his legacy is set in stone is not exactly true. There's nothing that will be. You know, sometimes when a guy's past his prime, what happens when he's no longer at his best illuminates things about him that you didn't know about him when he was at his best. Cuz he didn't have to answer certain questions when he was at his best. I think in LeBron's case, that stuff is all taken care of. He's a great teammate.
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B
He.
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A
He elevated. He just won a playoff series at the age of 100 with, you know, not a single other all Star or even average starter in sight. There was literally the team that he won the playoff series with didn't have a single other average NBA starter, meaning a guy between 12th and 18th at his position in the league, not one. And he won a playoff series. He's an incredibly great. However, he's not the greatest player of all time. That's Michael Jordan. I know Rich bristles at that, but that's actually unconscious. That's uncontroversial. And the I. And so there's nothing he could do that would diminish his legacy. But there are things he can do that would burnish his legacy further. Right. Like, yes, he could. If he were to play a couple more years and win a couple more chips and do it with a team that really wasn't going to do it without him, it's pretty clear they weren't going to do it without him.
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C
They.
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A
Or even just be additive in a way that turns a team from. Yeah, maybe they could do it into a dynasty. Right. Yeah. That burnishes his legacy further. It brings him closer to mj. It makes the argument more interesting. It distances him because it's not like LeBron, in my view. He is clearly the second greatest player of all time. I think he's greater than Kareem or Bill Russell, considering the era Bill Russell played in, or Kobe Bryant. I think the Kobe thing is uncontroversial in terms of actual analysis. Right. If you really do analysis, it's cut and dried. However, a lot of people argue these ideas that Kobe is, you know, greater than LeBron partly because he has five championships. Right. People will argue Kareem Abdul Jabbar, look what he did in. He had the three chips in college. And then dig what he did in the pros. Six chips, as the best player on the team at least four of those times. Maybe five, maybe five of those times where he's the best player on the team. Bill Russell, 11 championship. Like, there are things LeBron can do to further separate himself from the pack and make the Jordan argument more interesting. No, there's nothing he could do.
- [15:38]
C
I could never disagree with that.
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B
Right.
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C
But I don't know if you saw. There's a show called A Game Over. Yeah, you can check it out.
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A
Yeah, it's good.
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C
Spotify. Yeah.
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A
Netflix.
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C
Netflix. Yeah, you can check it out there. And there's a whiteboard. The middle of the whiteboard was happening.
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A
Yeah.
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C
It's not. Where's the best place for me to win a championship? It's happiness. And I think that I don't know the man, but if you consider all the things, proximity to family, golf, Steph Curry, Steve Kerr, Draymond Green, he might be happiest in Golden State.
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A
Now, Philly is interesting because. And I mentioned this with. With Rich, it's not as the same kind of market as New York Or LA for that matter, or Chicago.
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B
But.
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A
And it doesn't give you, I think, the best chance to win the championship. However, it's really good market which is really close to New York, you know, major metropolitan area, eastern northeastern, seaboard. Right. A fan base that now that the Knicks have won, their, their drought is over 40 years, right. Since Moses Malone 444 went to. Turned out being 4, 5, 4. But, you know, they will love him in Philly if he delivers a championship. And right now they're not close to it, right? His, his. The marginal utility, the value of LeBron, if he brings them a championship in Philly, they will love him forever. And they will. There will be now be like hordes of basketball fans going forward saying he's the greatest player ever and he gets to play with Maxi, a clutch client. Right. And, and like, I don't know. I think there's a lot of upside there for him.
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C
I'd like you to answer a question for me about me. I'm going to be on the therapist couch for a session. A second. Sorry. Also a session. Why can't I see this happening? Like, why can I just like, viscerally reject the idea of LeBron James in Knicks uniform?
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A
I'm sorry, Philly uniform. Freudian slip.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why?
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A
Is it because of Joel Embiid? Because Embiid is here. Embiid makes it difficult to plan a season and, and reliably, you know, or have the feeling that you can, that you can understand what's about to happen. He. And the problem is, I don't know if there's ever been a player who's played as long as Embiid who is this great or at least this good. Right? Like, I don't. He hasn't proven, you know, the heart of a champion in the moment of truth because he's never been to a Finals, all that stuff. But, but his excellence is, when he's healthy is beyond dispute and, and yet is so unreliable in terms of his health. Not that it's one persistent issue. Like he's saying his knees are better than they've ever been. It's his knees, it's his face. He got sick. It's his, it's, it's, it's, you know, the back. It's a million different things and every year it's something else and it's. And because of his excellence and he's such a giant piece that when he, like look at these, this last postseason. Oh, they're cooked. They don't have Embiid. Oh, shit. Embiid is playing and he's excellent. Yeah. But they lost because they have to reintegrate him. Oh, they just reintegrated him and they won. He's great. Oh, but now he's a little gassed because he doesn't have his basketball. You know, I. I think Embiid's presence on that team is why you're having a hard time envisioning LeBron going there, because he makes it too unpredictable.
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C
I think that's fair to say. It's also interesting that, like, him playing so well led to Jalen Brown on his team in a roundabout way, but I don't think it'll lead to LeBron. It's something about the uniform, just something about it I just can't see, really.
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A
I could see it.
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C
And do you. Do you remember when Ben Simmons was a clutch client and LeBron had some decisions to make? I also had him going to Philly. There was a time, if you remember, when we were both at ESPN talking into microphones, and it was. It was Embiid and Simmons sort of like, not at their peak, but they were trending up, and LeBron had a decision to make. I had him going there this time. I just can't see it.
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A
I could see it. I don't. I'm not saying it's the leader in the clubhouse, but I could see it. And I think if he went there, I would liken it to Golden State, where a lot of things would have to go right. In terms of health with Embiid specifically and with LeBron, given his age, you know, knock wood. He's been remarkably durable considering how many years he's played, how many extra games in the postseason, Olympics, all this. His kind of other commit, commercial commitments, you know.
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C
Never fell off a cliff, Max. Never fell off.
- [20:24]
A
No, he didn't. It's a gradual decline, and it's from such dizzying heights that he's still kind of on a per game basis all NBA level. Right? All one, two, or three team. Like, he's still playing on a per game basis at that level, at least offensively. Just not a reliable. You know,
- [20:47]
C
he's called jolie. Be not reliable is like calling the sky blue. Like, of course.
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A
Right.
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C
And I also think there's a basketball thing there who's great at being off the ball from, like, a strategic access nose standpoint. I think it's a difficult thing to make work. I hate that, like, there's only one ball, people, because, like, you know, LeBron James can make anything work.
- [21:04]
A
Maxi's on ball. LeBron shares some of that responsibility. Edge Coleman is this, you know, athletic.
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C
What's a bead doing?
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A
Gunner? Guy embiid has to fit in. That's the whole thing. He's got to fit in. And that's why it's hard to see, because he's. He's so effective. It's hard not to just tell him to get down low and start to feed him. Right. Like, what? What? Like there's nothing anyone could really do. He could score on guys. He's too big.
- [21:30]
C
He's kind of best operating from the nail. Like, when he's at his best, he's getting the ball 17ft from the basket in middle of the floor, and he can shoot it. And he's like. He's like 70% with that shot. No one could contest it or block it.
- [21:42]
A
Yeah. By the way, I say down a little bit. I say down. I say down low. As though he's going into the paint like they used to. But it's still. It's like, what? I mean, posting up. He's still posting.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
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A
All right. The last one's Miami. Can you see LeBron going to Miami? No,
- [22:04]
C
I. I don't know.
- [22:06]
A
I could see him going to Miami. They. They lost Norman Powell. They have.
- [22:13]
C
Talk to me.
- [22:14]
A
They have a great defensive team right now. They have four positions nailed down. Their point guard is called off night. I mean, and he's the smallest guy on the team, and he's a beast defensively. They have no Powell, so. Hold on, who? My Wiggins.
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C
Wiggins.
- [22:34]
A
Defense. Like, just the athletic ability and defense. And really, two bigs now in Giannis and Bam. Like, the irony of BAM scoring 83, is that. What do you think of when you think of Bam? First offense. No, and the same thing with, like. Well, Giannis. Yes, but Giannis is. Even if his defense isn't what it once was, he's a defensive presence. It's going to be very hard to score on that team. And given LeBron's age, it's kind of what he needs is other guys picking up the slack defensively on a nightly basis so that in the high leverage moments, he can pick and choose when he plays defense, you know, like they used to do in the 80s. I could see it. Not enough shooting, but you can get shooting. Let's do wild cards. We went over Cleveland, Philly, Golden State, Miami. Give me a team that is not being discussed like, those four teams. But you could see LeBron going to. What's your wild card?
- [23:29]
C
Well, I think it's important because I follow this story closely to talk about the latest news. The latest news is that Rich Paul is accepting voice.
- [23:41]
A
So let me. He's expecting. Accepting voice notes from teams. Yes. They can pitch. And by the way.
- [23:46]
C
Wait a second, wait a second.
- [23:48]
A
What's that?
- [23:49]
C
Not. He's not audio recording. Not available. And that little microphone on the right side is dark. If you try to send Rich one, he must have gotten so many.
- [23:58]
A
How do you do a voice?
- [23:59]
C
You can't even send him one.
- [24:01]
A
How do you do. You do the plus sign, right?
- [24:04]
C
Yeah.
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A
And then audio.
- [24:06]
C
And there's all. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could sense not accepting him. He must have gotten too many since that story came out. So I'll just say it to the microphone on. Game over, Rich. It's time for LeBron to pass the torch. It's time for LeBron to be happy, play for a championship team, find joy in basketball, and pass the torch. There's only one place that he can do that, Rich. San Antonio with the Spurs. They were this close. This close. You can't tell me that that roster, that youth with LeBron James, IQ experience and all of that are not the number one favorite to win the championship. If they add LeBron James, and then you have that full year or two years of LeBron talking to Wemby, mentoring Wemby, and you also get a little bit of like, Wemby needed LeBron to get over the hump. So when we watch Wemby win MVP after MVP after MVP and championship after championship, it's like, oh, you know why? Because LeBron James made.
