Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Are you sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to three eastern nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Find your local station for the Herd at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd. This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowhern on Fox Sports Radio. Record setting day Wednesday in the Herd, not for me, for Lebron live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be, however you may be listening iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio FS one. Quite a night last night, records being broken in Los Angeles feel a little different. A lot of stars out last night. J Mac is joining me alongside as always as a fun night. Beginning to end, watch the whole thing. Bad team, great players, extreamly disappointing ending for the Lakers. It's Collins. They don't make a move this week to get rid of some of those point guards who don't know how to throw a bass. I think Lebron's gonna lose his mind there in La. Let's talk about for the next ten twelve minutes let's talk about Lebron. So this is the way sports works, right, There's winners, there's losers. We have standings, first place, last place, greatest, this greatest that I can play along. Michael Jordan had the most dominant stretch ever. Shack was the most physically dominant player along with Wilt. I think Magic had the greatest personality, the most fun basketball player of my life. I think Steph revolutionized the game. We don't do this in other businesses quite nearly as often. For instance, in Hollywood, who's the best director. Well, Spielberg does the Blockbusters, and James Cameron he does like the sci fi thing, and then Scorsese does the mob flicks. They don't do it in tech either. Everybody's a specialist. He's best at this, he's best at AI, he's best at the phone. But in sports, this is just what we do. Greatest, worst, first, last, So I'll play along. Lebron James captain last night, has had the greatest career in the history of that orange round ball. That's the greatest career, productivity, titles, longevity, impact, That is the greatest career in the history of a game. They've been playing a long time and it was also the earliest it was spotted. Yeah, Joe Dumars, great player for the Pistons. Former GM of the Pistons, was asked back in like two thousand, who is going to be the first pick in the NBA draft, And he said, if you asked every single GM today, they would take a high school kid. He's playing in Akron, Ohio. He would be as a sophomore the number one pick in the NBA draft. That's why Tiger would and Lebron that's who I really compare them to. They were spotted at ten and eleven years old, completely separated from their peers at twelve and thirteen, and were stars by fifteen. ESPN was televising Lebron's high school games. I mean, it'd be like if McCauley Culkin became Tom Cruise. You'd expect missteps, right, I mean, Hollywood devours ninety percent of child stars, and Tiger Woods has had several missteps. As much as I love his game, not Lebron. It's been masonry every year, dedicated, head down working. But Colin, there was the decision really still got you worked up. Get a therapist. The China conversation or comment really angry about that. My guess is you're angry about a lot. Thirty eight year old Lebron since ten to eleven years old, like Tiger Woods, was spotted and identified, and from that day forward, he has separated from his peers. Last night at Crypto Arena, boy has the world change. Lebron was easily in year twenty the best player on the floor. Oh, I know, y'all love that kid for OKC, but does he have Lebron's leadership? I mean, last night was a classic Laker night. Anthony Davis checked out, emotionally remote, didn't even stand for the moment, seemed annoyed after That's now what Lebron plays with. Westbrook had a million turnovers and the Lakers in the end couldn't defend, couldn't make a stop and lost as Lebron was setting the all time scoring record easily the best player on the floor. It's got a Tom Cruise field to it. And since we're close to Hollywood here, Tom Cruise now is a brand. There's two things that get people consider instantly to the theater, Marvel movies and Tom Cruise. And there's very few things I see the ratings that get people to a TV set with the NBA and Lebron's one of them, the Warriors the other. To be this great, this long, this relevant in a completely distracted era where virtually everybody not named Phil Knight was on their phone during the moment is remarkable. And the pressure that has devoured Hollywood stars, people in other industries all over sports has never gotten in the way. Simply motivated and elevated the King. It is the greatest basketball career beginning to end, and the end isn't that close. I'll get to that in a second. Here was Lebron after this man like one of a great rise. That sear point in a is that you know your stomach drop at times, you're excited, you're yelling. Sometimes you came, you can't, you can't breathe you but you always want to do it again, you know. And it's been a pleasure and an honor so far in my career. I wanted to give praise to everyone that came before me. I wanted to acknowledge that I'm a historian of the game, but I didn't want to emulate nobody. I wanted to be myself. And you know, if you say true to yourself, I think you always feel better about the outcome win, lose a draw in life. So but it's been great. It's been great, and I'm not going nowhere. I'm not going nowhere. Let's talk about that. So it was an authentic moment. Right. He had practiced the hook shot. I saw it on my phone up to the game. He'd practiced a running hook in the lane as if a tip of the cap Kareem Abdul Jabbar sitting courtside, but instead he went with a Shoddy's hit many many times, the Falloway the fade here it was for those who didn't catch it live couple to the end of the third quarter. Lebron James is sound in history. Lebron stands alone. A time scoring record now belongs to Lebron James. You know, it's interesting as I watched that, the struggles through all of our life change. Right, you're in your twenties, it's about, you know, finding some professional success and then maybe you should get late twenties, early thirties, you want to find that special person. Then it's about kids, and then it's Lebron's interesting. He wanted to prove to everybody a kid from Akron could be great, We're way past that. He wanted to prove he could win titles, were way past that he wanted to prove he could have a brand and become a mogul, or way past that. And I'm watching that last night. There's only four teams after the loss last night that are inarguably worse than the Lakers in the entire league. And that's with one of the top five players Lebron, James, Charlotte, is, Detroit is, San Antonio, is Houston Is. Feels like they're all tanking. So this season, realistically, from the very beginning to the smart people who follow this game, I mean, nobody thought the Westbrook thing was going to work. Come on, this season's been about Lebron and the record, and he's not really a scorer first, although he now ironically is the all time scorer. So like Anthony Davis seemed to be like perturbed by it. But what's interesting now, and the struggle for Lebron now is very personal. You could put him on the Warriors tomorrow, they would win the title. You could put him on the Celtics tomorrow, they would absolutely win the title. You could put him on Milwaukee tomorrow with Janis Middleton, they'd run away with the title. And I actually believe he could go back to Cleveland with that team with a bunch of good players, and they would certainly fight for it. The Lakers front office will not fix this mess. They've been bad for nine of the last ten years. And nothing ever ends perfectly Brady. This last year got kind of choppy in Tampa Allie farv. Tiger. It never ends perfectly. Nobody gets the best start Lebron, the longest, most productive career, Lebron at a perfect ending Lebron. It just doesn't work that way. This is about as elegant as it looks that he is still a dominant score, stacking records, beautiful family, loving Los Angeles businesses, and there's always the butt. But this team stinks, it doesn't work, can't turn this thing around. They got no assets. So the struggle now for Lebron is the same one Tom Brady goes through. Man, if you put me on the forty nine ers tomorrow, I could win another ring. And for Lebroun, I go play for Nutting in some of these places and win another ring. But what does he have to prove? I think that's the struggle for greatness. Tom Brady will be able to sling it in eight in his fifties. Lebron easily the best player on the floor. Can't hand check. He's just bigger, stronger. Nobody can stay in front of him. He can bullyball it to twenties. Even a night. What do you do here? Was Lebron on the moment and the night I write the man in the arena my shoe every single night from Theodore was a belt, and tonight I actually felt like I was like sitting on top of the arena tonight when that shot went in and the war from the from the crowd, everything just stopped, and you know, and gave me an opportunity just to kind of like embrace it and look around and seeing my family and seeing the fans and seeing my friends, and it was it was it was pretty cool. You were watching it and you were thinking what I was thinking. You could put him on like five teams and he could win more championships. As he said, once in Miami, not one, not two. You put him in Milwaukee, he'd probably get three. Greatness that becomes the struggle. Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd week Days and un Eastern, not a Empacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app. There's a lot of different impacts, a lot of different players have had. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird kind of to a large degree, saved the NBA. I mean it would have kept going, but you forget years and years ago. Pre Magic and Bird, there were a lot of playoff games that were on tape delay after the eleven o'clock news. I'm not lying, it's true, a lot of empty arenas. NBA had a bad, negative reputation, and then Magic and Bird came in made us love the game again. Corporate America came rolling in, arenas were full, and the league took off. Michael Jordan made the league global. I would say Lebron carried the league for fifteen years when it didn't really have a direction. It needed a guide. Eastern Conference was mostly awful. Lebron got to the finals virtually every year, and then Steph Curry revolutionized it by making the three ball and politically the shot to take Lebron also empowered players to a new level. And that's where I think Lebron and Michael we always talk about their differences, and they truly have different games. I always think Lebron is like thirty percent Magic Johnson. He'll give you whatever you need. Magic Johnson plays the sixers in a final. Kareem gets hurt, he plays center, scores forty two. Magic could give you twenty eight points. He could give you twenty assists, twenty rebounds. He could play center, he could play guard. And that's why I've called Lebron James numerous times the Swiss Army Knife of basketball. He can do anything. Michael was a scorer and a guard. Lebron can guard all five positions. In his prime, he once took Derek Rose, a tiny, lightning quick guard, out of a series in the fourth quarter. Lebron can do anything, and Magic could do it. But Lebron's a bigger, stronger, more athletic player. But where Michael and Lebron have a lot in common is greatness creates imitators, and most fail. So pre Michael Jordan big guys, it could be Mike, and it could be Wilt. It could be Kareem, big guys, or or you know, bigger players, the post usually led to dynasties. Russell had eleven right, and then Michael came in and it's like, suddenly, no, we're gonna lead this dynasty. The centers are mostly gonna be forgettable guys. The point guards are gonna be forgettable guys. It's gonna be a wing player and he can score sixty on any night. And he took over the league for ten years. Right like Magic was a point, Larry Bird was more of a center with McHale, And it comes this wing guy. He's going to take over the league. And then all of a sudden, that spawned a decade of guards who were smaller than Michael and not as gifted, thinking they could shoot their way to a championship, mar Barry and Stevie Francis and Iverson, and they all failed. They all could have been better had they been truer to who their position really needed them to be, which is distributor first, score second. But they took a lot of bad shots. They were hard to play with. Only Kobe Bryant, who was equally at times hard to play with, pulled off the Michael game. They even early sounded alike. I mean he was doing an imitation and he got close. But he was never quite as good or as strong physically as Michael Well Lebron did the same thing. His was off the court. Lebraun was empowering the athlete that the player was more important than the owner, the GM and the coach, and he was fond of saying it, or at least illustrating it. So Lebraun spawned a generation of imitators in mobility, and it hurt Kevin Durant's career, and it hurt Carmelo's career and James Harden bouncing around. They grow up with Lebroun, play around Lebraun, see this mobility and think, hey, if I go, the championships will follow. None are as good as Lebron. None have the leadership qualities of Lebron. None have the ability to see around the corner quite like Lebron, and nobody's really gotten close to it. In fact, the players now who are really running the league have done the opposite of Lebron or true to themselves Steph Curry, Jannis. They've stayed home. Dwyane Wade in his career, he stayed home, build a fortress. You come to me, I'm not going to you. So with greatness comes imitation, and with imitation comes failure. Because very very few people even come close to stacking up to Michael Jordan or Lebron. They have that in common. Their games are different, their personalities are different, and I think that's what makes basketball great. Dirk Nevitski's game looks nothing like Karl Malone's, looks nothing like Kareem's, looks nothing like Duncan's. I love the fact that Lebron and Michael, the two best players I've ever seen play, have completely really, completely different games and mindsets. They just see the game differently. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd Weekdays and nun Easter nine a Empacific. There was something that happened to the end of our show yesterday. I'm trying to get through a show without Aaron Rodgers. He makes it very difficult. He keeps going down these rabbit holes and making big proclamations and saying stuff, and it's newsworthy, so I end up talking about him. I was trying. I almost got to the end of the yesterday's show, and I was almost through, and all of a sudden, the story popped up. So basically, Aaron has said, now he's going on a darkness retreat. He said, I got a pretty cool opportunity to do some self reflection in some isolation. You notice with Aaron in the last few years, everything's self some self reflection, and then after that, I feel like I'll be a lot closer to the final decision. He's not going to have the final decision, let's just get him closer to it. So, first of all, I'm into meditation. I'm into therapy. I'm into spending time with yourself. I think we run around when we have kids sometimes and we become like taxi drivers and uber drivers and this practice and that practice. We don't give ourself time to reflect, and then you know, the better parent, the better dad, the better person, the better employee. We don't give ourselves enough time. So I try to and fail all the time. But I'm I'm for meditation. We're not used to it from star quarterbacks in the NFL, the Hollywood crowd, young people kind of self absorbed, trying to manifest their destiny, hippies. There'd be a lot of people. You'd hear this stuff and it just would be like, oh, yeah, totally, I get it, you know, star quarterbacks not so much. So I really do think Brady and Aaron Rodgers are polar opposites. So you know, Tom's got a real close family, Aaron sort of disconnected from his Tom's all about structure and reliability and methodry, method to the TV twelve method. There's a methodology to it, and there's structure to it, and there's a repetitive nature to Tom Brady's career. And Aaron sort of, you know, it's he's a jazz musician, sort of making it up and riffing. He often throws with his feet off the ground. He leaves us all sort of guessing. He's disconnected from his parents. We don't know if he'll be at the OT. We're not sure what he's going to announce his retirement. And I think the downside to that isn't for Aaron. The downside of that is those around him. Whereas you could count on Derek Jeter a lot of structure, count on Elway, a lot of structure, count on Montana, on Brady, on Lebron, you know they're totally committed, so you can count on them. Anthony Davis's issues are his fault, it's not Lebron. Lebron gives you the same effort, the same dude, the same work, ethic the same commitment every night. When you decide to be a jazz musician, ad libbing, making it up as you go. It's not necessarily bad for you. It may be a better way of life. It is harder for those around you because they don't know what they're gonna get in the offseason. They don't know what they're gonna get on Sunday. They don't know what kind of mood you're in. They know how committed you are. It's very self satisfying. It's not necessarily a bad way to live. It doesn't make him more or less human, but I understand trying to find yourself. But he has always been more of a jazz musician, whereas I know what I'm getting from Lebron, and that makes it easier to be a Lebron teammate. The reason he's struggling now isn't a Lebron issue. It's a front office issue. The reason he won in Miami is because very structure driven Lebron joined very structure driven Eric Spoelstra pat Riley d Wade, work out every morning, eat a certain way, commit a certain way. So when you're kind of, you know, add living it through life, it's not bad for you, it's disruptive to those around you who can't depend on you. I take pride in the fact that I show up at the exact same time basically every day for thirty years doing this. It's not just about me, it's about everybody else knows he'll be here. Then we can build the show, Then we can do prep, then we can book guests. Then it's about the people around you. And I think that's the difficulty with Aaron, and I think that's the position green Basin right now. Everybody's just like on eggshales, Well, should we draft a young receiver, will he be there for OTAs? Is he going to make up a decision? I've said this before. Most great careers are based on repetitive excellence. They're based on a methodology, and it's not just for the athlete, it's for the organization and the people around you. If you commit to me, then I can commit this draft