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It's the most magical time of the year, and I'm not talking about Christmas. I'm talking about the NFL season. So make sure you're ready with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Get the most live NFL games all in one place. Right now, you can save $85 when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket with YouTube TV. Sign up today at youtubetv.com slash Spotify. Device and content restrictions apply. Discount apply to first four months of YouTube TV, then $72.99 a month. Ends August 29th. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. No refunds.
Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much?
I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show. Episode 66.
in honor of Route 66, one of America's first great highways running from Chicago through my home state of Oklahoma all the way out here to the LA area where it ended in Santa Monica, California. This as always is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the debate show that is undisputed. Today, I will unleash on LeBron James
And again, I will unleash on Charles Barkley. Please forgive me up front for that. And today, I will answer your questions about Zeke's future and about Wimby to the Spurs, my Spurs, and about my biggest pet peeve on this planet. And I'll also tell you why I'll take Diet Mountain Dew over coffee any day or night. But first up, as always...
It is not to be skipped. Maybe I should ask your forgiveness up front for this, but I cannot help myself. It is time for me to unleash on LeBron James in ways I did not on Tuesday's Undisputed after obviously the Lakers got swept. My man Shannon Sharp obviously loves him some LeBron James. I call Shannon LeShannon. And LeShannon took getting swept...
pretty to very hard. And I will admit, A, I felt a little sorry for Shannon. I'm not a good frontrunner. I'm not a great gloater when I win. And LeBron got swept. And on Undisputed, I openly acknowledged I did love and respect some things
some things, actually a lot of things, LeBron did against those Denver Nuggets. I mean, LeBron James averaged against the Nuggets four games, only four, but he did average 28, 10, and 10. And in game four's first quarter, the closeout game here in LA at what I call the Crypt, in the first quarter of that game,
LeBron James managed to score a career playoff high for a quarter, 21 points, which led to a career playoff high for a half, 31 points, as the Lakers led by 15 at halftime. That was great. All-time great, obviously. The rest was not. Now I'm going to go into gory detail about the rest, because this vintage LeBron bad...
ended up canceling all of the vintage LeBron Great. I decided to open fire on all of the above after Tuesday's show when my wife Ernestine sent me a story about yet another shot that my man Charles Barkley took at me. I will get to that in just a few minutes on this podcast.
I've told you before, I rarely read anything written about me on the internet, unless Ernestine sends it to me. But this time, in reading about Barclay's quotes about me, I read something in said story about my quote-unquote usual LeBron slander. Slander? You know, only if you're what I call a blind witness, a LeBron idolater, blindly loving LeBron, dismissing
any and everything I say about him as hate, as in, "Oh, he's just a hater. He hates on everything and everybody, especially LeBron." Only then could you dismiss what I've said about LeBron, what I say about LeBron, as slander. This astounds and amuses me because it is just so wrong and so untrue. But this is how the blind witnesses and many media members
have to protect their man LeBron by any means possible. I must be condemned. I must be dismissed as a slanderous hater. Time out. Just for the record, nothing I have ever said about LeBron James is untrue or unfair. Nothing ever. Nothing exaggerated. Nothing fabricated. I'm sorry, but I have been right about LeBron, Ramon, James from the start.
He doesn't have a clutch gene. Now it's come clear he doesn't have what I call a closer gene. He's not exactly Mr. Fourth Quarter. As great as he is, as all-time great, I don't think he's the greatest the way Shannon does. That's obviously Michael Jordan. But he's up there. I still have him ninth on my all-time top ten list. But he's not exactly Mr. Fourth Quarter.
Yes, yes, yes. He has made a few big playoff shots, game-winning walk-off type shots. I know them all by heart, starting with that shot heard around the world. Game two in Cleveland versus Orlando 2009. It's a walk-off, inbounds pass, no time left. Turkoglu didn't play him to shoot the three, which I can't believe because there was no time to drive it. And LeBron went straight up and had no other choice but to shoot it.
And he shot it and he made it. And time stopped. The world stopped. I remember that weekend Ernestine and I were in New York City and I look up, we're in some restaurant and there was CNN on and they were doing LeBron's shot heard around the world. I said, CNN is doing that shot. And you know the rest of that story. We thought it was going to be LeBron versus Kobe in the finals and we could not wait until Orlando eliminated Cleveland in six games.
My issue with LeBron has been he has missed so, so many late and close shots. And he has run from so many more because he has always, always been such a liability at the late game free throw line. I'm sorry. I just, I'm truth telling. I'm not hating. Remember, LeBron has played more playoff minutes than anybody has ever played. And yet, since LeBron came into the league in regular seasons...
