The Herd with Colin CowherdDoug recaps an interesting week as Lebron James decided to post about him and his basketball program on his X account.
Doug weighs in on the Luka-Lebron tandem as the Lakers played their third game with the duo resulting in a loss to the Charlotte Hornets at home.
Doug welcomes former NBA player and current analyst Ryan Hollins onto the show to talk about the Lakers' new look, Wemby's injury and all of the other major headlines around the NBA.
#douggottliebshow
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in noon to three eastern nine am to noon Pacific. 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 Fox Sports Radio or FSR.
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher on Fox Sports Radio.
What Up?
Welcome in? This is the Herd wherever you may be and however you may be listening to us on this Thursday. Welcome in.
Colin is up back next week and uh, well, have to get to including Aaron Rodgers, Jase do something? Did dawn on me here as we had the breaking news that we'll get to in one second.
It's that.
Uh, I don't I don't even know if I should do. I need to address Lebron tweeting at me randomly a couple of days ago, because it's a different platform than my show.
Yeah, I think it's a must.
Uh do you think so?
Yeah? Maybe some people aren't familiar with this, so I think you need to like be derivative with it. What happened?
How?
Why?
What were you doing?
I don't even know what happened, Like I don't know like what like I was if I was flying?
So your vantage point, how did it go down?
Okay?
Uh So for people just joining us, I'm Doug Gottliebin for Colin, many of you have throughout my travels now as both the hosts of Doug Gottlieb Show and the head coach of Green Bay have like, Man, I love you when you're on Colin, like I'm still on Colin and just we just do it remotely now, so I appreciate you. And obviously Colin is going to spend at least some time closer to us in Green Bay in Chicago. I don't know how much that that's gonna be or how that any of that works.
That's not my business.
But yeah, over the weekend, we broke out of our despite the fact we you know, didn't have still don't have the nation's leading scorers out with injury or our starting center who came over bid year, we pulled off an upset, got a big win on Sunday. For the first time since twenty twenty one, we won a game in our on campus facility called the Crest Center. Those first time since twenty twenty one we'd won on campus, and for my team, we lost twenty one in a row.
Twenty one a row.
Kids battled and beat a good Right State team and ended up getting win.
So you know, it's like unbelievably.
Positive vibes and these and I can you know, everybody calls their college team kids, but when you're playing, you know, six of your rotation or yours, you know, start five fresh four freshmen and a sophomore who's nineteen years old. You know you're sitting there going, hey, they're actually kids. Everybody calls their team in college kids, and as the sport has gotten older, my guys are actually kids. So for these kids, they just kind of taken a beating a little bit, you know, emotionally themselves.
They're competitive people.
And then I don't think they and probably I didn't even understand how people would choose to follow our story this year, you know, just looking at final scores, not caring about anything else. And when the losing streak built up, you know, people beat up on us on on social media. There's plenty of other teams that are struggling this year, apparently the only one they care about is is mine, which is fine. That's that's how it's gonna be, and it's gonna be that way when we win.
So it's okay.
But the point is that I don't know of anyone, especially those players, expected what what kind of happened.
So we get a win. On Sunday two o'clock game, you know, about.
Four thirty five o'clock, I'm over the place called the Black Sheep, which is on this side of town. It's the only real spot where you can go have a have a beverage and it's great. And then that night we go out and have dinner and the guys are good, and the guys have we have to mandatory expandatory for our program to take two days off. We chose to give them two consecutive days off, and me and a couple of staff guys, we went and recruited on Monday. So I'm flying and I made it. I made it a point to myself, Jase two. As you know, I am on my phone too much. And this job is terrible for it. Terrible for it because you know, like when you're recruiting, you have to constantly check in with players and coaches.
We your team.
You kind of have to constantly check in with your players and coaches, and with that, you're going to be on your phone. But I was like, you know what, we gotta win. It feels good. I don't need social media today. I don't need day to day. I'm just gonna fly and land and be and watch tape and figure out recruiting, figure out my current staff, my current roster.
All these things. I land and I hadn't.