pick to you, and this money to you, and this coach to you. And with Aaron it's hard. He's just sort of making it up as he goes. So I'm not opposed to meditation. But even in Hollywood, right if you look at the great career, Spielberg, Hanks, Cruise, Denzel, there's a certain commitment and dependability from the Meryl Streep go to all of them. There's a structure and that allows people around you to go, Okay. This is what we get from Denzel, this is what we get from Tom. Tom's a workaholic. He's really demanding, but he's demanding every day. He didn't change on Wednesday, Lucy Goosey Wednesday, Tom didn't show up Thursday. And that I think is the problem with self reflection, manifesting your destiny. Being a jazz musician, everybody's just sort of all the time waiting to figure out what to do, and I think it makes it harder for organizations. This is why Mahomes was very smart. Remember what Patrick Mahomes did. Mahomes very early said hey, I'll take less money. What did that send a signal all about winning? I'm about winning. Mahomes structured a deal that was very very team friendly that everybody, the GM, the owner of the coach, Travis Kelsey, everybody now knew I can't I can't be a ballhog on money. The best player on the team is about winning. So it sends a message guys. If you're about the most money, Tyreek Hill, go play in Miami. If you're about the most money, go play somewhere else in Kansas City. We're about winning. Tim Duncan, very early in his career, it's about winning. Brady about winning, Jeter about winning. But Colin, I guess my issue is in Hollywood, these guys who are actors and actresses. You know what you're gonna get from Denzel for the four months you're shooting the film, right, and then it's over gone. Everybody goes there separate ways. You know what you're getting for Tom Cruise a Maverick as Maverick in Top Gun two. You know what you're getting for four or five months. As part of a team. Aaron Rodgers needs to do what you're saying you do every day, show up and be repetitive. This is a guy who pretty clearly doesn't know understand himself. Why don't I get along with my family? Why can't I keep a relationship to get married like he is. He's not really built at this stage in his life to be part of a team. I don't think. Yeah, this Darkness Retreat, I was reading a lot about it. It seems like a guy who's probably going to retire. He's got enough money that even though he's owed a lot, what do I need that for? I want to go do my thing and ayahuasca and find myself. You can't do that when you're part of a team. Yeah, but even the great Hollywood people, it's not like Denzel only commits to work four months for the movie. He's constantly writing, he's collaborating, He's dealing with studios. Like these these big Hollywood guys, the Hanks, the Denzel, all these guys, we'd just see him in the movie. That movie is a two year process of commitment to directors and money and producers. Denzel's all in, so it makes it very easy to work. You know. The other guy, Marlon Brando career careened out of control. You never knew what to expect. You couldn't build anything around him. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's me three time Pro Bowl and Levarrington and I couldn't be more excited to now. It's a podcast called up on Game? What is up on Game? You asked along with my fellow Pro bowler t J. Hudshman Zada and Super Bowl champion Yep that's right, Plexico Birds. You can only name a show with that type of talent on it. Up on Game We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded with teachable moments. Listen to Up on Game with Me, lebar Arrington, TJ. Hushman, Zatta and Plexico Birds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast from. I don't think Lebron become an all time scoring king, you know, does anything in the Lebron Michael debate. You know, it's actually respectful to Michael Jordan that we still talk about him. I mean, that's how great he was. And Michael and Lebron are the two best basketball players I've ever seen. Have always thought Magic got to nine finals. I think it was. I always thought he was a little underrated. Actually, people just don't understand quite how great he was. But he had this guy named Larry Bird in the way and a dynasty on the East Coast in the way, so it took away some of those championships. But the one argument Lebron dissenters says, well, it's easier to score today. They're right, it is. The three point shot is now encouraged and practiced. It wasn't in Michael's day. You can't hand check like in Michael's day, So you can't stay in front of anybody. People can't stay in front of Lebron James. He's six nine, two fifty and in his twentieth year, nobody can stay in front of him. You can't hand check. You could keep Michael at bay. And the third thing is stars, elite players take more nights off. So a lot of times, I mean, can you imagine if Lebron, if Michael Jordan was playing the Pistons in a regular season game in Isaiah and Rodman Lambier took the night off. That's what happens now all the time. So that said, here's what's interesting about Lebron's career. So here's the three stages of the three point revolution in the NBA, and Lebron's played through all of them. So the first about five years of Lebron's career, it was still a power league, right, three point shots only to those that could shoot them. You could have two or three guys on the floor that couldn't hit a three, couldn't hit a jumper. Lebron averaged twenty seven a game in that stage. The next about five years, the league was pivoting to a three point league, where the smart teams were already in the dumb teams weren't. Lebron averaged again twenty seven points a game. And then in the last ten years it's all in. It is a three point shooting league and Lebron is averaged twenty seven point eight points a game. Same guy, pre three shot Revolution, pivoting to three shot Revolution, all in, three point revolution, same basic Lebron. Why, because he's never been driven by points. Lebron has always been about elevating others. Those early Cleveland teams they had good defenders, they had no other star. But in the end, Lebron was trying to elevate see players to at least b plus players he couldn't. Eventually left when he went to Miami again, he gave up a lot of shots to Ray Allen and Mike Miller and d Wade and Chris Bosh and Shane Batty could have scored more. He wanted to win here. He wanted Anthony Davis after the Bubble Championship to be ready to take that baton thirty nine minutes tonight, maybe forty two Anthony Davis came in out of shape. So now Lebroun has to absolutely carry this team offensively. I mean, last night ridiculous. Now mj and Kobe viewed themselves as great scores. That's why all these years later you remember the exact number of points Kobe scored in his final game, sixty. He was defined by shooting and scoring. That's not Lebron. He could absolutely in the last ten years be averaging thirty six a night because it is easier to score. Three point shots are encouraged. Stars take nights off all the time. So Lebron's often play against backups, seventh men, and you can't hand check. There's no question hand checking would keep a Steph Curry a job. Morant be hard to hand check Lebron in front of you, but it did allow you to guide players, and it made it harder for Michael Jordan. No question that that era it was it was tackling. It looked, it looked more like college football on certain nights and certain rivalries. But that thing, I think it is fascinating in Lebron's twenty year career, and Brady's got some of this. When you play a long time, the sport changes. Tom Brady walked into the league, it was a defensive league. He left the league, it's an offensive league. Lebron was pre three pivot to three in the three average twenty seven a game for all of them, and I think that I think that largely defines what makes Lebron amazing is that he's going to be the all time scoring champ. He is now the all time scoring king, and he's not defined by points. I mean, I often think about this, how do you describe somebody like twenty years from now, because we're all looking, we all have recency bias. I'm guilty as anybody on recency bias. You get worked up in a moment a day. We're all emotional, we all love sports, and I think about how will you view Lebron, And a big chunk of it will be longevity is that he was one of the first athletes, Brady and him to really take the body seriously. You mean, it's interesting if you're an academic, you're on a college campus. If you're a writer, you constantly write. People who write for a living, you know, they write movies, they write screenplays, write, they write every day. They keep that muscle going. And you know with Lebron James, he really understood it's all brainpower here. He was just smarter. He understood very early. He moved his game to the perimeter, less contact in the lane, took care of his body, and realized he's a business and he could extend his career by more perimeter shots, fewer times getting decked and hitting the floor. Move his game more outside, take care of your body. It's an intelligence. Brady had it, Lebron's got it that they saw around the corner of the league. Lebron started pivoting to the three point shot at the very end of Cleveland, and then by the time he got to Miami he totally understood it and was on most nights fairly dependable. One More Heard the Herd streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app. Search her to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Rick