- [25:29]
A
He showed him.
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C
Same way. It was like LeBron had to go to Miami to learn how to win. Like, he never would have won if he didn't go to Miami. It's like, it would have been. It's. It's Rich, since you don't accept voice notes anymore, apparently. Or maybe I got blocked, which is fair. Good read. He should go to the Spurs. Max, what's yours?
- [25:48]
A
First of all, that's a horrible idea. But I will say that the. The best part of it was. You're right. I. Well, I was going to say it's a horrible idea until you turn me around with the. With the Wemby thing. The. Everyone, the. The. The lazy thing will be, I showed Wemby how to win MVP. They'll be like, Coach LeBron James. And then we buy into it. Yes. I needed to learn how to win. LeBron showed me. Yeah, of course. It's LeBron. The thing about the spurs though is they are so loaded. It's not as bad as KD going to Golden State. But remember, Golden State didn't win that year. They won 73 games and lost to LeBron. But it's similar in the sense that no, the spurs team is not as good as that Golden State team. But mainly that's because these guys are babies. Still, Wemby's a baby and he was the best player in the league last year. Well, except for Brunson, as it turns out. Castle and Harper don't even know what they're doing yet. And neither one can shoot yet. And they're both excellent. Like they're going to be both those guys if they stay healthy, are going to be all NBA players. And soon by the way, not like in five years, like maybe next year or the year after. They're like, they are so good, these Spurs. If it wasn't for the fact that they ran into the Knicks who all who had their number all year, right? Like they lost by possession in San Antonio, they beat him in New York, they beat him in Vegas for the cup like if. And the Knicks had once they started running the offense more through Cat had the largest point differential in NBA history over a 12 or 13 game stretch. And also were staging the biggest comebacks. Like it's one thing to be the most most dominant team ever in terms of point differential, postseason or regular season. Well, the Knicks weren't beating the best teams in the east. Yeah, but this includes every team that ever played in the regular season against bad teams too. No one had ever outscored the, you know, in 12 consecutive games their opponents by more than the Knicks had no one ever. And on top of that they're coming back on everybody. They came back on Cleveland 22 points with seven and a half minutes to go and they win the game by 11 in overtime. And then they, they have to keep coming back on the Spurs. But it understand it took that to get by the Spurs. It took a team that was both the most dominant team in the history of the playoffs for a stretch or of any 12 game stretch in the history of the NBA. As a matter of fact, the Knicks, the greatest comeback team of all time in the playoffs, the Knicks and the team that had the spurs number in order to beat them. And the spurs had a lead in every game, right? Like so the spurs are already so good that if LeBron James parachutes on, he will not get a other than the wet teaching Wemby how to win, which I admit may have Turned me around. He's not going to get as the credit that you would think he would get. And now I'm going to say something even more outrageous. The wild card should be. It should be the next Rich. It should be the next. The wild card should be the Knicks. Look, if not for winning the championship, Rich said on this show, sitting in that chair, he'd already be in New York. Right. So in other words, taking the championship thing out of it, that is the best destination. But it's hard to repeat his champion. You know, it's. And everyone's gotten better. Even if Toronto doesn't wind up with Kawhi. As it turns out, Giannis is in Miami. Boston maybe. Let's see how they are without Jalen Brown and a healthy Tatum and all the moves they made. They're a very well run organization. Brown is in Philly. Philly got better. Indiana's going to have a healthy Halliburton. They almost won the title the year before. If not for Halliburton's injury at halftime on the road In a tied Game 7, maybe they were defending champions. If they get back, who says Indiana doesn't win the whole thing? Next year could happen. So in a very competitive situation, all of a sudden the Knicks, who are kind of unfairly seen as kind of fluky, they caught lightning in a bottle and they're going to be like the MAVS were in 10, 11 and that was their year. Like that's kind of the sense about the Knicks. I don't know if it's true, but that's the sense about them. LeBron James plays out the last two years of his career in New York City and wins a couple more chips and the Knicks three peat with him or even just win another one this upcoming year by the so there's all that. But then there's also Dave LeBron is still an above the rim player. Somehow Knicks have never had that. Ever. The Nick. I mean, since Dr. J, New York hasn't really had it. But the Knicks have never had the above the rim super highlight superstar guy. No, ever. And LeBron is still that. And if you actually want to be favorably compared to Michael Jordan in history. Because by the way, right now in their, you know, in their primes, the analytics, the eye test, the championship, everything all says the same thing. MJ. But you win in seasons 24, 25, a chip in New York, so there's all that. But then there's also this. If you're a player in the NBA and you're looking at The Knicks and what just happened in New York City, who. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? Right? Like, who wouldn't want to be a part of that? I could see LeBron thinking, I don't want to mess that up. The chemistry's perfect. I don't want to, like, get in there, be blamed if it doesn't go right. And also, just, like, let them have their fun. Like, these guys are the Nova Knicks and everything. But the thing about LeBron is he's always used his gifts to elevate those around him, to bring everyone along. He's always been a guy who's wanted, it seems to me, to fit in, but his talent and physical abilities and his basketball brain made that impossible. He could never fit in. He always had to be the guy because he's just better than everyone else. By the way, even on this Lakers team, oh, it's Lucas team. Luke is the best. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought they functioned in the playoffs great with LeBron basically running point. There was no Luka at all, and they won a playoff series. I think for a lot of reasons, the Knicks would be a super interesting choice. And here's. Here's the last thing. Imagine the announcement. Think of how it feels. Think about the size of it all the magnitude. LeBron goes to the Spurs. Oh, it's kind of an unfair advantage at this point, right? LeBron goes to Philly. Yeah. Kind of saw that coming when they got Brown. They have Maxi clutch client, the whole thing, and it's Philly. It's a big market. It's a story. But LeBron goes to golden State to play with Steph. I'd say that has a lot of sizzle. But are they going to win a championship? LeBron signs with the Knicks, the defending champions, and he's going to go play with Brunson and OG and Josh Hart and Cat. And just think of the size of that. Think of the Sports center coverage. Think about, like, that is the biggest media story in sports in the world. So that's my. That's my pitch. Rich.
- [33:08]
C
It all goes back to the word happiness. And I think he'd be very happy here. But there was something about how dismissive Rich was about it. And, like, as a Knick fan and being, like, surrounded by Nick fans 247 and being, like, two blocks away from the parade right now as I sit, I can't see it happening. It's like, Philly. I just can't see it.
- [33:31]
A
When you. This is something that, like, when you actually think I was told once, when you're making a fight, think of the fight poster. What does it look like? The two guys on the fight poster? How excited are you to see it? Right? When LeBron really starts thinking about what this next chapter, and probably final chapter, you would imagine the next couple years, I'd say year or two are going to be what makes you the most excited, the most happy. What's the biggest thing you could do? It ain't going to the spurs or the Sixers or even Golden State. And it ain't close. Actually, if you're already on the Lakers, you could say the Lakers would be the biggest because the Knicks are never champions, right? Like, they're. They're not really ever in the championship picture. And the Lakers are the winningest franchise ever. The Knicks just won the championship in New York City with this team and that chemistry. And I don't know If I was LeBron and I was going to play the end of my career and I wasn't going to go home, I go to New York City. All right, listen, you have any takeaways before we get out of here? Jacoby from summer league?
- [34:46]
C
I think my number one takeaway from summer league is we talked about Peterson's cramps way too much. You know what I mean? Guilty. Charged. We talked about this guy's health and cramping and coming out in the middle, play the first half, not playing the second half. And is it creatine? Is it not creatine? Like, we talked about his availability and lack thereof so much. Then you watch him play basketball. He's pretty good at basketball. Maybe it's not even a thing. Maybe. Maybe it's something that we will just never ever even remember.
- [35:20]
A
Peterson, I always thought was like, I know the banso was. The bonso was a little bigger and longer, but like a little taller. But I thought Peterson's game was more polished. And barring injury, I thought, like, that guy's a can't miss NBA player, you know, I thought he should have been the number one pick. But what about Rich's guy? What about clutch Sports zone Now, Caleb Wilson in summer league. Caleb Wilson, who's like 8ft tall? No, he's. I stood next to him. He's legit. 6, 9, 6 10, right? 610 guy, 35 points, 7 of 11 from 3, 5 boards, 3 blocks, 2 steals. And then after the game when they lose, he says, well, oh, it's a great game. He's like, well, it's not a. Not a good game. We lost. Like, he says, all the right things. His mentality is right. I can't even think of what's the comp for Caleb Wilson. He's not going to shoot, you know, 70% from three. Obviously shooting is the question with him. But if he can just shoot solidly from outside, what is the comp for this guy?
- [36:19]
C
Oh God, there's no real comp. It's so hard to think of somebody. But it's like sort of like a, like a KG and mpj, baby.
- [36:29]
B
Kind of.
- [36:30]
C
You know what I mean? Like not the defensive edge of kg, but let's have this sweet stroke and like athleticism and smoothness of mpj. But there's honestly like it's very difficult to come up with a comp for Caleb Wilson. I've thought about it for about three weeks now. He's.
- [36:46]
A
He can defend the rim, he can run.
- [36:49]
B
He.
- [36:49]
A
Let's see if he can shoot. But he'll shoot. He'll wind up shooting. He just, he's not afraid to shoot, that's for sure. And the stroke looked pure. Right. It leads me to think like the next thing is the NBA may be about to enter either a golden age or maybe the golden age of its history. Because I'm trying to remember a time like Chicago all of a sudden is if not must see tv. It's like, yeah, I want to see tv. Right. Even if it's not, I'm changing my plans. Like, oh, the Bulls are on. Let me check this out. When you think of the lineup that they have right now, the starting five. Yeah, the starters, that's. That has a chance to be really good. They have their start. They, they signed Norman Powell. Flew under the radar.