It's like first time because I normally fly American and I was flying Delta and I'm like, you know, I have an account with American to have that, to have the Wi Fi, you know where you're paying a monthly. I didn't have it with Delta. I didn't even look at it. I just I'm just watching tape mine in my own business, and all of a sudden, I land and one of my buddies calls me says, what would you do?
Lebron?
I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Did you see Twitter? It's like, no, I'm not on Twitter today. He's like, Bron's coming at you, okay over what He's like, I don't know.
So the context of the tweet was.
Clearly making fun of our record, which the tweet was old. We'd actually it's like, oh my guys, all my players text me like, hey, coach, can you tell Lebron we won three games? Not too like we're we're not like that, and uh and then you know, he went he went to thirty year old credit card with the gotta give him credit deal to be clever. So I think, again, I don't know, cause I don't know what Lebron James would be doing on the day before he had to get back to work with his ankle injury. But my guess is either I live in his head rent free, which is a possibility, or it popped up in his you know, it can pop up in your like timeline record, and he just chose to fire off it, you know, catch me astray. But for whatever reason, he chose to do it. And of course there is speculation from the masses that it's over the fact that I have questioned Brownie James's validity as a McDonald's All American when Jonathan Gavoni branked him as the tenth best NBA prospect in college in basketball last year, even his selection at fifty five in the NBA Draft, or their use of him early on the season, he's still on the Lakers roster. I guess, but I don't know, Jase do That's again, we're just guessing because it wasn't like and it wouldn't be that hard finding a take that a lot of people had, but finding a take that he didn't like of mine and then quote tweeting it and if he wants to and make fun of our record, I guess that it's good. So am I assuming the wrong thing to assume? Maybe it's over Bronnie. Maybe it's or he listens to the show, he didn't like some of my football picks.
What do we think it's over?
It's been It's been fascinating sport to theorize on this one, because yeah, he hasn't had any follow up. Nobody asked him. And if you know, somebody like Dan Wookie's listening right now, maybe somebody should ask him about the Gottlieb tweet at the next game, because we do need clarification the theories that I've heard around the office here. Okay, you were you were one of multiple people to make a comparison of Bronni with make a wish. Okay, that exaggeration that probably hit his radar. But I think the one take that you had over the summer when you said that you weren't sure that Bronni would start for your team. So, in other words, you have a Division I head coach saying in the Horizon League saying that I'm not sure Bronnie would start for my team. Now, I remember you saying that, and you were being genuine. You were not saying that to exaggerate. That was not a hot take. That is basically how you felt about Brownie's skill set at that time. I think earlier this week you said you know what he would break the starting line of but he was part of it?
Is okay, So again what kind of brass tacks But people don't know, and it's great this Actually, Anthony Roy is our best player. Anthony Roy was averaging twenty seven a game before he suffered a lower leg injury that he is working to come back from it, and I don't know if he'll be back for our regular season.
It's gonna be real close.
Okay, Anthony Roy is better and I would rather start him than Bronnie James.
No one in my program, no one in.
Basketball would argue with that. He just would he's a walking bucket. He was leading the country in three point percentage and an effective field goal percentage while averaging twenty seven a game. Again, it's not just about points or whatever, but the dude is ridiculous. He's also older than Bronnie. He's twenty three years old, turned twenty three mid season, so he's older than Bronnie. So if you want to say, if you think Bronnie has a better upside, again you can think that.
I don't believe so, so he would not start.
There my other two starting guards at the time this summer, I have kidnamed Preston Rudinger who is in his fourth year playing. He started out as a walk on at Valpo, then earned a scholarship at Valpo, then transferred to Green Bay Case just a hard playing six to two kid from Appleton was from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And then I had Jeremiah Johnson, who was a top one hundred, top hundred fifty kid. And I think he actually compares very favorably to Bronnie. And here's the thing, Okay, if we're actually going to have a real basketball conversation, here's the real basketball conversation. Because though I don't have time to track every G League performance. I do have people in my life that I'm very close to who have do and continue to either coach or evaluate the G League. And he had, you know, one of his games in which he had a bunch of points. He wasn't actually very good, you know, he was like six of nineteen or whatever, and they went from a close game to getting blown out. And then he had another, yet another big game where he played really, really well. He's been up and down in the G League. He's been completely ineffective and he's not good enough to play in the NBA, and no one really argues with that.