Nobody has ever missed more late and close regular season shots. Late and close. These are walk-off kind of shots. Win or lose kind of shots. Nobody, since LeBron came into the league, has missed more late and close free throws than LeBron James. I'm sorry, but LeBron can be as mentally fragile as any superstar ever. See the meltdown versus Boston 2010-20.
I'm going to get to it a little more in detail in just a moment. Games 4, 5, and 6. Just go look at what happened. See the epic meltdown in the 2011 finals, his first go-round in the finals with the Heat, the Heatles as they were called. Heck, see games 3, 4, and 5 versus my Spurs back in 2014, a series that was a gentleman's suite by my Spurs, ending in five games.
by a record finals margin. Go look at what LeBron didn't do, couldn't do in games three, four, and five. I don't know what happened to him. He just was not there. And that was the end of him in Miami with Dwayne Wade. So for me, it's always been flat out laughable that anybody would try to make the case that LeBron is the GOAT. Obviously, as I just said, Michael is the greatest player of all time.
Michael, mentally toughest, clutchest player ever there was in any sport. I did have the honor and privilege covering him on a daily basis, getting to know him on a daily basis in Chicago in 1998, of course, his last dance season. To me, it's blasphemous to even put LeBron's name in the same sentence with Michael's. So let's look harder at what just happened.
The Lakers just played the Nuggets four very close games. Four times they had late chances to win. Four times. Four in a row. And four times the Nuggets, primarily Joker and Jamal, made all the late clutch plays that LeBron and Anthony Davis could not or did not. LeBron, in those four fourth quarters of those four close games,
went a combined 7 of 23. That's 30% from the floor, 7 of 23. From 3, from the three-point line, in those four fourth quarters, LeBron went 1 of 10. From the free throw line, in those four fourth quarters, LeBron went 8 of 12. Not bad, but still just 67%.
He also had four turnovers in those four fourth quarters, and I'll get to a couple of those in just a moment. Game one. Surely you'll remember LeBron badly missed a three to tie with 45 seconds left. Even LeShannon said, LeBron, what are you doing? What do you think? Why wouldn't you just put your head down and drive it? You got Jamal Murray on you. You're 6'9", he's 6'3". Jokers and foul try. Why wouldn't you just put your head down and drive it?
and try to cut it to two with 40 seconds left. That would work. Maybe you have to go to the free throw line. Maybe you could make two. You've been shooting free throws a little better of late. What are you thinking? He took such a pathetic three, dribbled right into it, that he kicked his leg out trying to get some cheap foul call. Jamal wasn't even covering him. They were just daring him to shoot threes. And he shot it flat and hard and wide right. Game two. LeBron
made a remarkable play playing center field or free safety, picked off a Jamal cross-court pass ill-advised, dribbled up and under, this with 26 seconds left, turned and missed a layup, a layup, just up off the glass, Aaron Gordon bearing down on him but not there to block it, a layup that would have cut it to two with 26 seconds left. This is LeBron bleeping James.
LeBron did turn it over late in both those games. Late. A Jamal Murray steal and then a Bruce Brown steal. Late when the Lakers still had at least a ghost of a chance in both games. Then you'll remember Game 3, the first one here in L.A. Lakers led 94-93 with 7.48 left and promptly gave up a 13-0 run. 13-0.
I will not condemn LeBron completely for this, but he certainly didn't do anything to stop the quote-unquote bleeding that night. They still almost came back and won it, but it was hard to overcome 13-0. I am not making any of this up. And in the fourth quarter of Monday night's Game 4, LeBron James went 1-6, 0-1 from 3, 1-2 from the free throw line.
LeBron had two late chances to win or tie the game with 26 seconds left and with one second left. Neither shot even made it up to the rim. The first, a pretty pathetic, desperate fall away along the baseline hit the side of the backboard. The side of the backboard? And the last one was stymied by a Jamal Murray who sort of cut LeBron off the path, at the pass, cut across his path.
Almost wrestled the ball away from him before Aaron Gordon blocked the shot. Goat. When I was growing up, goat before greatest of all time. Goat referred to the guy or the woman who had lost the game. You were the goat of the game because you blew it. LeBron was the lowercase goat, you can argue, of at least three out of these four games in the Denver sweep.
but I will give him this on that last shot in game four. At least for once, he did put his head down. He did drive it. He did risk having to shoot the free throws instead of the usual, I'm going to pull up and take a 30-foot three running from the free throw line so that I can tell the media, well, it was a tough shot. Denver was begging him to shoot a three at the end of game four, daring him.
And I do give LeBron credit for that, as I did say on Undisputed. Yet for once, it occurred to me after I've criticized him so many times in the past for running from the free throw line or the last second shot by making the right basketball play. It almost seemed like that night in those circumstances, the right play was get the ball to Austin Reeves. He's become their clutchest player.