- [37:38]
C
Yeah. And Norman Powell, who's like one of those rare players who just explodes. They're like seventh or eighth year in the league. Like it just absolutely exploded. We went to the Clippers and they continued it in Miami and there's no reason he won't continue it in Chicago.
- [37:52]
A
Wherever he goes, they win more than they. Like they, they wanted a certain level. Then he shows up and they win a lot more. Then he leaves that place and they win a lot less. Right. And he's a two way player. He a genuine two way player. A winner and a veteran at this point who's kind of the perfect guy. Giddy and, and zealous and, and, and now Caleb Wilson and you, you slide a veteran all star caliber two way player like Norman Powell in there, they are going to be at least interesting to watch and significantly improved. So Dave, what this means now is the Knicks are defending champions. The Lakers will be in the playoffs. We'll see how deep they can get. But they look like a playoff team with Luca in the middle. And they've gotten younger and they got a big.
- [38:38]
B
Now
- [38:40]
A
the Bulls are at least interesting.
- [38:43]
C
We'll see what the Hornets last year. They're interesting.
- [38:46]
A
Yes, The Hornets were not going to see TV by the end of this, but they're interesting.
- [38:50]
C
I want to watch Bulls games. Way I have it in I don't even know how long. It's like Joe Kim Noah was there.
- [38:56]
A
Those are the three major markets. It's like when those three markets can field good teams. But in addition, what are the other kind of big or sexy markets that the league would love to be good? Well, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, they're all going to be relevant. They're all going to be interesting to watch with the Lakers. And then. And then we'll see what happens in Golden State. But, oh, my God, when was the last time all those markets were fielding, at minimum, interesting teams to watch all
- [39:29]
C
at the same time? Yeah, it's hard to think of a time.
- [39:32]
A
Anthony DeBundo.
- [39:36]
B
How's it going?
- [39:36]
A
I'm a fan.
- [39:37]
B
First time on the show.
- [39:38]
A
Yeah. I'm a fan of your work. I'm a fan of your work. All right, listen, thank you. We were talking Jacoby and I just now about the various possibilities for LeBron, where he's going to go. Philadelphia, obviously, is one of the. Seems like the final four. How are you feeling? Like boots on the ground. The Jaylen Brown trade, the rumors of LeBron. Give me your Philly boots on the ground reaction.
- [40:02]
B
So we're very excited, and I think we've been through this whole deal before. Right. You only have to go back to 2018, when all of a sudden people are making up rumors that Bronny was touring Malvern Prep and he was going to team up with Simmons and Embiid and form this super team in Philly. It never happened. And now we feel like we're in the mix again. And if you want my honest opinion, it's probably going to end up the same way, where we get left at the altar. But I want to make the case for why LeBron James should come to Philly. And also, yes, like, we are wildly checking his Instagram stories every single day. We saw that he did play golf, and, you know, we did notice that in the background of that golf, there happened to be the Philadelphia skyline. So we're taking note, potentially, the fact that he's in New Jersey that he's potentially playing golf just nearby. So you know what we got? World class golf. Come on over, LeBron.
- [40:53]
A
That's the pitch. World class golf. Anthony.
- [40:57]
C
What?
- [40:58]
A
Here's the pitch. I can't do this for you.
- [41:01]
B
I got way more. I'm just.
- [41:02]
A
Bring it up. Come on. Bring it. It's a. It's a championship. It's an NBA championship. Star of city. They will revere him with like almost nowhere else if he can break the drought. Right? Since Moses Malone and Dr. J and Mo Cheeks. It hasn't happened. It is. There's. They are kind of right there. With the addition of Jalen Brown. Right. You're right there.
- [41:26]
B
Jacoby said four things. He wants to be happy. Tyrese Maxey is the happiest basketball player in the NBA. He plays with a smile on his face more than any player out there. Is why so many Philly fans and so many basketball fans across other fan bases, even Celtics and Knicks fans are like, we love Tyrese Maxey. How often do you have rival teams cheering for a guy like, they cheer for Tyrese Maxey and appreciate him. Championship team. You said it. With Jaylen Brown added in, they have a much higher regular season floor. They have a much more reliable score in the playoffs. Who has a much better injury track record. He wants to pass the torch. Guess where. You can't pass the torch. You can't pass the torch in Cleveland. You can't pass the torch in Miami. You certainly can't pass the torch in Golden State. The Sixers. His guy is right here. He loves Tyrese Maxey. He can pass the torch to Tyrese Maxey to usher in the next era of Sixers basketball. And you mentioned it, the city is so tired of this era of Philly. Philly hoops. And I think Jaylen Brown is the first piece that turns it and the second piece that turns it. I mean, if LeBron came to the Sixers, you would see an entirely new energy around this team. No longer would Knicks fans take over the Xfinity Mobile Arena. No longer would Sixers fans or casual Sixers fans say, hey, call me in April when we're in the second round so I can watch us lose. Because that's how it ends. Every single year that's out. People would be selling out that place. There's going to be excitement. I would be there. I would be looking into season tickets for the first time in my life. So the franchise that in my formative years said, we are trying to lose is now pushing chips all in and not for Joel Embiid. This is a new era. We're pushing chips in for Tyrese Maxey, for Jaylen Brown. That's why he needs to come past the torch.
- [43:08]
A
And Edgecombe got a. And also the golf ball. You got three guys there who can. Who can. Who can play. Listen, all right, now, we're into Philly sports, We're into Jalen's. We're into. Let's, let's. Let's touch on the Eagles. But I actually want to get to some baseball stuff with you. But it's too good a transition at this moment to talk Eagles. So maybe we do football first and we'll end with some baseball. Jalen Hertz was a. I thought when Carson Wentz started to regress and everyone was like, oh, no, Dan Orlowski used to argue this. Me, he's an MVP candidate. No, Dan, he stinks. He's not good. Like, he's beating teams in the. In the fourth quarter, like, because they all have their backup quarterbacks in the NFC east that year, every team in the east had a backup quarterback. Carson Wentz was struggling. He was turning the ball over on third down. He wasn't any good. But they were eking out wins. And when they drafted Jalen Hurts, I, you know, I was told, well, it's just because they need a backup quarterback. And I said at the time, on probably first take of what, you know. No, actually, they look like they're looking for a quarterback to replace Carson Wentz, who's not good anymore. He was good for that. Like, for really. He was really good for one season where he got hurt, and then Foles won the super bowl. And after that, he was never that good again. His. It was regression, year over year. I think you're nodding. I'm assuming you agree.
- [44:23]
B
Yeah, most people feel that way. And then the hit pieces started coming out and all the articles, the. What really happened behind the scenes. He wasn't coachable. He had divided the locker room. There was a lot of stuff that came out.
- [44:34]
A
Yeah. And, you know, and I was hearing that from those people, from some of those people who are writing it. I was hearing that and look. And watching pretty closely. Hertz shows up.
- [44:43]
B
He has.
- [44:43]
A
He flashes promise, but he doesn't seem to see the. Read the middle of the field. Great. And he's not, you know, it looks like he needed some help. They wound up getting A.J. brown. That opened everything up for him, in my view. A.J. brown ain't there anymore. Shane Steichen hasn't been there. He is you know, he has started to regress, it seems to me. What is the future that you see for this Eagles team, the immediate future in the absence of A.J. brown for Jalen Hurts and the Eagles.
- [45:17]
B
I think it's crazy when you think about it at face value to say this is the most important year of Jalen hurts his career because he's already won a Super Bowl. He's already won super bowl mvp. He's already done things that this city will revere him for forever. But that same season, the quote that has always stuck with me is that the biggest problem with the Eagles in December of 2024, before they went on to go in the Super Bowl, A.J. brown said it. The entire offense felt it. It was the passing game. And in 2025, he was reading books on the sideline. A.J. brown during the super, during the super bowl run, the team that ended up going on to dominate in the NFC Championship and in the super bowl and give this city an incredible revenge of Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs and Reed. Now, though, what we've seen in the last year and a half, they hire the passing game coordinator to be the offensive coordinator. Maybe not the best decision, but he gets a reboot. He gets somebody from outside the house, a new offensive philosophy to prove to the haters and the doubters of him that yes, he can throw over the middle of the field, that yes, he can throw with anticipation because he's going to be asked to do that this year. And if he does it, then he proves that all of the issues with the past of the Eagles offense really was on the coordinators and what he was being asked to do. And if he doesn't do it, all of a sudden we start to have questions about his future. This city will revere him forever, but this city is impatient and this city is very, very prone to recency bias. So if it's week six and the Eagles are two and three and the offense is nah, there's going to be calls of what his future is. And there's a divide. It's a very subtle divide. But Lurie and Roseman have very different answers when they get asked about Jalen Hurts. And I think it's kind of telling that Roseman is a little bit more coy in his answers. He's a little bit more, I'm not so sure because the front office, the analytics department, they all see, hey, look, we've had a top five offense at running back receiver o line forever and yet our offense is never quite that good. Like we rely on Fangio and the defense a lot more than we should. Why is that? And now we're going to find out.
- [47:26]
A
Yeah. Lurie, the owner. If the quarterback has a direct line to the owner, you might get a different answer than from the GM And Howie Roseman over the last bunch of years has an unimpeachable record like in Philadelphia. It's got to be like whatever how he says. I imagine it's so interesting because no other sport is like this. The NFL is such a. There's so many components that go into the success of a team and the quarterback gets as important as the quarterback is outsized. Credit and blame. Right. And that's a pretty well known. And I think of Jalen Hertz, who not only won a Super bowl, by the way, in an era where you don't get lopsided Super Bowls, well, you know, the Rams and Patriots notwithstanding, when you look at that Eagles season, that's one of the greatest teams of all time. Like they reminded me in terms of their dominance of the 85 bears and they don't seem to get discussed that way. But they destroyed everybody all year and then destroyed the reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs. Destroyed them in the Super Bowl. Like embarrassing. And so a guy like Hertz, who maybe was the best player on the field the first time they played the Chiefs and then wins Super Bowl MVP and has a consistent track record indeed, not just by reputation of consistently. You take his base level of performance, he raises it rises in the playoffs. And the bigger the moment in the playoffs, the better he is. He is an absolutely stone cold clutch all time performer with arguably you could argue who's the best player in two Super Bowls and he has a ring and yet I don't even know how good he is. Like, it's just like how do you go? Only in football, only in the NFL do you get that. And also the fan base may correctly be going, yeah, but he can't run it quite like he used to. And if he doesn't have we watch
- [49:37]
B
the games, we watch the games.