They don't. Can he start on my team? Yeah? Probably.
My issue with Brownie has always been, like, he's not a point guard.
He's not an elite shooter.
There's no tracking for any time in his career, high school, college, professionally that he is an elite shooter. Ever, he's not an elite passer, and though he can be, he has some of the skill set of being a good defender. Like the issue that most people myself who actually evaluate basketball is, especially during summer league, he wouldn't guard the big time point guard, the legit dude, you know, he go over and kind of hide and guard a shooter, So you know, I think he's I thought he'd actually have a very good college career. My suggestion of the time and would have remained, why not go play for one of your best friends at Ducane, get away from it and just really really develop the confidence of being a scoring combo.
Because that's his path to success.
But yeah, like and and my staff when I said that, they're like, I think he'd start, Like, I don't know that. I don't know what he looks like because when I saw him play in college at USC and unless any Enfeld is a complete dope, which I don't think anybody thinks any NFL's equipped complete dope, he didn't start him because he was behind guards that were better than him. And when he did play, regardless of his stats, they didn't win. They weren't more competitive. They were one of the worst teams in the Pac twelve last year. That wasn't a super strong basketball conference. Now it's a higher level on the horizon, But like, we got good guards in this league, really really good guards. This kid named Bellow at Purdue Fort Wayne. He was a Division two kid who transferred in there he's tall, he's tough. I would rather have him than have Ronnie. And then the other part too, it is the reality when you're coach, you're not gonna sit there and throw your own guys in the bus, like, oh, he's better than everybody.
In my roster. He's not.
So.
But again, if it's about that, why not make it about that instead of just the stray Let's make fun of their record with no context, leave you to wonder and why. And the other part is why, Like what is the win in it for Lebron?
Now?
I know you got what do they call what do we call people who are like lebron sycophants on social media?
Stands lebron stands?
Uh?
Just that like the fanboys who bronze sexuals, that's what they are, Bronze sexuals. My my, my Instagram is full of bronze sexuals who know nothing about anything other than Lebron, Lebron, Lebron.
Like that's that is a weird one too.
It's it's creepy to the level of when women and guys used Just remember when Michael Jackson would like travel to Japan and like in his motorcade, people would see him and they just start crying, and you're like, what is wrong with those people? Why are you crying at the sight of Michael Jackson? Jay Su your were to say, we're about saying age. You're a little older, right, Do you remember those those videos of like Michael Jackson goes to a foreign country and people actually start crying.
Of course, of course that's how that's how.
I view I think most people view.
What is it again, Ryan bron Bronze sexuals, Bronze sexuals.
It's funny that you bring in bronze sexuals if you were hearing from them, because if you read the comments of that tweet, and I encourage our listeners to go to the tweet, it's still up. Most of the comments and I would say a ratio of like nine to one are ripping on Lebron for wasting time tweeting about you after he just cost somebody an All Star spot the day before. And the theory that has been going around the office too, and our guy Dan Byer came up with it, and I think he's right. Lebron was just on his private jet on the way home. Yeah, and you have on Twitter, you have for you and you have following he was on his for you, and this tweet just comes up from College Basketball News or whatever it is with your record, and it's I think he just did an impulse tweet. Yeah, and there are twenty three laughing emojis and five coca emojis, just to be precise, do you a coca? Yeah? I went Kaka instead of TRD for the for the Herd audience.
You could have gone number two as well, or or or Pooh could have done pooh. Do we do Do we say the word poo anymore? We just say poo.
When you are kids, you go pooh.
If not, we'll clean it up an edit.
We would clean that up and edit to make it sound hipper for the kids.
What I don't know.
The interesting part to me is like I don't care that he missed the All Star Game. My guess is the reason he didn't bail in the All Star Game, you know before was the league probably told him like, hey, dude, act like you're gonna play and then you know, and then last second we'll have you not not play. If we announce that you're not playing, that could hurt the numbers. Let's not do that.
I would I would guess that that was a a.