He has become Mr. Fourth Quarter, but they don't feature him. They don't call plays for him. He touched the ball one time in Monday night's fourth quarter, one time, and he ripped a three, stepped right into it and ripped it. And I don't doubt if as the inbounder on those last two plays, if LeBron had just given him the ball right back,
in his shooting pocket that Austin Reeves would have gone up and made one of those two shots. I just believe it because I kept seeing it. He came into game four, did Austin Reeves, making 53% of his threes. So in four straight fourth quarters of winnable games, I'm sorry, but LeBron was just pathetic by his all-time great standards.
For this series, he was also predictably awful from three, as opposed to Austin Reeves. LeBron, for this series against Denver in four games, was seven of 26. That's 27%. That's a fact, not slander. At one point in this Denver series, LeBron James had missed 20 straight playoff threes. Think about that. He missed 20 in a row playoff threes.
That's an all-time playoff record by four. The closest to it, Tobias Harris, had 16 in a row misses. That's a fact. 20 straight. All-time record. Did you hear about that in the national media? Did you hear about that on TV? I didn't. I think I read it first somewhere that he was creeping up on the record, and then I began to keep score because...
He's LeBron bleepin' James. He's the greatest scorer in the history of this game, having passed Kareem last February the 7th, and he missed 20 straight playoff threes. I could see it in the regular season, but not playoffs. So for the entire 2023 playoffs, that's against Memphis, against Golden State, against Denver, LeBron James from three was 28 of 106.
28 of 106. I'm not making any of this up. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not slandering. That's 26% from three. That's the third worst by any player in NBA playoff history. Guess who has first worst? LeBron in 2015. 22.7% for his whole playoff run in 2015. Whew. Yet several times during these playoffs...
We were shown LeBron at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. He's out on the floor at the crypt getting up shots. They look like threes to me. I'm pretty sure he was practicing three-point shots. And the commentators would say, God, that LeBron, he is something. He's out here three and a half, four hours before games getting up shots. And I'm thinking, how did the TV people even know he was going to be there? Well, clearly...
LeBron, somebody from LeBron's team, not the Lakers, but his personal team, tipped the TV people, the network, that he's going to be out there. Two o'clock, photo opportunity. Let's make myths. Let's show LeBron shooting threes. Shooting threes? I mean, did it help? Maybe he should have not been practicing threes. Maybe he'd been better off if he didn't think about it so much because he's got clearly psychological demons inside
that you can't just shoot away at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I got more on 2 o'clock in just a moment here because it's driving me pretty crazy. But please, let's forget the myth-making. Can we please just agree and acknowledge, even you blind witnesses, LeBron has always been a sorry three-point shooter. He takes and misses way too many, consistently hurting his team.
It's just not what he was born to do. He's all-time great as a passer and a driver. I'll just be nice here. He's a below average three-point shooter and free throw shooter. I'm sorry. I'm just telling you the truth. I'll say it again. It is miraculous to me that a career 35% three-point shooter during the regular season and a career 74% free throw shooter during the regular season
passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer. A guy who, by superstar standards, can't shoot, can't shoot a lick, by superstar standards, is the NBA's all-time leading scorer. It's a tribute to his 20-year longevity, to his fitness, to his nutrition, to his taking care of his body.
And to his being, as I just mentioned, the single greatest driver of the basketball I've ever known or seen. The greatest basket attacker ever. 6'9", 260 pounds, explosive athletically, and ambidextrous. Born left-handed, can play both ways, left-right at the rim. What a lethal combination for the opposition.
what a force LeBron can be when he posts, when he drives, as he did in the first half of Game 4. Yet here by quarters were LeBron's points on Monday night. 21 in the first quarter, 10 in the second quarter, 6 in the third quarter, 3 in the fourth quarter, 21, 10, 6, and 3. What? Of course, I had to hear, well, he ran out of gas.
He's 38, year 20. And I'm thinking, really? This was a do or die, win or cancun. This is LeBron bleeping James with a whole off season to rest up. And I thought he was the world's best conditioned athlete because he spends, as I keep hearing on TV, $2 million a year. I have no idea how anybody knows the 2 million documented, if they have receipts. I don't know.
But I give you, he is extremely well conditioned. And yet I started to wonder if he now tires so easily at 38, why is he out shooting for an hour at two o'clock in the afternoon? Wouldn't you just burn energy? Wouldn't you just burn yourself out in the afternoon, jacking up three after three after three after three while somebody's rebounding for you? I don't even get that. Take a nap. I don't know.