- [49:39]
A
If he doesn't have the other games in the middle of the like, he might not be like what? It's not like that in any other sport.
- [49:49]
B
It's so unique. And I think it's because once you have a certain reputation, the fan base or the commentariat, the media, they will craft the narrative however they want. You could always do it, right. If Aaron Judge goes over four with four strikeouts, you're not blame anybody but Aaron Judge, right. In basketball, if a player goes 10 for 28 from the field. We're blaming him, but there's so much more that goes into why an offense doesn't work. I mean, he played really badly. If you look at the stats against San Francisco in the playoffs last year, and I turned on WIP the minute the game ended on my drive home from my friend's house, and the first caller said, hertz and Sirianni both got to go. I'm like, wait a second. They just won the super bowl, like, not even a year ago. They're still the champions of the NFL until somebody else wins it. But you can kind of craft the narrative. And look, Eagles fans did this for Wentz. To a lot of Eagles fans in 2018 and 2019, those. Those years you were talking about were willing to blame the offensive coordinator. We're willing to blame the receiving core. We're willing to blame Doug Peterson, even, because they felt that Wentz had already proven a certain level of play and he already established enough that he was unassailable. But that does wear off, and that is on the verge of wearing off, especially because you hear these other little rumblings about Hertz as a teammate, as, like, a cold individual, as somebody who isn't always the most hunky dory with his guys. I mean, him and A.J. brown were supposed to be the closest of friends, and now it's like, who's going? Whose wedding? Were they at this guy's wedding or not? And. And every year, Tim McManus of ESPN comes out with a great article that details all the inside stuff that's really happening with the Eagles. So they're.
- [51:24]
A
It's unbelievable, because a couple years ago, it's like, he's the son of a coach, and he's exactly what you want, and he could be the face of the league. Him and Joe Burrow look like they're gonna. He's corny. Yeah. Yeah, it's corny. And people. All right, okay. So Hertz and the Eagles, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, and Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, they are both perceived to be in a position where they can bounce back from, especially in the Chiefs case, you know, they've never missed the playoffs with Patrick Mahomes. He's never missed the AFC Championship game. He never missed the AFC Championship game in his career and doesn't make the playoffs in. And it felt like, yeah, but he's going to figure it out on the last week of the season. No, he didn't. What do you, like, are you expecting the Chiefs to bounce back I feel
- [52:12]
B
like everybody's penciling that in. What's the evidence? Is it just the track record?
- [52:17]
A
Quarterback and coach. Quarterback and coach.
- [52:20]
B
Because I would argue it wasn't a one year thing, it was a two year thing. And it was. The dramatic decline of Patrick Mahomes is deep passing. So here's a stat for you. They were 10th in deep attempts the last two years. Of the 33 quarterbacks who qualified, where do you think Pat Mahomes ranked in completion rate on deep balls? Out of 33?
- [52:41]
A
Bottom. Like bottom third.
- [52:43]
B
30th. 30th. Down there with Mac Jones and Tyler Schuck.
- [52:50]
A
And by the eye test, by the eye test, do you think his arm did not look the same?
- [52:55]
B
He was just, he lost the deep ball accuracy. The stuff that made him the most superhuman quarterback was the escapability, which he still had. Certainly we've seen him still do that, but also the deep ball. And the deep ball is dead. And you can blame the receivers, you can blame a lot of different things, but we.
- [53:12]
A
Even the decline of Travis, the decline of Travis Kelsey. When you get a guy who's kind of always open and suddenly he's in decline and that's not as reliable a safety valve and, and you can't move the chains the same way, that probably also affects your, your, your deep passing game.
- [53:29]
B
Right. And people said it would be Tyreek Hill, but his best deep passing year was 2022. The first year.
- [53:35]
A
Spread it around. Yeah.
- [53:36]
B
And who are they throwing to? I mean, it wasn't a, it wasn't a crazy group of receivers that they had. And, and you know, it's gotten worse, but it's. He's gotten worse visibly. We watched so many passes where he had guys open and you're like, nope, missed him, missed him, missed him again. And now coming off of a major knee injury, what is the escapability of Pat Mahomes coming off of a torn acl? I mean, we're all penciling him in as a superhuman, as somebody who's going to bounce back and look exactly as he was last year and the year before when he wasn't as good, I'm not willing to do that. And we know this roster is worse. So unless Pat Mahomes is willing to bounce back and he'll always have the brain, he'll always have the clutch, he'll always have the third downs, but it's just not, he's not able to carry a team playing like this. And I just think he has to carry. And you know, we're seeing this with, with Kansas City and Baltimore and Buffalo, like their rosters all got worse and everybody was like, well, but the quarterback, but the quarterback, but the quarterback. And at a certain point it gets really hard to do that. And I think we're at that point
- [54:32]
A
with Mahomes, especially if you have a guy who relies on off schedule stuff. Like I think about athletes and other sports, I think about boxing a lot. Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins, who's from Philly, by the way, and when they were young, they fought for a vacant belt and Roy Jones was just too gifted athletically. The most gifted fighter maybe ever. And he beats Hopkins easy with one hand, literally had an injury in one hand, beat him with one hand and hop. But you know, they rematched when they were both over 40 and Roy Jones had. His athletic ability had diminished, but Hopkins, because he was not as athletic, had to rely on honing his craft and his technique getting better and better and better. And when they rematched, Hopkins beat him relatively easily because Roy Jones's talent in his prime precluded him from becoming the kind of fighter that Hopkins. That gave Hopkins longevity, right? And you look at Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady, for example, and, and Mahomes was on a trajectory where it was like, I can't believe I'm going to say this because Brady had at the time six championships, right? But could Patrick Mahomes catch Tom Brady one day and then they play each other and actually twice. First Brady knocks him out of the AFC Championship game. You know, there was a. What was it?
- [55:53]
B
Was it the famous offsides?
- [55:55]
A
Yes, it was a defensive penalty that, that otherwise they lose, but still he prevents Patrick Mahomes from going to the Super Bowl. Then he beats Patrick Mahomes in the super bowl, right, to get to which,
- [56:05]
B
by the way, you know, people talk about that game and there's still the video from the Tempe Bucs players who are literally on the sidelines sitting there going, holy shit. Like, Patrick Mahomes is doing things like, this guy's a magician because the O line was so bad and he was just running around in circles.
- [56:18]
A
You will remember Patrick Mahomes, his game, you know, he had kind of the most memorable game even as he was running for his life, doing kind of superhuman things. But the point is then Brady winds up on seven and but Mahomes, it's still like, I can't believe with Brady 7, Brady beating him twice, head to head, once for the super bowl. When Mahomes was young and he was old, oh, My God. But Mahomes was winning so much, you're like, what if he actually winds up with like five super bowl wins and because the eye test in his prime told you he was better than Brady, or at least more spectacular, maybe he'll be the goat. But at this moment, if I had to bet, I'm saying his ceiling is like third behind Brady Montana.
- [57:01]
B
Well, the thing is, he's never been humbled like this before. Right? Even their playoff losses where you had a bizarre second half collapse, I guess you could say, you could say he was humbled in the super bowl against Brady. And then he responded by having the best season of his career the next two years and going back to the super bowl and winning two in a row. So, like, this is maybe the second time we'll say that he's truly been humbled. Where you're looking at him going, okay, like, you had a down year and your deep ball is gone, and now you're coming off a major injury and your roster is worse. So this is where, you know, he has to find that next level. And maybe it is him becoming better mechanically, but maybe that's just always been a part of his game and you're not going to be able to ever coach that into him. He relies on the, the spontaneity to be the superstar, and that doesn't make him. That makes him an incredible quarterback. I'd argue his first six, seven, eight years of his career are the best start to a career we had. It's not even close.
- [57:54]
A
Easily. Not even close easily.
- [57:55]
B
So, like, expecting him to have Brady longevity, probably unfair. But what if he did?
- [58:01]
A
Like, even if Brady longevity is almost impossible, right? I would say it's impossible. Brady was never gifted like Mahomes, so he had to do the Bernard Hopkins and acquire his skills, you know, the, the hard way, and, and develop with a great coach. Although Mahomes has probably an equally great coach, you know, that. That helped him along the way. But Brady was also able to elevate like his prime happened in the second half of his career, where at first he was like the Derek Jeter guy to Peyton Manning's a rod. A rod always had better numbers than Jeter. Peyton always had better numbers than Brady. But the guy you kind of wanted on your team, the winner was Jeter and Brady, and were Jeter and Brady, although it felt like, yeah, but you're giving them credit for the team they're on, the coach they have all that kind of stuff. And. But then Brady. Something interesting happened in the second Half of his career. I mean, they got Randy Moss and you know, but he started putting up Peyton Manning numbers. Right. He knows now it's like he's the Jeter guy, but he's putting up a rod numbers. And then he. Brady, like Kobe, like Jeter, like guys who are great and in the playoffs remain themselves so they're still great. Get kind of outsized, clutch credit. Right. Like the guys who actually, who are amazing, they're the best ever. And then in the biggest moments, they actually elevate. Yeah, again, indeed. You could look it up. Mariano Rivera, Michael Jordan, they're qualitatively different than Jeter and Kobe and Brady over the first half of Brady's career because they actually were the best ever. And they actually did get better when it mattered most. All the time. All the time. Mariano Rivera, his ERA cut in a third into a third of what it was in the regular season. And in the regular season, it was the lowest of all time. Adjusted ERA all time. And it was one third of his regular season RA in 140 post season innings. Like it really happened like that. Jordan was the same type of thing. Brady, over the second half of his career, kind of left the Jeter Kobe group and actually entered the Jordan Rivera group in the sense that he actually, in fact got better when it mattered most. He was like. He wasn't. It wasn't an illusion. Well, Brady's always great and he's still great. Here it is a clutch moment. No, he somehow got better when it mattered most. He really did it. So the odds that Patrick Mahomes is going to catch that, when he has been able to rely on otherworldly gifts so far and has not had to be brought along the way Brady did in the first half of his career, I think makes it highly unlikely that he can replicate even some kind of mini version of that, what Brady did.