Buker now joining us live on a historic night in the NBA Last Night. So how do you think last night fitched into Lebron's legacy twenty years from now? What What do you make of all time scoring champ when I view them largely a little bit more like magic than Michael, more of a distributor and elevator. How does it fit into his legacy, We're not going to know, to your point, Colin, We're probably not going to know until twenty years down the line, because in part as, it felt like it was supposed to be a momentous occasion, it should be a meaningful event, and yet it was meaningless. It's a it was in a meaningless game in a meaningless season for the Lakers, which is a lot different than when Kareem broke the record and they were on their way to the finals and they didn't make as much of it then as we did last night. I kind of felt bad for TMT because they were trying to make this into a big thing and it I don't know about you, but it ultimately did not feel like that for me. So I believe as we move farther away from the details and the specifics of what's going on, we will have a greater appreciation for what Lebron has accomplished. When you talk impact on the sport, I've said before Michael was greater than Staff, but Staff has really revolutionized high school college in pro basketball. He's revolutionized the game how do you view Lebron's legacy impact, I should say impact on the sport. I don't think he's impacted the sport. I believe that he's impacted the NBA and particularly the business of the NBA. He is empowered players like no other player has ever empowered them. He was the first one to basically say, I don't care about the contract. I want flexibility and freedom to go where I want to play with who I want. And now every star in the league, every star in the league should feel beholden to Lebron James because of the power that he has created for all of them. To me, that's the biggest impact that he's had. And to your point you were talking about how he's evolved as a scorer, I don't even believe that he necessarily changed the game. As much as the game has changed and it's benefited him. It's not as if he made the game less physical. The game became less physical, it became smaller, and he happened to be a big man with small man's skills. So now he's the biggest guy on the floor night after night who's able to go from rim to rim. So I'm watching the game last night, and I'm sitting there and I know I'm not the only person thinking this, and I'm thinking, he's the best player on the floor. There's a kid for Oklahoma City we all like, but we're talking leadership, experience, body. He's the best player on the floor and on the Lakers easily. And I'm thinking, if you inserted him tomorrow into the Celtics Warriors, Milwaukee for sure and maybe Cleveland, they'd go win the title. And if it was Milwaukee, they may win a couple Jannis Lebron And I'm thinking to myself, here's Lebron. Is he just satisfied because he is so much about details, repetition, efficiency and business. He does not like. He does not like foolishness, nonsense and wasting his time. And it kind of feels like, now that he's got the record, he's wasting his time. And I'm sitting there thinking, Rick, he's not about to retire. He got two good years left. Is there a one percent chance that he doesn't end with the Lakers? Sure there is? Because he was it was Colin he was advertising himself last night. He didn't say I still got enough left to win a couple more with the Lakers. He said, I still have enough left to win a couple more, or I can contribute to a team trying to win a championship. I thought he was putting his shingle out last night in terms of I'm available, I still want to go after this. Yeah, here's the problem, and I said it when he signed it. When he signed the extension with the Lakers, that created the greatest roadblock for him to go any place else because you can't just acquire him. You have to be able to create room to take on him and that contract. And while I do believe that he can still contribute or could contribute to a championship team, you're not building your team around Lebron James at this point. He has to be more of a I can't say complimentary player, but he has to be a piece of the puzzle rather than the piece. And that what's always been the conundrum with having Lebron James is that he can be your centerpiece and he can take you there, but you have to build a very specific team around him that essentially no one else can fill. So once you pull him out, once he's the Jena piece that you pull out, that whole thing is collapsing. And that's why I wonder it's not a matter of could he do it? Who's going to jump out there and say we have to have Bron James in order to play for a title in the next year or two. I don't readily. Maybe the Phoenix Suns because of their disappointment and trying to get over the hump, but I don't. Why would Boston do it? Yeah, why would Milwaukee do it? They they already believe that they can do it as is, and why give up the pieces in order to get Lebron just to take a shot with Lebron for a year or two. So listen, it's total speculation, but there have been growing signs that Lebron and I think it was two years ago post Bubble title, is frustrated with the lack of clarity and commitment from Anthony Davis and reliability physically. Last night, A d was emotionally disengaged annoyed after the game. Now it could be personal stuff, certainly possible. Maybe he thought Lebron took over the stage for the game. But this team's a thirteenth in the West game doesn't mean crap. They're not going anywhere, So it felt like something and we've talked about moving Westbrook that's been advertised. Jason McIntyre said, that was weird. It just it is. There's a reason it was all over the internet. Is it possible AD at the deadline, which by the way, RIC is three pm Eastern tomorrow, is ad the block and has been informed about it. I would be surprised if that was what causes and I do not have an explanation for why, but the fact that he was sitting on the bench and did not even see yeah, I mean we have him here. He wasn't even watching when the legendary shot, the record breaking shot went down. I guess he's watching on the big screen, but like the rest of us, but without question, it was strange. I do not believe it's because he's been informed that he's going to be traded if they do make a move with Anthony Davis. As with a number of the trades that are out there right now, I feel as if that the table is being set for moves that are going to be made this summer. It's really hard in season to move a contract and a player of Anthony Davis's magnitude and feel like you are getting the requisite talent back or assets back for them. So I wish I had an explanation for you. But it also in watching it, it also reminded me when I think about the reaction of the Warriors to Staff breaking the three point record and the joy, the collective joy they had. Certainly the Lakers were happy for Lebron, but it was really about Lebron and his and his and his family coming out and the and the celebrities that he knows, like he shared more with them than he did with his teammates, And I was thinking, well, that's the price for moving around as much as he has. Yeah, that these guys really haven't gone through the wars with him. It's like, oh, you know, I'm playing a year with Lebron. Yeah, guess what I played. I was. I was on the Lakers when Lebron broke the record, not like Lebron and I did all this and I got to see the record. It was just, you know, there's there's for every action, there is a reaction. And his ability to go from team to team and win championships in multiple places, the price is is that he now kind of finds himself doing these monumental things. But he's doing them all by himself. Finally, I got to throw Kd's name out, so you know I've said and I'm crazy. But if I was Milwaukee, I'd call and say, I'll give you Middleton, Ingalls and a Bicker three for Durant and then, like the Warriors, I've already won without KD. I could win after KD. But why not have a two to three year run where I've got two of the top five players in the league. Again, it's we're trading deadline discussion. That's why we do this. It's fun. But do you think Durant stays there? There's discussions today like he's in deep discussions with the organization. What's your guests on what he does? I would expect that he's going to stay. They convinced him to not go anywhere. Once I have the feeling that they can do it again, I would imagine that the conversations right now are about, Hey, let's finish out the season and then we can figure out where you want to go and make something work for both of us. If we're doing it now, the timeline is so difficult. Neither you nor us has the opportunity to find the ideal place for you to go, and KD has, unlike Kyrie, has demonstrated that he's amenable to trying to do what's best for everyone. So that's where I would expect that the conversations are going. I have no doubt that Kyrie leaving has convinced KD that it's time for him to move. I just believe that he's going to give the Nets the wherewithal to be able to do a better deal than they could in the next twenty four hours. Good stuff, rig Buker record setting and see you again, Colin. Great to see you. Look fantastic. We'll start we'll start hanging out more now because of the NBA season. Yeah, sound good. Maybe we'll shave too now. I'm not going to do that. I'm a Massizola's up here, all right. Good thing

Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Are you sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to three eastern nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Find your local station for the Herd at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd. This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowhern on Fox Sports Radio. Record setting day Wednesday in the Herd, not for me, for Lebron live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be, however you may be listening iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio FS one. Quite a night last night, records being broken in Los Angeles feel a little different. A lot of stars out last night. J Mac is joining me alongside as always as a fun night. Beginning to end, watch the whole thing. Bad team, great players, extreamly disappointing ending for the Lakers. It's Collins. They don't make a move this week to get rid of some of those point guards who don't know how to throw a bass. I think Lebron's gonna lose his mind there in La. Let's talk about for the next ten twelve minutes let's talk about Lebron. So this is the way sports works, right, There's winners, there's losers. We have standings, first place, last place, greatest, this greatest that I can play along. Michael Jordan had the most dominant stretch ever. Shack was the most physically dominant player along with Wilt. I think Magic had the greatest personality, the most fun basketball player of my life. I think Steph revolutionized the game. We don't do this in other businesses quite nearly as often. For instance, in Hollywood, who's the best director. Well, Spielberg does the Blockbusters, and James Cameron he does like the sci fi thing, and then Scorsese does the mob flicks. They don't do it in tech either. Everybody's a specialist. He's best at this, he's best at AI, he's best at the phone. But in sports, this is just what we do. Greatest, worst, first, last, So I'll play along. Lebron James captain last night, has had the greatest career in the history of that orange round ball. That's the greatest career, productivity, titles, longevity, impact, That is the greatest career in the history of a game. They've been playing a long time and it was also the earliest it was spotted. Yeah, Joe Dumars, great player for the Pistons. Former GM of the Pistons, was asked back in like two thousand, who is going to be the first pick in the NBA draft, And he said, if you asked every single GM today, they would take a high school kid. He's playing in Akron, Ohio. He would be as a sophomore the number one pick in the NBA draft. That's why Tiger would and Lebron that's who I really compare them to. They were spotted at ten and eleven years old, completely separated from their peers at twelve and thirteen, and were stars by fifteen. ESPN was televising Lebron's high school games. I mean, it'd be like if McCauley Culkin became Tom Cruise. You'd expect missteps, right, I mean, Hollywood devours ninety percent of child stars, and Tiger Woods has had several missteps. As much as I love his game, not Lebron. It's been masonry every year, dedicated, head down working. But Colin, there was the decision really still got you worked up. Get a therapist. The China conversation or comment really angry about that. My guess is you're angry about a lot. Thirty eight year old Lebron since ten to eleven years old, like Tiger Woods, was spotted and identified, and from that day forward, he has separated from his peers. Last night at Crypto Arena, boy has the world change. Lebron was easily in year twenty the best player on the floor. Oh, I know, y'all love that kid for OKC, but does he have Lebron's leadership? I mean, last night was a classic Laker night. Anthony Davis checked out, emotionally remote, didn't even stand for the moment, seemed annoyed after That's now what Lebron plays with. Westbrook had a million turnovers and the Lakers in the end couldn't defend, couldn't make a stop and lost as Lebron was setting the all time scoring record easily the best player on the floor. It's got a Tom Cruise field to it. And since we're close to Hollywood here, Tom Cruise now is a brand. There's two things that get people consider instantly to the theater, Marvel movies and Tom Cruise. And there's very few things I see the ratings that get people to a TV set with the NBA and Lebron's one of them, the Warriors the other. To be this great, this long, this relevant in a completely distracted era where virtually everybody not named Phil Knight was on their phone during the moment is remarkable. And the pressure that has devoured Hollywood stars, people in other industries all over sports has never gotten in the way. Simply motivated and elevated the King. It is the greatest basketball career beginning to end, and the end isn't that close. I'll get to that in a second. Here was Lebron after this man like one of a great rise. That sear point in a is that you know your stomach drop at times, you're excited, you're yelling. Sometimes you came, you can't, you can't breathe you but you always want to do it again, you know. And it's been a pleasure and an honor so far in my career. I wanted to give praise to everyone that came before me. I wanted to acknowledge that I'm a historian of the game, but I didn't want to emulate nobody. I wanted to be myself. And you know, if you say true to yourself, I think you always feel better about the outcome win, lose a draw in life. So but it's been great. It's been great, and I'm not going nowhere. I'm not going nowhere. Let's talk about that. So it was an authentic moment. Right. He had practiced the hook shot. I saw it on my phone up to the game. He'd practiced a running hook in the lane as if a tip of the cap Kareem Abdul Jabbar sitting courtside, but instead he went with a Shoddy's hit many many times, the Falloway the fade here it was for those who didn't catch it live couple to the end of the third quarter. Lebron James is sound in history. Lebron stands alone. A time scoring record now belongs to Lebron James. You know, it's interesting as I watched that, the struggles through all of our life change. Right, you're in your twenties, it's about, you know, finding some professional success and then maybe you should get late twenties, early thirties, you want to find that special person. Then it's about kids, and then it's Lebron's interesting. He wanted to prove to everybody a kid from Akron could be great, We're way past that. He wanted to prove he could win titles, were way past that he wanted to prove he could have a brand and become a mogul, or way past that. And I'm watching that last night. There's only four teams after the loss last night that are inarguably worse than the Lakers in the entire league. And that's with one of the top five players Lebron, James, Charlotte, is, Detroit is, San Antonio, is Houston Is. Feels like they're all tanking. So this season, realistically, from the very beginning to the smart people who follow this game, I mean, nobody thought the Westbrook thing was going to work. Come on, this season's been about Lebron and the record, and he's not really a scorer first, although he now ironically is the all time scorer. So like Anthony Davis seemed to be like perturbed by it. But what's interesting now, and the struggle for Lebron now is very personal. You could put him on the Warriors tomorrow, they would win the title. You could put him on the Celtics tomorrow, they would absolutely win the title. You could put him on Milwaukee tomorrow with Janis Middleton, they'd run away with the title. And I actually believe he could go back to Cleveland with that team with a bunch of good players, and they would certainly fight for it. The Lakers front office will not fix this mess. They've been bad for nine of the last ten years. And nothing ever ends perfectly Brady. This last year got kind of choppy in Tampa Allie farv. Tiger. It never ends perfectly. Nobody gets the best start Lebron, the longest, most productive career, Lebron at a perfect ending Lebron. It just doesn't work that way. This is about as elegant as it looks that he is still a dominant score, stacking records, beautiful family, loving Los Angeles businesses, and there's always the butt. But this team stinks, it doesn't work, can't turn this thing around. They got no assets. So the struggle now for Lebron is the same one Tom Brady goes through. Man, if you put me on the forty nine ers tomorrow, I could win another ring. And for Lebroun, I go play for Nutting in some of these places and win another ring. But what does he have to prove? I think that's the struggle for greatness. Tom Brady will be able to sling it in eight in his fifties. Lebron easily the best player on the floor. Can't hand check. He's just bigger, stronger. Nobody can stay in front of him. He can bullyball it to twenties. Even a night. What do you do here? Was Lebron on the moment and the night I write the man in the arena my shoe every single night from Theodore was a belt, and tonight I actually felt like I was like sitting on top of the arena tonight when that shot went in and the war from the from the crowd, everything just stopped, and you know, and gave me an opportunity just to kind of like embrace it and look around and seeing my family and seeing the fans and seeing my friends, and it was it was it was pretty cool. You were watching it and you were thinking what I was thinking. You could put him on like five teams and he could win more championships. As he said, once in Miami, not one, not two. You put him in Milwaukee, he'd probably get three. Greatness that becomes the struggle. Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd week Days and un Eastern, not a Empacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app. There's a lot of different impacts, a lot of different players have had. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird kind of to a large degree, saved the NBA. I mean it would have kept going, but you forget years and years ago. Pre Magic and Bird, there were a lot of playoff games that were on tape delay after the eleven o'clock news. I'm not lying, it's true, a lot of empty arenas. NBA had a bad, negative reputation, and then Magic and Bird came in made us love the game again. Corporate America came rolling in, arenas were full, and the league took off. Michael Jordan made the league global. I would say Lebron carried the league for fifteen years when it didn't really have a direction. It needed a guide. Eastern Conference was mostly awful. Lebron got to the finals virtually every year, and then Steph Curry revolutionized it by making the three ball and politically the shot to take Lebron also empowered players to a new level. And that's where I think Lebron and Michael we always talk about their differences, and they truly have different games. I always think Lebron is like thirty percent Magic Johnson. He'll give you whatever you need. Magic Johnson plays the sixers in a final. Kareem gets hurt, he plays center, scores forty two. Magic could give you twenty eight points. He could give you twenty assists, twenty rebounds. He could play center, he could play guard. And that's why I've called Lebron James numerous times the Swiss Army Knife of basketball. He can do anything. Michael was a scorer and a guard. Lebron can guard all five positions. In his prime, he once took Derek Rose, a tiny, lightning quick guard, out of a series in the fourth quarter. Lebron can do anything, and Magic could do it. But Lebron's a bigger, stronger, more athletic player. But where Michael and Lebron have a lot in common is greatness creates imitators, and most fail. So pre Michael Jordan big guys, it could be Mike, and it could be Wilt. It could be Kareem, big guys, or or you know, bigger players, the post usually led to dynasties. Russell had eleven right, and then Michael came in and it's like, suddenly, no, we're gonna lead this dynasty. The centers are mostly gonna be forgettable guys. The point guards are gonna be forgettable guys. It's gonna be a wing player and he can score sixty on any night. And he took over the league for ten years. Right like Magic was a point, Larry Bird was more of a center with McHale, And it comes this wing guy. He's going to take over the league. And then all of a sudden, that spawned a decade of guards who were smaller than Michael and not as gifted, thinking they could shoot their way to a championship, mar Barry and Stevie Francis and Iverson, and they all failed. They all could have been better had they been truer to who their position really needed them to be, which is distributor first, score second. But they took a lot of bad shots. They were hard to play with. Only Kobe Bryant, who was equally at times hard to play with, pulled off the Michael game. They even early sounded alike. I mean he was doing an imitation and he got close. But he was never quite as good or as strong physically as Michael Well Lebron did the same thing. His was off the court. Lebraun was empowering the athlete that the player was more important than the owner, the GM and the coach, and he was fond of saying it, or at least illustrating it. So Lebraun spawned a generation of imitators in mobility, and it hurt Kevin Durant's career, and it hurt Carmelo's career and James Harden bouncing around. They grow up with Lebroun, play around Lebraun, see this mobility and think, hey, if I go, the championships will follow. None are as good as Lebron. None have the leadership qualities of Lebron. None have the ability to see around the corner quite like Lebron, and nobody's really gotten close to it. In fact, the players now who are really running the league have done the opposite of Lebron or true to themselves Steph Curry, Jannis. They've stayed home. Dwyane Wade in his career, he stayed home, build a fortress. You come to me, I'm not going to you. So with greatness comes imitation, and with imitation comes failure. Because very very few people even come close to stacking up to Michael Jordan or Lebron. They have that in common. Their games are different, their personalities are different, and I think that's what makes basketball great. Dirk Nevitski's game looks nothing like Karl Malone's, looks nothing like Kareem's, looks nothing like Duncan's. I love the fact that Lebron and Michael, the two best players I've ever seen play, have completely really, completely different games and mindsets. They just see the game differently. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd Weekdays and nun Easter nine a Empacific. There was something that happened to the end of our show yesterday. I'm trying to get through a show without Aaron Rodgers. He makes it very difficult. He keeps going down these rabbit holes and making big proclamations and saying stuff, and it's newsworthy, so I end up talking about him. I was trying. I almost got to the end of the yesterday's show, and I was almost through, and all of a sudden, the story popped up. So basically, Aaron has said, now he's going on a darkness retreat. He said, I got a pretty cool opportunity to do some self reflection in some isolation. You notice with Aaron in the last few years, everything's self some self reflection, and then after that, I feel like I'll be a lot closer to the final decision. He's not going to have the final decision, let's just get him closer to it. So, first of all, I'm into meditation. I'm into therapy. I'm into spending time with yourself. I think we run around when we have kids sometimes and we become like taxi drivers and uber drivers and this practice and that practice. We don't give ourself time to reflect, and then you know, the better parent, the better dad, the better person, the better employee. We don't give ourselves enough time. So I try to and fail all the time. But I'm I'm for meditation. We're not used to it from star quarterbacks in the NFL, the Hollywood crowd, young people kind of self absorbed, trying to manifest their destiny, hippies. There'd be a lot of people. You'd hear this stuff and it just would be like, oh, yeah, totally, I get it, you know, star quarterbacks not so much. So I really do think Brady and Aaron Rodgers are polar opposites. So you know, Tom's got a real close family, Aaron sort of disconnected from his Tom's all about structure and reliability and methodry, method to the TV twelve method. There's a methodology to it, and there's structure to it, and there's a repetitive nature to Tom Brady's career. And Aaron sort of, you know, it's he's a jazz musician, sort of making it up and riffing. He often throws with his feet off the ground. He leaves us all sort of guessing. He's disconnected from his parents. We don't know if he'll be at the OT. We're not sure what he's going to announce his retirement. And I think the downside to that isn't for Aaron. The downside of that is those around him. Whereas you could count on Derek Jeter a lot of structure, count on Elway, a lot of structure, count on Montana, on Brady, on Lebron, you know they're totally committed, so you can count on them. Anthony Davis's issues are his fault, it's not Lebron. Lebron gives you the same effort, the same dude, the same work, ethic the same commitment every night. When you decide to be a jazz musician, ad libbing, making it up as you go. It's not necessarily bad for you. It may be a better way of life. It is harder for those around you because they don't know what they're gonna get in the offseason. They don't know what they're gonna get on Sunday. They don't know what kind of mood you're in. They know how committed you are. It's very self satisfying. It's not necessarily a bad way to live. It doesn't make him more or less human, but I understand trying to find yourself. But he has always been more of a jazz musician, whereas I know what I'm getting from Lebron, and that makes it easier to be a Lebron teammate. The reason he's struggling now isn't a Lebron issue. It's a front office issue. The reason he won in Miami is because very structure driven Lebron joined very structure driven Eric Spoelstra pat Riley d Wade, work out every morning, eat a certain way, commit a certain way. So when you're kind of, you know, add living it through life, it's not bad for you, it's disruptive to those around you who can't depend on you. I take pride in the fact that I show up at the exact same time basically every day for thirty years doing this. It's not just about me, it's about everybody else knows he'll be here. Then we can build the show, Then we can do prep, then we can book guests. Then it's about the people around you. And I think that's the difficulty with Aaron, and I think that's the position green Basin right now. Everybody's just like on eggshales, Well, should we draft a young receiver, will he be there for OTAs? Is he going to make up a decision? I've said this before. Most great careers are based on repetitive excellence. They're based on a methodology, and it's not just for the athlete, it's for the organization and the people around you. If you commit to me, then I can commit this draft