League mandated thing more than anything else, because there's been lots of speculation about, hey, why didn't you just like why didn't they grab LaMelo ball and throw them in that game? Lameloo would have loved to have been an All Star. My guess is that they wanted Lebron to go through all the pomp, all the circumstances, pretend like he was playing be there, because had he not been in the game, Lebron probably been like, I'm out, I'm taking my private jet and I'm going somewhere nice, and like, yeah, we can't do that, which kind of circles us back to who's the next day to leak? But I find the whole thing to be just fascinating. That's that's somebody who like why does he care? But apparently cares cares enough. He cares enough. But people have asked. I've had lots of people go like, you're and again, this is more bronze sexuals.
You could take the heat.
You can't dish it out, Like what do you want me to dish out? Do you want me to specifically react to a tweet that has no nothing other than like our record is what it is like? I can't change it, and I don't feel the need to go back and go like, well, you know, I didn't have this guy then. I didn't have this then, and we played a top one hundred schedule and we're a you know, a bottom two fifty team. Like that was dumb and like nobody cares.
I don't care. They don't care.
About anything other than either being the most vile people ever or being supportive.
There's nothing. There's no one between, no.
Gray, So like, what do you want me to come back as ooh, you missed the last two game winning shots.
Like he's Lebron James.
That was There was no substance to his tweet other than willfully at showing the desire to make fun of a team that he's never watched.
He's never paid attention to. And that's funny. I don't know, good for him. That's small guy stuff. That's small guy stuff.
One more Herd. The Herd streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you like.
Doug Gollibin for Colin. This is the Herd.
Foxports Radio iHeartRadio app Welcome, Welcome, Welcome in uh breaking news in the NBA. The breaking news of the NBA is Victor Webbin Yama is going to miss the remainder of the season. Apparently has deep deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder. Deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder. I don't know what any of that means. It's basically like a blood clot in the shoulder. They believe it's an isolated incident. Why is it important it's isolating. If you have blood clots, then it's very hard to ever play in the NBA because they got to put you on blood their medication, and then there's all these steps you got to go through, and then if you come off it, then you can get clots. Obviously we know, you know blood clotting. You know those things can can then break loose and can wreck havoc on your entire body. So right now, that is the breaking news.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays at noon eastern non am Pacific.
Hey, Steve Covino and I'm Rich David and together we're Covino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio. You could catch us weekdays from five to seven pm Eastern two to four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and of course the iHeartRadio app. Why should you listen to Covino and Rich. We talk about everything life, sports, relationships, what's going on in the world. We have a lot of fun talking about the stories behind the stories in the world of sports and pop culture, stories that well other shows don't seem to have the time to discuss. And the fact that we've been friends for the last twenty years and still work together. I mean that says something, right, So check us out. We like to get you involved too, take your phone calls, chop it up. As they say, I'd say the most interactive show on Fox Sports Radio, maybe the most interactive show on planetar. Be sure to check out Covino and Rich Live on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app from five to seven pm Eastern two to four Pacific. Miss any of the live show, just search Kobe non Rich wherever you get your podcasts, and of course on social media. That's Cavino and Rich.
Second half of the NBA season gets underway tonight. I know we had a makeup game last night, so we do have some NBA stuff to talk about. That that's already taken place. Let's let's welcome in Ryan Holns, Fox Sports Radio, NBA analyst. Course, he's also a Rockets game analysting. You know, he played ten years in the NBA after starting at UCLA. Ryan, what can we take away from the Lakers giving away a big lead and losing to the Horns last night at home?
Oh? I know that the fixes. We're not there defensively, and the challenge is between Lebron and Luca being on the court, and I think watching Luca on a couple of those possessions, you know, you've got to ask yourself. Is it a matter of health that he can't get down in the defensive stance and keep guys in front? Is that bothering him that much? Or as a matter of do I want to guard? Do I want to keep guys in front? But you have to have a large level of concerns the way that the NBA has played. Now, you know, Doug, when we played the Guards a PI through strange big wishow didn't you recover today's NBA Because it's facing every opposing team is going to hunt down the weak links and whoever your guarden is going to be in the pick and roll until they get the matchup that they want or shot they want. What's that mean? That means the Lakers are going to have a very long season until they figure out Luka Doncic defensively. So I'm not sure what the schemes are going to be moving down the stretch. But there's a large concern because he's moving around the way that Lebron actually should be at forty years old.