- [60:36]
B
Well, would you argue though that Mahomes has already done what Brady did in the second half and elevate in the biggest moment? Yeah, like the comebacks. The comebacks that Mahomes was pulling off early career stuff, it's unmatched. I mean, it was like Andrew Luck did it for like two years, shine bright, but didn't shine for long. And then it's like Pat Mahomes is the greatest. And all the stats, it like breaks. It's like the Knicks in the playoffs every game. It's like other teams are 2 and 106 and Pat Mahomes Holmes is 500 when trailing by 14 in the fourth quarter. It's like, wait a minute, this is unbelievable. So that trait still carries with him, I think, but I'm not sure. I would bet, I wouldn't bet against him, but I am betting against him this year.
- [61:15]
A
It was a long shot given Brady's longevity. But I agree with you that the thing that Brady lacked, at least in the first half of his career was the peak didn't seem to be quite as high maybe as the peak of Patrick Mahomes. Maybe you could argue that. But man, then it got pretty high in the second half of his career and then he wound up with seven and twice knocking Mahomes out in the, in the championship game and in the Super Bowl. I, I, the Brady, I'm a Manning,
- [61:42]
B
I'm a Manning guy, right? Pandemic is my favorite athlete of all time. I'll say that when they retired, it was like a pretty debatable thing. I mean, Manning had won another Super Bowl. Yes, he was carried to it. MVPs were pretty comparable in 2015 and then or MVP was, were in favor of Manning and he had the stats right. And then Brady went on and had another, you know, five to six year career where he won three more super bowl. And it's like, okay, maybe, maybe we can't do this debate anymore. You know, there is a world where, where Mahomes ends up in that Manning plus category where he had this incredible career and maybe the longevity isn't there, but you still feel like, yeah, but when we watch those two guys together, they were neck and neck.
- [62:16]
A
I disagree, I disagree with your assessment of Peyton, who was great. Like Peyton is probably the best regular season football player of all time. Like Peyton Manning, probably. He had more value during the regular season than any player who ever lived. He was like really, really incredible when it mattered most guys had. I don't know if it's because guys had time to prepare. I don't know. It's because, if it's because, you know, it's like in baseball the junk baller isn't going to play in the playoffs, right? Because every, everyone's smart and everyone can hit. You need stuff to win in the playoffs. And maybe Peyton Manning was doing it so cerebrally he didn't have the raw stuff maybe that some of the other guys did physically, what, because Brady had a strong army. But whatever it is, Peyton Manning consistently, especially in the first half of his career, underperformed in the playoffs. It's like if you lose to the Jets 41 nothing or whatever that is, I get it. It's you know, but nothing. There's the nothing side of it. It's not just that you gave up all the points you didn't score. Right. Like at all.
- [63:11]
B
Yeah.
- [63:12]
C
So.
- [63:12]
B
And there were 306, 307. I would agree with you. Yes.
- [63:15]
A
Yeah. And then. Yeah, and then you're right. In the second half of his career, he kind of got over that and figured some stuff out. But Pat or anyway, Ravens and Lamar Jackson, my Giants stole the coach. Lamar is trending in the right direction in the playoffs. If you look at his playoff exits, he went from early in his career a deer in headlights. Oh, my God, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. And then in the second half of that first playoff game already saw, you know what? That's better than the first half. And then the next year in the playoffs, you know what? That was better than the previous year. And the next year, the same thing. Oh, he's getting better every year. He seems to be getting playing better when it matters most. And then this past season, he may have had his best losing playoff game, but are the Ravens trending up and is Lamar Jackson trending in that direction?
- [64:03]
B
You. You said the Ravens. The Giants stole their coach. I will say this, the Ravens fans will not be pressing charges for the Giants taking John Harbaugh looked the other way. They were pretty. They were pretty happy to see John out the door. Hey, great, great time. You won us a Super Bowl. You did a lot of great things in Baltimore. We're ready to move on. And I know a lot of Ravens fans who, if it were possible, it wasn't possible because Harbaugh was the coach and he was the mentor for McDonald. They wanted McDonald to be the coach three years ago and they had no choice because McDonald was going to go do something somewhere else. But now they're ready. It's a new era of Ravens football. But my question is, everybody's excited about Lamar. Is the roster ready? Because I look at the depth chart of the Ravens and I look at an offensive line that is not really up to snuff of what we've used to be seeing from this team that doesn't have a prime names running back anymore. Derek Henry. We say this every year. Eventually there will be a drop off. Maybe not this year, but eventually. And you look at their defense with two starting corners over 30 and a pass rush that hopefully will be rejuvenated by Hendrickson, but I'm not so sure otherwise. And you're like, okay, this team that was super injured last year and has had a lot of injury bad luck over the years, is still relying on a lot of the same core guys. So while Lamar might be more reliable, I'm not sure this roster is and everybody again like the Chiefs is penciling them in for a bounce back and they're at the top of the odds board and I am a little bit dubious.
- [65:28]
A
What do you think, especially if you have a quarterback where they design a lot of runs for him as he gets older, that's going to diminish. Do you think that Lamar Jackson has improved as a passer? He's always been incapable of making spectacular passes. The question is, can you do that consistently and yes and all that. You know that that can be the, that can be the bedrock of your game. Do you think he has progressed in that area to the point where as his speed diminishes he can have a set, a different kind of second half of his career?
- [65:58]
B
Well, I think the thing is like they relied so much on explosive plays from Henry and Jackson with their legs that we don't know what they look like in a high volume pass offense. They've never been that. They never had to be that. But with the O line falling apart a little bit, they might have to be that more often. And we saw like you said, like the Pittsburgh game last year, game, whatever the last game of the season was, I mean he was amazing, right? He played an incredible game and they lost because the special teams and some bad defense. You could sell me a world where they have the similar problems this year where it's like the offense is pretty good and I'm not saying they're going to be a bad team, I'm just saying I'm not penciling them in as the AFC favorite.
- [66:32]
A
But if he can play like that, if he can play like that this upcoming season with the money, the way he played with the money on the line, like if he can get the ball out quick and play the way he did in that losing effort, I think they're going to be pretty good. Like Lamar looked pretty good. I thought he, that that was, that may have been the best playoff game he's ever played with the money on the lot.
- [66:55]
B
And the Ravens fans are very convinced that with Minter and then Weaver coming in like that, they have the McDonald light blueprint where we're going to get the smart defensive mind and we're going to pair him with a really talented quarterback in the case of Lamar Jackson and then Lamar will worry about the offense, Minter worry about the defense. It's A new era of Ravens football like this. This roster, though, again, has just gotten stale to me. And I think we'll look and we'll know pretty quickly. We'll know in the first month of the season what does their defense look like. Because they play a lot of bad teams to start the season. Their schedule is very friendly like that first month. So if it works and it comes out early and we're like, wow, like the Ravens are four. No. And they're dominating people, I'll admit I'm wrong. But if they come out and they're squeaking by these, these bad teams to start the season, Colts, week one at home, you like their chances there, then maybe it's a different conversation. And maybe we're like, what happens when they go up against these better quarterbacks, these better offenses? Because I think that defense is fought.
- [67:48]
A
Meantime, my Giants grabbed Harbaugh. You said they were happy to see him go, but just to have core competency, right? Just competent head coach to. To get them competitive to win those games with, you know, those games that the Giants lost, a lot of games they should have won last year. You win half of those and it's a whole. It's a different story. Jackson Dart, to me, he reminds me a lot of Patrick Mahomes, actually, off schedule stuff. He doesn't have Mahomes arm talent, but he has plenty of arm talent. I think he's a. I think he's a spectacularly talented quarterback. He needs to know when to slide, obviously. And for the first time in a long time, the Giants seem to be on, you know, they seem to be on the right track in terms of the offensive line, the offensive line, since they won the Super Bowls, you know, Since. Since. Since 2011 was year after year among the very worst in the NFL. Saquon Barkley. They let him walk out the door for nothing because he was getting like Saquon was being sacked. If you are tackled in the backfield, but if you don't break the line of scrimmage, it's called a sack. He just wasn't going to throw the ball. The offensive line was so bad and on top of that, there were no receivers, so you couldn't get the running game going. They have the most talented quarterback in my lifetime watching the Giants, just in terms of pure talent. They have, they had a pretty good offensive line last year, actually. The porn performed pretty well and they added talent to it. They have probably the most versatile group of pass rushers in the front seven, maybe in the NFL. Certainly they're a candidate. They're like one of those teams you talk about that way. They have a really improved receiving core. Their running back, who's excellent, is getting healthy. Like I don't. I look at the the NFC East. Yes, the Dallas Cowboys did some good things. They seem to do that every off season. And yet they're usually a pretty good team. Not great. They don't have a great quarterback. The Eagles, we discussed them earlier. They don't look like they're about to repeat as champions. Washington could go anyway. Okay. I don't know. I'm pretty bullish on the Giants. Welcome to a new era of baseball's great spectacle. The T Mobile Home Run Derby live on Netflix. The biggest sluggers in baseball put their talents to the test on All Star Weekend. Raw power meets star power, big swagger meets bigger slams. And you don't swing to make contact. You swing to make history. Watch the T Mobile Home Run Derby live on Netflix tonight at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. I want to talk some baseball before we get out of here with you, because we never get to talk baseball. All the first thing is I've been wanting to talk about the Miz Jacob Mizarowski forever on this show because he is a phenom. Like of the 40 fastest pitches thrown this year, it's like he has all of them, right? Or 38 of them, whatever. In a league where everyone's throwing 100 miles an hour, he's amazing. But it also occurs to me that the radar guns that are used today are, I think, six miles an hour faster. Is that right? Six miles an hour faster than the guns that used. When I was a kid, when a 95 mile an hour fastball was a hard fastball. When most guys threw low 90s, that was like, your fastball is 92. That's a good major league fastball. Now it's like, oh, you have to throw 98. Well, yeah, if the radar gun is six miles an hour faster, that's still a night. It's the same fastball, right? So when I see Mizorowski throw all these hard, you know, 100 mile an hour pitches, well, what's going to happen to his arm? I mean, I think about Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan was throwing if that if there is a six mile an hour adjustment to be made, he was throwing just as hard as Mizrowski and he was throwing complete games all the time. And he pitched for 25 or 24 years, whatever it was, and he was better at the end of his career than he was in the beginning of his career. Right. But then it occurs to me that no one who throws like that fastball, curveball, seems to pitch very long anymore, it seems. So I don't know what's going on. I want to know if you have a theory.