pick to you, and this money to you, and this coach to you. And with Aaron it's hard. He's just sort of making it up as he goes. So I'm not opposed to meditation. But even in Hollywood, right if you look at the great career, Spielberg, Hanks, Cruise, Denzel, there's a certain commitment and dependability from the Meryl Streep go to all of them. There's a structure and that allows people around you to go, Okay. This is what we get from Denzel, this is what we get from Tom. Tom's a workaholic. He's really demanding, but he's demanding every day. He didn't change on Wednesday, Lucy Goosey Wednesday, Tom didn't show up Thursday. And that I think is the problem with self reflection, manifesting your destiny. Being a jazz musician, everybody's just sort of all the time waiting to figure out what to do, and I think it makes it harder for organizations. This is why Mahomes was very smart. Remember what Patrick Mahomes did. Mahomes very early said hey, I'll take less money. What did that send a signal all about winning? I'm about winning. Mahomes structured a deal that was very very team friendly that everybody, the GM, the owner of the coach, Travis Kelsey, everybody now knew I can't I can't be a ballhog on money. The best player on the team is about winning. So it sends a message guys. If you're about the most money, Tyreek Hill, go play in Miami. If you're about the most money, go play somewhere else in Kansas City. We're about winning. Tim Duncan, very early in his career, it's about winning. Brady about winning, Jeter about winning. But Colin, I guess my issue is in Hollywood, these guys who are actors and actresses. You know what you're gonna get from Denzel for the four months you're shooting the film, right, and then it's over gone. Everybody goes there separate ways. You know what you're getting for Tom Cruise a Maverick as Maverick in Top Gun two. You know what you're getting for four or five months. As part of a team. Aaron Rodgers needs to do what you're saying you do every day, show up and be repetitive. This is a guy who pretty clearly doesn't know understand himself. Why don't I get along with my family? Why can't I keep a relationship to get married like he is. He's not really built at this stage in his life to be part of a team. I don't think. Yeah, this Darkness Retreat, I was reading a lot about it. It seems like a guy who's probably going to retire. He's got enough money that even though he's owed a lot, what do I need that for? I want to go do my thing and ayahuasca and find myself. You can't do that when you're part of a team. Yeah, but even the great Hollywood people, it's not like Denzel only commits to work four months for the movie. He's constantly writing, he's collaborating, He's dealing with studios. Like these these big Hollywood guys, the Hanks, the Denzel, all these guys, we'd just see him in the movie. That movie is a two year process of commitment to directors and money and producers. Denzel's all in, so it makes it very easy to work. You know. The other guy, Marlon Brando career careened out of control. You never knew what to expect. You couldn't build anything around him. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's me three time Pro Bowl and Levarrington and I couldn't be more excited to now. It's a podcast called up on Game? What is up on Game? You asked along with my fellow Pro bowler t J. Hudshman Zada and Super Bowl champion Yep that's right, Plexico Birds. You can only name a show with that type of talent on it. Up on Game We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded with teachable moments. Listen to Up on Game with Me, lebar Arrington, TJ. Hushman, Zatta and Plexico Birds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast from. I don't think Lebron become an all time scoring king, you know, does anything in the Lebron Michael debate. You know, it's actually respectful to Michael Jordan that we still talk about him. I mean, that's how great he was. And Michael and Lebron are the two best basketball players I've ever seen. Have always thought Magic got to nine finals. I think it was. I always thought he was a little underrated. Actually, people just don't understand quite how great he was. But he had this guy named Larry Bird in the way and a dynasty on the East Coast in the way, so it took away some of those championships. But the one argument Lebron dissenters says, well, it's easier to score today. They're right, it is. The three point shot is now encouraged and practiced. It wasn't in Michael's day. You can't hand check like in Michael's day, So you can't stay in front of anybody. People can't stay in front of Lebron James. He's six nine, two fifty and in his twentieth year, nobody can stay in front of him. You can't hand check. You could keep Michael at bay. And the third thing is stars, elite players take more nights off. So a lot of times, I mean, can you imagine if Lebron, if Michael Jordan was playing the Pistons in a regular season game in Isaiah and Rodman Lambier took the night off. That's what happens now all the time. So that said, here's what's interesting about Lebron's career. So here's the three stages of the three point revolution in the NBA, and Lebron's played through all of them. So the first about five years of Lebron's career, it was still a power league, right, three point shots only to those that could shoot them. You could have two or three guys on the floor that couldn't hit a three, couldn't hit a jumper. Lebron averaged twenty seven a game in that stage. The next about five years, the league was pivoting to a three point league, where the smart teams were already in the dumb teams weren't. Lebron averaged again twenty seven points a game. And then in the last ten years it's all in. It is a three point shooting league and Lebron is averaged twenty seven point eight points a game. Same guy, pre three shot Revolution, pivoting to three shot Revolution, all in, three point revolution, same basic Lebron. Why, because he's never been driven by points. Lebron has always been about elevating others. Those early Cleveland teams they had good defenders, they had no other star. But in the end, Lebron was trying to elevate see players to at least b plus players he couldn't. Eventually left when he went to Miami again, he gave up a lot of shots to Ray Allen and Mike Miller and d Wade and Chris Bosh and Shane Batty could have scored more. He wanted to win here. He wanted Anthony Davis after the Bubble Championship to be ready to take that baton thirty nine minutes tonight, maybe forty two Anthony Davis came in out of shape. So now Lebroun has to absolutely carry this team offensively. I mean, last night ridiculous. Now mj and Kobe viewed themselves as great scores. That's why all these years later you remember the exact number of points Kobe scored in his final game, sixty. He was defined by shooting and scoring. That's not Lebron. He could absolutely in the last ten years be averaging thirty six a night because it is easier to score. Three point shots are encouraged. Stars take nights off all the time. So Lebron's often play against backups, seventh men, and you can't hand check. There's no question hand checking would keep a Steph Curry a job. Morant be hard to hand check Lebron in front of you, but it did allow you to guide players, and it made it harder for Michael Jordan. No question that that era it was it was tackling. It looked, it looked more like college football on certain nights and certain rivalries. But that thing, I think it is fascinating in Lebron's twenty year career, and Brady's got some of this. When you play a long time, the sport changes. Tom Brady walked into the league, it was a defensive league. He left the league, it's an offensive league. Lebron was pre three pivot to three in the three average twenty seven a game for all of them, and I think that I think that largely defines what makes Lebron amazing is that he's going to be the all time scoring champ. He is now the all time scoring king, and he's not defined by points. I mean, I often think about this, how do you describe somebody like twenty years from now, because we're all looking, we all have recency bias. I'm guilty as anybody on recency bias. You get worked up in a moment a day. We're all emotional, we all love sports, and I think about how will you view Lebron, And a big chunk of it will be longevity is that he was one of the first athletes, Brady and him to really take the body seriously. You mean, it's interesting if you're an academic, you're on a college campus. If you're a writer, you constantly write. People who write for a living, you know, they write movies, they write screenplays, write, they write every day. They keep that muscle going. And you know with Lebron James, he really understood it's all brainpower here. He was just smarter. He understood very early. He moved his game to the perimeter, less contact in the lane, took care of his body, and realized he's a business and he could extend his career by more perimeter shots, fewer times getting decked and hitting the floor. Move his game more outside, take care of your body. It's an intelligence. Brady had it, Lebron's got it that they saw around the corner of the league. Lebron started pivoting to the three point shot at the very end of Cleveland, and then by the time he got to Miami he totally understood it and was on most nights fairly dependable. One More Heard the Herd streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app. Search her to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Rick