Right.
I mean, it's interesting you say this because, look, I get I wouldn't have pulled off the trade, But if you watched last night and you're like, nothing, he didn't guard anybody, and you want me to sign him before year three hundred and fifty million dollars contract, Like there was a little bit of confirmation over some of the fears in Dallas watching last night.
He's and look, he was still a plus thirteen.
He still had a great positive impact during his time in the game, and like not the plus minuses everything, but they weren't thirteen points better than the Horns when he was in, but they were just he ain't guarded at all at all.
Right, Yeah, but Doug again, that's the challenge. And then I think as far as legacy is concerned. Lebron's legacy as a player is pretty much setting stone. I don't know what's more he can do. You know, at the end of the day, he's one of the greatest to ever do that. No one can contest that. But his global legacy is legacy moving forward of the legacy of Hey, like Lebron, what have you left to the game? Is right now what he gave to Anthony Davis, and even bigger what he gives to Luka Doncics. If Luka Doncins ends up being the heir apparent to the throne in the NBA Kingdom, they're gonna say Lebron James either helped push that forward or Lebron James, you were a non factor in this equation. So Lebron has now been given as much a stake as he is in it for his own legacy purposes of moving the game forward, you know, and I get it, we throw away throw Lebron's name around, you know, very loosely, but you know you're handing those keys to the kingdom to somebody else that is big. That's why Chris Paul, you know, went down to San Antonio to help out with winby. That's why a lot of these guys are gravitating to these young stars. I'm sure there's gonna be a big name that's going to be right alongside Anthony Edwards trying to help him get where he needs to go because of his talent level. But for Lebron, you know, this is his responsibility.
Now, Ryan All, as our guest here on the in the herd, I'm out the filling in for Colin.
Okay, let's let's get to the Warriors.
You know now you know Jimmy Butler, they're gonna work, Tradmond Green, we're gonna win it. How what does that trade do to the Warriors in the playoffs in your opinion, right?
I mean it's dangerous. I wouldn't want to see him in the first round. You know, I'd be lying to you if I said, you know, looking at Oklahoma City, told you that was championship contention. But we got to see him before the break and Jimmy didn't even know the plays yet. But you know, with him on the floor with Steph, it's dangerous because their games really compliment each other. And if we're gonna be the we're gonna nitpick Steph Curry at this moment. Let's nitpick them in moments when the defense gets tight because of this size, it's hard for him to get to the foul or get his shot off in moments. That's what Jimmy Butler does. So you may see a lot of thirteen screen flip actions and encourage you up a couple dots, you know, with with Jimmy Butler, could you gotta follow Curry? And now you get Jimmy Butler with a smaller guy that he can go one on one against, you know. And then obviously they improved defensively, and I think they were deep enough to be able to lose Kyle Anderson and Wiggets, even though those are two great players. But this this was a deep enough team where Gary Payton the second can step in and there's a number of other guys of Moses Moodies who played you know, extremely well, and you know, imagine what they're gonna look like even when Jonathan Kaminga gets back.
Okay, so if it's not the Lakers, if it's not the Warriors, like Houston's obviously had a turnaround season. The Thunder have been awesome last year in the regular season. This year in the regular season, but last year they lost to Dallas. Are the thunder there yet, I guess is.
The big question.
They're there. They're there, Doug when you play them. This season, when we were able to see them, there was a They picked up where they left off from last year. And you remember, if we're gonna like it, it's the football. Remember Peyton Manning. And I'm not saying I'm not trying to throw a shot. I remember Peyton Manning. Everybody was like, man, he's playing playoff football in the middle of the year. Like they stepped into this year playing playoff basketball. They even with the small lineup, they were making some of the most detailed defensive adjustments on the fly that I've seen from a team, you know, And the big compliment is when you can implement different strategies for different guys. They would shift their defense one way for Fred van Vliet driving and then they shift a whole other way for Jalen Green, and their guys were picking up the iq of hey, let's take away what the player does best. And when we beat him at home, it literally took thirty plus points from Fred and a half court heave to do it. But they said forever athlete's going to beat us scoring the basketball. But the adjustments that they were able to make on the fly were nothing short of impressive. And then Shay's unbelievable. They have a guy like Doug, you know, like they have a guy like their sound things are rolling when check comes back, there's a different dimension and they have a guy, Shay gilds out. There is a guy.