- [71:54]
B
So we. We go back and forth on this in the baseball community. Like, we get so excited, right? Fantasy people get excited. The pitching ninja gets excited. Everybody's like, oh, my goodness, this guy's throwing 210 miles an hour. And it's like you're at the zoo and you see this incredible animal and you're sitting there and you're like, wow, this is the most majestic thing I've ever seen. And then you learn that, like, it's only gonna be there for a couple of days, and then it's gonna leave and you're never gonna see it again. And that is the fear that I have now when I watch these incredible pitchers.
- [72:22]
A
Slide, damn it. Jackson. Dart. Slide. Slide.
- [72:25]
B
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's like, oh, that's great. I wanna keep watching him. I don't wanna read the report from Jeff Passon at ESPN in a couple days or in a couple months or a couple years that says he's got an elbow issue. He's going to visit Dr. Neil Elatrache and he's going to have Tommy John surgery. And we won't see him for two years. Because every year it seems to be that they. If you just take the fan graphs chart, and you sort by velocity of fastball, and you take the top 10 starters and you draw a red X through every pitcher that's had an injury of some kind in the arm or the shoulder. By a certain point, every name gets crossed off. And so Miz right now is healthy. He's amazing. I go out of my way to watch him pitch. When you toss on the old MLB TV when the brewers are playing, he struck out the Phillies 15 times in one start. It was amazing to watch. Even though he's against my team, I love watching it.
- [73:14]
A
That might have been the most dominant start since Kerry wood struck out 20 and a one hitter or whatever it was, Right?
- [73:20]
B
Yeah. And yet you're sitting there like, okay, that's great. Can he throw like three miles an hour? Less, please, so we can watch.
- [73:28]
A
Why is that so? Famously, Sandy Koufax, a pitching coach called, told Koufax, take a few miles an hour off the fastball so you can spot it. Right? But Mizarowski spotting his fastball fine. If you can spot fastball fine. I like Nolan Ryan is the one. Araldes Chapman too, was the exception.
- [73:46]
B
He was the exception. Well, that's, that's what I'll say. Like, everybody throws 95 now. So the fastball.
- [73:52]
A
But, so first of all, if 95 is really 89, what 89 used to be, it ain't that fast. 95, if it's. Is it a six mile an hour difference to your knowledge?
- [74:03]
B
So from the very old days. Yes, but not from 2008. So Baseball America wrote a piece on this 2008 when, when two years after Tim Salmon retired. So Tim Salmon was the one who made this comment, I guess, that, that the radar guns are juiced. The average fastball was 91.4 and that was with the modern gun. Now it's 94.6. So we've gone up three miles in 18 years, which doesn't seem like a
- [74:26]
A
lot, but is they're playing. In other words, they're throwing with more maximum effort or with more effort throughout the game.
- [74:33]
B
Yeah, yeah. And you know, Sarris has done great work on this too. He said that like it's, it's the closer. You sit to your max. So like if you can throw 98, that's great. And some of the best guys with Verlander, right, would sit 94, 95. And then when it was two strikes and there was two guys on base, they break out the 97, they break out the 90, they break out the heat, right? And I think what we're seeing is that the guys who are just like, yep, you're five innings. We want it, we want you to really popping the stuff models. We want you to really look great for the stats, for the ninja, for all the, all the analytics. Those guys are the ones that are getting hurt faster. But also it's how teams make decisions. There's a lot of money at stake here. Dylan Cease's stuff is amazing. So nobody cares what his ERA is because they know he's going to strike guys out because his stuff is so good. So, like, you know what? You should go out and you should throw as hard as you can. And there's a whole, there's all this other stuff too. Health insurance, right? If you're on the big league team and you just come up from AAA and you throw 97, but really you should probably throw 95. But if you throw 97, you blow out your arm. That all is covered by the medical team. Major league team. It's a little different in the minor leagues. So I think there's, there's all kinds of things at play here, where showcasing yourself in the big leagues is what everybody wants to do.
- [75:44]
A
You're okay. What I just learned, if this is correct, what I just learned is the mistake that I'm making in my thinking about this, or what I haven't understood until now is that it's, if it's the closer you sit to your maximum velocity on a pitch by pitch basis that is the injury risk, then the, the ask for more intensity is, you know, over a shorter span. But to throw everything closer to your maximum velocity is the real issue here. Right? Like, so even if they don't pop out any faster than they used to, because if Nolan Ryan threw 100.8 miles an hour a couple times in like 79 or 80, that's the equivalent of 106 point. It's almost 107 miles an hour today, right? If it's six mile an hour difference. But he, but on a pitch by pitch basis, the starter, even if Ron Guidry could hit 95, he's not going to live at 95. Whereas nowadays if a guy can hit, because that would be 101 today, if a guy could hit 101, he's going to try to live as close to that as possible. And that's the extra stress on the arm. And we see the same thing in basketball, by the way, when you play defense on every possession and you're, and you're picking up guys, full court and the whole thing, like there's more intensity on every play, there will be more injuries, more soft tissue injuries, more catastrophic injuries. It does seem to be at least, at least anecdotally to me watching as a fan, that does seem to be the case with, with a greater premium placed on every kind of possession, on every moment of the game. The human body can only take so much. And so the pace and space, more
- [77:18]
B
pace, more space, more wear and tear, more injuries, more everything. That's. But everybody wants more. That's sports. We're all trying to optimize, we're all trying to get the edge. We're going to throw harder, we're going to hit harder.
- [77:27]
A
I don't know, is that, is there a way to fix that? Because I think people really would like to see starters pitch deeper into games and, and you know, like when, when a couple of guys are throwing 200 innings in a year, I think people would prefer to see guys at least. Maybe it's just people in my generation, but I'd like to see it.
- [77:44]
B
But would they, would they take losing more games over that. Like that's the trade off in theory, right? The analytics say you shouldn't let the pitcher see a hitter a third time. You shouldn't let the pitcher, you know, kill himself in April when we have games in October that are going to mean more that that the fan base is going to judge us on win, loss. People say they have preferences, but deep down, like if you're. Nobody's like, you know, I can't believe the Dodgers won the World Series, but they didn't pitch Ohtani until August.
- [78:08]
A
I mean, no, I want everyone else, I want everyone else to do that so my team can have the advantage of modern athletics. It was so easy when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I could have a kid. I could have walked off the street and been better than most GMs because they were functionally like mentally disabled. Like they. It was. Are you joking? You know, because the information was widely known. Like if anyone who played Stratamatic even before, before I was born would understand. Well, yeah, you don't want to have a guy with a.250 on base percentage lead off. I don't care how fast he is. But guys were doing stuff like that. Like, you know, managers were managing that way and GMs were constructing teams that way. And that's just. But, and so like you were looking for all these analytic advantages. High leverage relievers, you know, stuff like, you know, don't, you don't need them for the save. Just bring them in with a guy on second base, less than two outs, it's a one run game. Heart of the lineup, son. That's when I need my relief ace, right? And just let a guy with a, who's going to throw some strikes and not blow up, save a three run save opportunity like, you know, his ERA would. He'd have to average an er. If you give up one run an inning, that's a three, three, three ERA on average. On average that player will save almost all of his two run chances, right? His three run chances, he'll give up. On average, he'll allow a game to be tied once every three games. I know it doesn't work exactly like that, but I'm doing like, you know, by the numbers. So there were all kinds of analytic advantages you could get. And nowadays and the logical outcome, the, the, the absurd logical outcome has been a product that's less fun to watch than it used to be, I think right. When everyone looked finally, what. And like an idiot for years I was like pushing for that on tv. These Idiots, you know, use the analytics. And it ruined, it ruined a lot of baseball for me. So, you know, I guess I got what I.
- [80:05]
B
But his baseball coming back is the pitch clock bringing it back.
- [80:07]
A
Yeah.
- [80:07]
B
Like where just because the Yankees victims.
- [80:10]
A
The larger bases. The larger bases also, I think is more than the pitch clock. The fact that guys can steal bases again is a lot of fun. I would love to see them do something about batting averages because I understand that your best hitter is going to hit second now and not third. Like, like they used to and stuff like that. And that the game changes. But the three true outcomes. Hitter. The, the, the, you know, the, the guys. The. He's leading the team in, in batting average. He's hitting 2. 71. You know, I, whatever that is. Like, I, I really.