Buker now joining us live on a historic night in the NBA Last Night. So how do you think last night fitched into Lebron's legacy twenty years from now? What What do you make of all time scoring champ when I view them largely a little bit more like magic than Michael, more of a distributor and elevator. How does it fit into his legacy, We're not going to know, to your point, Colin, We're probably not going to know until twenty years down the line, because in part as, it felt like it was supposed to be a momentous occasion, it should be a meaningful event, and yet it was meaningless. It's a it was in a meaningless game in a meaningless season for the Lakers, which is a lot different than when Kareem broke the record and they were on their way to the finals and they didn't make as much of it then as we did last night. I kind of felt bad for TMT because they were trying to make this into a big thing and it I don't know about you, but it ultimately did not feel like that for me. So I believe as we move farther away from the details and the specifics of what's going on, we will have a greater appreciation for what Lebron has accomplished. When you talk impact on the sport, I've said before Michael was greater than Staff, but Staff has really revolutionized high school college in pro basketball. He's revolutionized the game how do you view Lebron's legacy impact, I should say impact on the sport. I don't think he's impacted the sport. I believe that he's impacted the NBA and particularly the business of the NBA. He is empowered players like no other player has ever empowered them. He was the first one to basically say, I don't care about the contract. I want flexibility and freedom to go where I want to play with who I want. And now every star in the league, every star in the league should feel beholden to Lebron James because of the power that he has created for all of them. To me, that's the biggest impact that he's had. And to your point you were talking about how he's evolved as a scorer, I don't even believe that he necessarily changed the game. As much as the game has changed and it's benefited him. It's not as if he made the game less physical. The game became less physical, it became smaller, and he happened to be a big man with small man's skills. So now he's the biggest guy on the floor night after night who's able to go from rim to rim. So I'm watching the game last night, and I'm sitting there and I know I'm not the only person thinking this, and I'm thinking, he's the best player on the floor. There's a kid for Oklahoma City we all like, but we're talking leadership, experience, body. He's the best player on the floor and on the Lakers easily. And I'm thinking, if you inserted him tomorrow into the Celtics Warriors, Milwaukee for sure and maybe Cleveland, they'd go win the title. And if it was Milwaukee, they may win a couple Jannis Lebron And I'm thinking to myself, here's Lebron. Is he just satisfied because he is so much about details, repetition, efficiency and business. He does not like. He does not like foolishness, nonsense and wasting his time. And it kind of feels like, now that he's got the record, he's wasting his time. And I'm sitting there thinking, Rick, he's not about to retire. He got two good years left. Is there a one percent chance that he doesn't end with the Lakers? Sure there is? Because he was it was Colin he was advertising himself last night. He didn't say I still got enough left to win a couple more with the Lakers. He said, I still have enough left to win a couple more, or I can contribute to a team trying to win a championship. I thought he was putting his shingle out last night in terms of I'm available, I still want to go after this. Yeah, here's the problem, and I said it when he signed it. When he signed the extension with the Lakers, that created the greatest roadblock for him to go any place else because you can't just acquire him. You have to be able to create room to take on him and that contract. And while I do believe that he can still contribute or could contribute to a championship team, you're not building your team around Lebron James at this point. He has to be more of a I can't say complimentary player, but he has to be a piece of the puzzle rather than the piece. And that what's always been the conundrum with having Lebron James is that he can be your centerpiece and he can take you there, but you have to build a very specific team around him that essentially no one else can fill. So once you pull him out, once he's the Jena piece that you pull out, that whole thing is collapsing. And that's why I wonder it's not a matter of could he do it? Who's going to jump out there and say we have to have Bron James in order to play for a title in the next year or two. I don't readily. Maybe the Phoenix Suns because of their disappointment and trying to get over the hump, but I don't. Why would Boston do it? Yeah, why would Milwaukee do it? They they already believe that they can do it as is, and why give up the pieces in order to get Lebron just to take a shot with Lebron for a year or two. So listen, it's total speculation, but there have been growing signs that Lebron and I think it was two years ago post Bubble title, is frustrated with the lack of clarity and commitment from Anthony Davis and reliability physically. Last night, A d was emotionally disengaged annoyed after the game. Now it could be personal stuff, certainly possible. Maybe he thought Lebron took over the stage for the game. But this team's a thirteenth in the West game doesn't mean crap. They're not going anywhere, So it felt like something and we've talked about moving Westbrook that's been advertised. Jason McIntyre said, that was weird. It just it is. There's a reason it was all over the internet. Is it possible AD at the deadline, which by the way, RIC is three pm Eastern tomorrow, is ad the block and has been informed about it. I would be surprised if that was what causes and I do not have an explanation for why, but the fact that he was sitting on the bench and did not even see yeah, I mean we have him here. He wasn't even watching when the legendary shot, the record breaking shot went down. I guess he's watching on the big screen, but like the rest of us, but without question, it was strange. I do not believe it's because he's been informed that he's going to be traded if they do make a move with Anthony Davis. As with a number of the trades that are out there right now, I feel as if that the table is being set for moves that are going to be made this summer. It's really hard in season to move a contract and a player of Anthony Davis's magnitude and feel like you are getting the requisite talent back or assets back for them. So I wish I had an explanation for you. But it also in watching it, it also reminded me when I think about the reaction of the Warriors to Staff breaking the three point record and the joy, the collective joy they had. Certainly the Lakers were happy for Lebron, but it was really about Lebron and his and his and his family coming out and the and the celebrities that he knows, like he shared more with them than he did with his teammates, And I was thinking, well, that's the price for moving around as much as he has. Yeah, that these guys really haven't gone through the wars with him. It's like, oh, you know, I'm playing a year with Lebron. Yeah, guess what I played. I was. I was on the Lakers when Lebron broke the record, not like Lebron and I did all this and I got to see the record. It was just, you know, there's there's for every action, there is a reaction. And his ability to go from team to team and win championships in multiple places, the price is is that he now kind of finds himself doing these monumental things. But he's doing them all by himself. Finally, I got to throw Kd's name out, so you know I've said and I'm crazy. But if I was Milwaukee, I'd call and say, I'll give you Middleton, Ingalls and a Bicker three for Durant and then, like the Warriors, I've already won without KD. I could win after KD. But why not have a two to three year run where I've got two of the top five players in the league. Again, it's we're trading deadline discussion. That's why we do this. It's fun. But do you think Durant stays there? There's discussions today like he's in deep discussions with the organization. What's your guests on what he does? I would expect that he's going to stay. They convinced him to not go anywhere. Once I have the feeling that they can do it again, I would imagine that the conversations right now are about, Hey, let's finish out the season and then we can figure out where you want to go and make something work for both of us. If we're doing it now, the timeline is so difficult. Neither you nor us has the opportunity to find the ideal place for you to go, and KD has, unlike Kyrie, has demonstrated that he's amenable to trying to do what's best for everyone. So that's where I would expect that the conversations are going. I have no doubt that Kyrie leaving has convinced KD that it's time for him to move. I just believe that he's going to give the Nets the wherewithal to be able to do a better deal than they could in the next twenty four hours. Good stuff, rig Buker record setting and see you again, Colin. Great to see you. Look fantastic. We'll start we'll start hanging out more now because of the NBA season. Yeah, sound good. Maybe we'll shave too now. I'm not going to do that. I'm a Massizola's up here, all right. Good thing