He's a dude. There's no question he's a dude. Uh, Wemby shuts. They shut Wenby down for for deep bine thumbs from boss in his shoulder. What does this dude to your outlook out for?
For Wemby?
Right, it is it is one of those guys that we've all like again as fans, we look at him, we're like, well, he's gonna break it half at some point, and that's going.
To be that he didn't break it half, but he got a blood clot in his shoulder. What what does this do to his trajectory?
Well, my concerns that it's ten to ten, I'm sure saying Antonio's worried that they're shutting them down. Uh, the first thought comes to mind. I'm no medical expert, Doug, but I don't think you take that lightly. Chris Bosh didn't play again, you know, so hopefully they're catching this thing early. They're playing it safe again. I don't know enough about a blood clot, but for a guy that young to be missing games, the concern was there. Earlier we talked about Luca doncis right and we're saying you're twenty five years old. The knee has not gone away. It's lingering, and if you watch the cliff, he's standing like a scarecrow on defense. Your concern is that what major health issue there is that? Because is it like I said, is it that you don't want to get down, or their health issue? But back to Wimby, for him to be missing games, it's a concern, and he's a generational talent. He could break every record that the NBA has standing if he can be healthy. You think about Yaoming and his greatness and for Yao mean, you know, his foot broken foot ended up taking them out. So you know, we have these giants in the game and sometimes we don't see them at their peak. Hey, Doug, if we saw our Vitas or Bonus in his prime, if he came over to the NBA, you know, we got to see the older our vitas. So I'm praying that we get to see Wimby reach his potential. I hope it's a speedy recovery, but I'd be lying to you if I said that there's not a cause for concern. The prayers going out and hopefully, you know, he ends up just being fined. They caught whatever it was soon enough.
Can anybody in the East beat the Celtics in the playoffs.
It's gonna be tough, Doug when we saw him this year, they just like they're a well oiled machine. And I think the challenge is when you play them, they really defended, like they get after you. And to me, the key in the NBA right now is your depth. Joe Mozula's not scared to go ten or twelve deep in the game, and the key is rest. You're looking at a lot of these other stars and teams and guys are breaking down left right. Steph Curry missed the chunk of this season. John Morant missed so much that he wasn't in the game. The Suns hadn't played with their starting lineup or their big three intact. I think it's like it's like ten games they played together, it's something ridiculous, so you know, not really you know, coming together. So I just don't see anybody challenging Boston. And like, it's still role players that get it. You can probably say Tatum and Brown can pound for pound match with anybody, but like their role players, Doug, they are playing competent Pritchard. When Pritcher's up for a contract. Remember I said they're not gonna be able to keep them. Oh, they're gonna have to pay that young man like he's he's a he's a dog. Okay, And they have these young guys coming up in confidence and just playing at an extremely high clip. So, uh, I really like Boston again, Doug.
Who doesn't like watching Peyton Pitcher play. Uh, there's there's a dude that's that that is dynamic and fun. Ryan, great stuff, dude, look forward to hearing your calls the Rockets game here, Uh, the second half of the season and into the playoffs.
Appreciate you me our guest as.
Always anytime, Doug, and stop mixing it up, man, Go go ahead and chill out a little bit, Doug. Hold old back a little bit.
Ryan, I had nothing that I was I was on a plane flying recruiting. I catch this stray from Lebron. I hadn't talked about Lebron and in a month and a half, Oh is your boy? What's your boy on his day off? What's going on there?
You're in the line. You're in the line of fire, Doug. You must you must be doing something right, brother. But keep it up, man, and then we'll wish it to you many good
Appreciate that rent free, Ryan, Thanks so much.