- [80:40]
B
My favorite hitter in baseball is, is Kyle Schwaber. He's a Philly, of course, and he's leading the league in home runs and he's got a 34% strikeout rate and I find it to be beautiful. But also like the dinger is really cool. And like whether you ground out to second or strike out, it doesn't really matter to me. I only care. I'm here for the dingers and the doubles and the grand slams, the singles
- [81:00]
A
and the walks too. Right. Like, you know, got other guys for that.
- [81:03]
B
Yeah.
- [81:05]
A
Do you.
- [81:06]
B
You can't build a whole team.
- [81:07]
A
No one has, no one's hit a whole team for average. No one's hitting for average.
- [81:12]
B
Yeah. There's like one guy left. Yeah, pretty much.
- [81:15]
A
Well, Aaron Johnson.
- [81:16]
B
People, people hit for on base. You know, they want to take walks.
- [81:19]
A
So it's good. So I agree, working the count is good. It's not the most consumer friendly product, but it is good. So that leads me to my next thing. Aaron Judge. Yes, Aaron Judge, who came, I don't know, a couple hits away from a Triple Crown. But not just a Triple Crown. It was like a, it was. He was going to lead the league in 10 or 11 of the most important offensive categories. Like he was having one of the most spectacular seasons of all time. Barely missed the Triple Crown and playing, by the way, center field like half the time and decently. Yes, he's hurt right now. Shohei Ohtani, I've heard referred to as the greatest player of all time. It's become fashionable to say, I just want to disabuse people of this notion and I want to hear your reaction. Shohei Ohtani is doing a very difficult thing. What he is doing to excel at this level when baseball Is much more of a worldwide game. So the population that plays it is much larger. So you get much less deviation from the mean. The average player, many few players who are 10 times better than the average player and 10 times worse than the average player. Right. Because it's more homogenized now and people play it in an organized way since the cradle. And they're third generation baseball players. I get it. To dominate the way Shohei is dominating on both sides of the ball is much more difficult than what Babe Ruth did. I understand that. But in his league, even if it's a much more difficult league, he's not the best player in it in terms of value. Like you can hit for the cycle. That's rarer. It's more difficult in a way because you need speed, you need this than it is to hit three home runs in a game. But it doesn't have as much value. Shohei Ohtani is a great hitter. There is an enormous chasm between him and Aaron Judge. Aaron Judge is so much of a better hitter than Shohei Ohtani that they're not comparable. Judge is, you know, is comparable only in the history of baseball to Babe Ruth and Ted Williams really when you get down to it. Maybe Mickey Mantle at his best. Barry Bonds not on the. Yeah, Barry before the Juice. No, he's better than Bonds before the Juice.
- [83:24]
B
Well, I don't mind the juice. Yeah, but if you're comparing across eras, I mean everybody.
- [83:28]
A
No, but, but the difference is. No, but the difference is even through the steroid era, Barry Bonds was giving you a mid fours on base and a mid sixes slugging. He's one of the greatest left fielders of all time. But then at the age of 35, he started out of the blue giving you a 600 high 500 to 600 on base and an.800 slugging. I'm sorry, he is not capable of doing that. That is not a representation of who he's been his whole career. It was sudden, dramatic and new and a 100% result of what he was doing at that moment in time where there's a clear demarcation that cannot be explained. There were no external changes. The ballpark was the same. The baseballs didn't suddenly change. He didn't switch teams. Suddenly at the age of 35, he woke up and became a fundamentally different offensive player. Many standard deviations better than he already was, which was one of the best of all time already. So no, you don't count that. And whether or not you know that is, that is absurd. Because it's so clear what it is. It's not him. That's not Barry Bonds. That is what Barry Bonds was taking.
- [84:40]
B
I was like 5 years old, but I still watch the highlights. People ask me who's the one athlete you wish you could have seen and old enough to like truly appreciate. It's like oh, Michael Jordan. Oh, is it, is it some, you know, is it Joe Montana? And I say no, it's actually Barry Bonds.
- [84:52]
A
Yeah, Barry Bonds on the stuff was the most dominant athlete in any sphere ever. But again, he was incapable in any universe of ever doing it without it. By fact. That is a statement of fact, not an opinion. There's a mountain of like. There's no evidence you can present, not a single shred of evidence that can be presented on the other side of that argument. It is all one way. It is objective and true and clear. By the way, that all said, he's a first ballot hall of Famer. It's an embarrassing cuz he was already before he did that, one of the greatest players who ever lived. That's the problem with Bonds. It's like, it's like Captain America was a 95 pound weakling who gets on super soldier serum and, and maxes out human potential. But imagine if you gave super soldier serum to like LeBron James, right? Like to the greatest athlete on earth. That's what Barry Bonds was. He was already one of the best players who ever lived when he then transformed into the Incredible Hulk. But anyway, we digress. When you take Bonds on the stuff out of the equation, Judge is a better hitter than Bonds, better offensive player than Bonds, maybe not a better overall player, but better at the plate with the bat in his hand. I mean, and he's, and his value as a player is greater than the combined value of Shohei Ohtani, hitter and pitcher. So if you're not the best player in your own league, the major leagues, meaning how can you be the greatest player of all time? I yield the floor.
- [86:26]
B
Well, I think here's the question, right? And this is why, you know, we haven't had to have this debate in a lot of ways because they switch leagues. So they both can just get MVPs every year, right? Ohtani goes to the National League and they both get mvp. The one year where we had the two guys kind of at the peak of their powers and we said, well the WAR stats like F war the nerds, they say, well because he pitches, he's higher rated. So we, we should give it to Ohtani. But they're like actually this one year when Judge is hitting broke the record. When he broke the AL home run record, they said, actually we're going to give it to Judge this year. And it would have been so fascinating if media were forced every single year to do the debate of whether Ohtani or Judge is actually.
- [87:04]
A
Let me stop you one second. When Judge has been healthy for a full season, his total WAR is always higher than Ohtani's. Has Ohtani had a single season when combining offense and pitching he's ever matched Judges war when Judge has been healthy?
- [87:19]
B
Well, Judge did miss a little bit of time last year, but yeah, the last full 2025. Right. Ohtani didn't. 2024. Ohtani didn't pitch 2025. He only pitched about half the season. 2023, Ohtani wanted over Judge. Judge missed time, but Ohtani was on a better trajectory.
- [87:35]
A
Yeah, but again, but. But if Judge missed time, that's affecting his play. Judge has had three seasons in recent years where he has been by and large healthy the whole year. In each one of these seasons, he's not just a little bit ahead of Ohtani in total value in terms of war, he's substantially ahead of Ohtani's combined offense and pitching war. To my understanding. Unless I'm reading it wrong. Correct.
- [87:59]
B
I would need to check the 2022 numbers. But. But I'll make the point. You're not making the case that Ohtani is the most overrated player and that he's not actually the greatest. You're making the case, which I agree with, is that Judge is actually underrated and that because people latch onto playoff narratives. And I think, you know, baseball's place in the sporting ecosystem, so many people really only follow their team until it really counts. When it's October. And to his fault, Judge has not always had the best Octobers. That has docked him in this idea because they've watched Ohtani levitate in the last two playoffs to a new level.
- [88:31]
A
Whereas has he. Was Otani better than he normally is in the playoffs? I don't. I don't recall that. I recalled Ohtani being up and down in the playoffs.
- [88:40]
B
Right, right. But. But he has the moments that people remember. He has the. Gets on base nine times.
- [88:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. That was one of the greatest games of all time, for sure.
- [88:46]
B
The three home runs plus the pitching. Right. So. So people. For that I'm agreeing with you. Judge is the most underrated player in the history of baseball.
- [88:54]
C
But.
- [88:55]
B
But that's what I'll say. I don't want to call Ohtani overrated. I want to call Judge underrated if
- [88:58]
A
people are saying, oh, I'm talking about
- [89:00]
B
the scale of how good is hitting it.
- [89:02]
A
But, but if Ottoman is being called the greatest player ever and he isn't in terms of his peak value, then he is being overrated. And by the way, he's skipping a lot of guys, not just Babe Ruth, who Babe Ruth was. I understand Babe Ruth didn't play against black players, although he may have been like, you know, Babe Ruth. There's, there's plenty of evidence or there is some evidence to suggest Babe Ruth was at least partly African American. Right. But nevertheless he didn't play in an integrated league. I get it. There wasn't kind of professional, organized or organized baseball at a youth level like there was. It was much easier to become much better than everyone else in your league when Ruth played. I would just point out Babe Ruth was better in his league than anyone has ever been in any professional league. It's not just, it's any Japanese league, it's in, it's in any minor league. It's like no one has ever dominated their contemporaries ever. Like Babe Ruth. That's just offensively in terms of his pitching. He was not only the best left hander in the league, he set the consecutive scoreless innings pitching record in the World Series and that lasted longer than his home run records. Right. Furthermore, until Barry Bonds, one of the best players ever by ill gotten gains, had the single end career home run records, those two titles were split. Maris had the 61, Hank Aaron had the 714. It took one of the best players who ever lived, Barry Bonds, to jump on stuff that turned him superhuman to do what Roof did. And Barry Bonds wasn't the greatest clutch left handed starting pitcher in the history of the World Series by the way. Right. So I fail to see the argument that Ohtani is greater than Babe Ruth. But there are others too that probably in their primes or like, like for example his contemporary Aaron Judge, who in his best seasons is better than Ohtani in his best seasons. Unless I'm missing something, right?
- [91:04]
B
I mean judge consistently is 20% better as a hitter. People kind of just conflate them. They're like, oh, they're roughly even as hitters. That's a big gap. It's worth saying. I agree with you on that.
- [91:12]
A
I want to talk about Bobby one, one more thing, by the way. I don't want to seem like, I don't want to say seem like I'm anti Shohei Ohtani. Shohei Ohtani is incredible. I never thought I'd see a player like him. And I, I, I doubt I ever will again. Right. Like, I understand why people are so taken by him. Because while it's easy, as you said, to kind of conflate or confuse a great hitter, there are levels among great hitters. Like Ken Griffey Jr. And Barry Bonds were both great offensive players. Barry Bonds is a better offensive player. Like, there is a higher level even than Ken Griffin. It's worth more runs. Right. It's worth more wins.
- [91:46]
B
Tears.
- [91:47]
A
There are tears. Shohei Ohtani is just about as good a hitter as you're going to see. Just about. But there are better hitters and even one significantly better hitter. But the fact that he can do that and then pitch to a sub 2 era is insane. It's insane. I get why people are so taken by him, but you were going to say something about the Yankees.
- [92:08]
B
Yeah, the Yankees this year, 15 and 19 without Judge, 36 and 23 with Judge. They're a whole run per game higher with Judge in the lineup then.
- [92:16]
A
So it's basically a run a night. Yeah. 162 games. What? You know, it's a lot of runs. I want to talk about Bobby Whit Jr. And we've been talking a long time, so maybe we'll end it here. Bobby Witt Jr. I've been. And the reason I'm doing this, I'm using you as an excuse to just geek out on baseball. He is, he is one of the greatest players of all time so far. I'm not saying he's as good as Ohtani, because Ohtani is also among the greatest ever. But the thing about Bobby Witt so far that you have to, that, that really blows me away. Like, I remember Cal Ripken Jr. Who, you know, the ironman. Never missed a game. Incredibly important. Amazing that you can pencil him in every year, 162 games, and he's never going to be less than a good defensive player at the most important position, and he's never going to be less than a very good hitter at the most important at the hardest position to find the offense at. Right. So he's amazing. But Cal Ripken, probably partly because he played through injury one year, is like a prototypical number three hitter back then, which means the best hitter on the team. But many years was like a number six or seven type hitter. Even if they hit him fifth in the lineup or sixth in the lineup, you know, he was, it was. It's kind of hard to plan the season around and Your offense around a guy who's whose excellence goes from good to all time great, but fluctuates greatly year to year. And then on the other hand there's a guy like Derek Jeter who gives you basically the same offense every year. He's going to be an elite number one or number two hitter every year. Even if his defensive metrics didn't grade out like Ripken and he wasn't a power guy, at least by the standards of that era. Bobby Witt Jr. Does everything. You can pencil him in for 150 plus games a year. He plays stellar defense, he hits as well. Nowadays the best hitter on the team hits second. He hits like a prototypical 2 hitter now or 3 hitter back then. But in any era you could hit him 1, 2, 3 or 4. Which are the four best spots. In any era he you're getting that premium defense and incredible offense at the mo at the hardest position to find it and the most important non catching defensive position. And in addition to all that, the guy steals, bases and never gets caught. Like he's kind of being overshadowed by Ohtani and Judge, but oh my God. And this guy's in the middle of his prime.
- [94:44]
B
He did something that I don't think is possible. And like it almost makes me question the analytics of defensive metrics in baseball. And I know a lot of people have mixed opinions on those, but in 2022 he was a rookie and he graded out as the worst defensive shortstop in baseball. And in 2023 as a second year player, he graded out as the best defensive shortstop in baseball.
- [95:04]
A
Think about it.
- [95:04]
B
The best, the best shortstop, which is the best position and most important with center field in baseball. He went from the worst his rookie year to the literal best. And so you're like, okay, well you know, law of averages, we do some regression. He'll probably be somewhere in the middle in 2024 or 2025. Nope, he was the best in 2024. He was the second best in 2025 and so far this year he's up there as one of the best again. So the guy in one year went from flipping the switch to the immediate best defensive player in the sport, arguably along with, you know, Peter, Peter Armstrong from the Cubs who play center field. And then you combine the hitting. Now the hitting has not been as good this year, so there are some questions. And you know, the Royals are struggling, the parks changed a little bit this year. People have been like, okay, he hasn't really tapped into the power, right. He's only on pace to hit about 22 homers, which is less than he did in his peak seasons. But at a certain point when the guy is consistently coming in second or third for MVP behind Aaron Judge, you know, it's kind of.
- [96:03]
A
You're designing a team, Anthony. Right. And so like you think about, you could pick any player in baseball. You're designing your team. Oh, time.
- [96:10]
B
You're redrafting.
- [96:11]
A
No, no. Yeah. No, you're just right. You're starting a franchise. You can, you can have access to any player in baseball. Who's your number one draft pick. Judge is in his 30s and he is injury prone from like, you know, you don't there. He hasn't played every season, full seasons. He only had about four or five full seasons in his career out of like 10 or whatever it is at this point. Shohei Ohtani is amazing. He's a DH and a pitcher who doesn't pitch full seasons. Right. Bobby Witt Jr. Is a shortstop who plays full seasons every year and gives you Gold Glove defense and power. High batting average by the standards of this era. High on base percentage, slugs, steals, bases smart base, like he does everything. He's kind of the guy, if you're starting a franchise that you would take
- [97:01]
B
first, I would too agree. Because the other guys, all the other top hitters in baseball right now, Juan Soto, already a defensive problem. He'll be a DH in a matter of minutes. He should already be one, but he's, he's kind of still languishing in the field a little bit. Ohtani's 32, Judge, like you said, in his 30s. Who are the other guys? You're drafted over him? Is it, is it Ronald Acuna because he's been up and down with all of his injuries? Is it Junior Caminero because his defense is very inconsistent in Tampa Bay? Is it James Wood, maybe, but he strikes out too much. What's the hole in Bobby woods game? There is no hole.
- [97:33]
A
There's no.
- [97:34]
B
He's the most sure fire player that he could possibly be. And of course, with the pedigree, with the, the, the pedigree of his family, like you, you were like, well, this guy's probably a pretty good ballplayer.
- [97:43]
A
He's 26, you know, you know, with his. One thing his father could do was he used to walk seven, eight guys a game. But oh my God, it's fastball, by the way. I'm thinking of the history of baseball. Shortstops who, you. Who had a better start to their career than Bobby Witt, like Ozzie Smith's the best defensive player I've ever seen in any sport. Right. I've never seen a guy as good defense. I'm a Lawrence Taylor fan. I've never seen a guy as good. Dennis Rodman was amazing. Ozzy Smith's the best defensive player I've ever seen any sport. But he had no offense to start his career. Love Derek Jeter. I'm a Yankees fan. He's amazing. Yeah, yeah. But yes, a Rod was. A Rod was amazing to start his career. That would be the one. Although the way his career panned out, A Rog was not the guy you would choose on your team. But you're right. A Rod is one. A Rod is one hard to stick at shortstop. Well, he would have stuck except Jeter moved him off his position. When he came to the Yankees, he was the better defensive shortstop. But A Rod is one. Who else in the history of baseball, let's say since. Since you could go. Let's not go back to 1920 in the live ball era, you can go. You could start with either Jackie Robinson because the color, because. Well, it was somewhat integrated. It started to be integrated in 1947. Take 1961. Right. You could take the. The expansion and the expansion of the schedule, but in any kind of modern. Any way you want to define modern baseball other than A Rod. Ripken was not as consistent offensively as Bobby Witt has been. I can't like he is in a. Among shortstops who ever lived. Really. He's on a short, short list to start his career.
- [99:30]
B
Ripken. I'm pulling up the list.
- [99:32]
A
Alan Trammell. No, Alan Trammell did not start his career like this. And he was not as consistent or not nearly as good in the beginning. Robin, you was excellent, but also not as consistent moves to center field. I'm just trying to think of. Barry Larkin was hurt all the time. I'm naming the best shortstops like in the. Miguel Tejada was not this by the standards of his era. Neither was Garcia Para in the field.
- [100:00]
B
There's nobody on the list. I'm looking at the list of most All Star Games ever by shortstop and it's Ripken, Ozzy Smith, A Rod, Ernie Banks, Derek Jeter, Barry Larkin, Peewee Reese, Willie Wells. I'll take. I'll take Bobby.
- [100:13]
A
Bobby Witt. You just. Unbelievable. What a spoiler.
- [100:15]
B
Who, by the way, would have won an MVP if not for the fact that he's playing with the most underrated player in the history of baseball.
- [100:21]
A
All right, listen, Anthony Debundo. I thank you for your time. I like this show went twice as long as it was planned because I never, ever get to geek out on baseball. I'm leaving stuff on the table, but we can do it next time. You know, I wanted to get into Cashman and Steinbrenner. How long can people listen to a podcast? I mean, you know, Bryce Harper, the trade deadline.
- [100:41]
B
Yankees fans complain about Cashman and Steinbrenner. Turns out longer than we thought.
- [100:45]
A
I'll tell you, you say underrated. Overrated. George Steinbrenner, most overrated owner in the history of sports. Oh, and he wasn't.
- [100:54]
B
You should drop that bomb right at the end of the pod.
- [100:56]
A
I'm dropping that bomb and I'm a die hard Yankees fan. Die hard. But it doesn't mean he wasn't a good owner. It means that his reputation versus in his track record is, you know, his reputation outstrips his track record. Record.
- [101:10]
C
That's all.
- [101:11]
A
That same thing. If I say Otani's overrated. It's not that he's not Otani among the greatest ever. He's just not the greatest ever. All right, listen, Anthony Dundo, I thank you for your time and listening to me rant and coming back. You know, I'm the old guy and you're the young guy, and you're supposed to be full of, like, wild opinions, and I'm supposed to be the one saying, calm down, kid.
- [101:32]
B
But this actually, my nerdism won't allow that. Yeah, it won't allow it, but. But I thank you, Professor Kellerman. This was a blast.
- [101:38]
A
Yeah, well, I appreciate it. And you got to come back anytime. Anthony the Bundle, ladies and gentlemen. Game over with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul and. And that's it.
- [101:49]
B
That's it.
- [101:49]
A
That does it, folks. I can't do emails. We talked for too long,
- [102:02]
C
Sam.