I do know something about fitness. I'm a nut. I admit it. I'm obsessed. I admit it. I'm not LeBron. I don't play, obviously, NBA basketball. I'm not in that kind of shape, but I am in very good cardio shape. And I'm way older than LeBron. And I got to tell you, you can come run with me any Sunday if you like. I can still run what seems like forever. I don't get that tired. I just don't because I'm in shape. I do it so much.
my body is conditioned to take it. So this whole idea of running out of physical gas is incomprehensible to me for 38-year-old LeBron. He has made 38 the new 28. I don't care what you say. And yet I start to wonder. I hear about great shape. And then I also hear about how much he loves his wine and his cigars. I got to tell you, I know too much. Wine, cigars do not go together with great shape.
It's self-defeating at some point. Are you sure the wine and cigars don't have something to do with running out of gas in the third and fourth quarters of a do-or-die closeout game? I just don't get it. I'm giving respect to LeBron for being supremely conditioned. You can't run out of gas. Maybe you run out of psychological gas. Just the load of trying to carry your team at 38 is just overwhelming to you.
To me, that's what happened, if you remember, eight years ago. This is when he was a much younger man, 30-ish. I heard the same thing. Remember what happened in the 2015 finals, the first go-round against Golden State? Before they were really Golden State, obviously they didn't have Kevin Durant. LeBron played in those first three games, one, two, and three. The three greatest games in a row I have ever seen because he had lost Kevin Love, and then he lost Kyrie,
in overtime of game one at Oracle, and he's averaging 45 points a game. He just put his whole team on his broad shoulders and said, "I got you. I'm gonna carry you all the way home to Cleveland." They're up two games to one with game four in LeBron's house in Cleveland. And I'm thinking, he's about to start making the goat case here. Remember what happened? Game four at home, Steve Kerr switches Iguodala into the starting lineup. Iggy takes LeBron.
LeBron has to guard Iggy on the other end. Iggy has a big game. LeBron goes 7 of 22 from the floor and 5 of 10 from the free throw line. And I had to hear the next day on first take, well, he ran out of gas. Again, maybe mental gas, psychological gas. Maybe he just crumbled psychologically under the burden of having to carry that team against Steph and Clay and Draymond.
But physically, how do you just run out of physical? I don't see it. I'm sorry. He's in too great a condition, especially eight years ago he was. Now, just for the record, back to Denver.
I did pick Denver going into the series, and I detail my reasons on Undisputed. Number one, biggest issue, LeBron's three-point shooting proved painfully true. Number two, I said, his and his team's inability to close in close games. Yeah, well, okay. Number three, Anthony Davis's strangely inconsistent effort
and performance. I can't explain it. He just drifts. He drifted in Monday night's third quarter, but then he showed right back up in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter, AD the other night in the closeout fourth game. Three of three in the fourth quarter and four of four from the free throw line, including four straight hugely clutch free throws that did give LeBron his final two chances to win or tie. I had brought up
his and his team's inability to close again and again and again and again on TV during the regular season. I've never seen anything like it before. 15 times I counted, these Lakers had fourth quarter opportunities to win games if just somebody, anybody, could close the door and the deal. Most notably, the player many believe is the GOAT.
Allow me quickly to just hit some of the lowlights during the regular season. Inexplicable lowlights. You Laker fans will remember. Maybe you NBA fans in general will remember. November 28th, it's a home game. The Lakers led Indiana. The Pacers, who did not make the playoffs, led them by 17 with 10 minutes to go at home in the fourth quarter. In that fourth quarter, LeBron went 2-for-8, 0-for-1 from 3.
Remember, he's guarding the kid, Nimhard, who made the final walk-off shot for the Pacers. I just couldn't believe my eyes. LeBron allowed that to happen. You might remember a crazed shootout at Philadelphia. It became an overtime loss for the Lakers. They lost overtime 13-2. In the fourth quarter and overtime, AD did miss some late free throws that cost them.
But in the fourth quarter in overtime, LeBron scored a grand total of five points on a combined one of five from the floor, 0 for 2 from three. It's just like incomprehensible. That's LeBron bleeping James. December 13th at home versus those Boston Celtics, LeBron missed a game-winning three at the buzzer. Do you remember the Mavs game? It was a great spectator game. Double overtime out here in L.A.,
Finally won by the Mavericks 119-115. In the fourth quarter and the two overtimes, all combined, LeBron went 2-11 and 0-5 from three. LeBron bleeping James. I'm not making any of this up. 76ers here. Went to the buzzer. Went to the wire. 113-112. Sixers. LeBron did not score a point in the final three minutes.
A Kings game, a shootout here, 114-111 Kings. LeBron, fourth quarter, 1 of 7 and 0 for 3. I'm not making this up. And then you remember faithfully what happened up at Boston. Lakers were up 7 with 620 to go, and it came down to that non-foul call on Jason Tatum when LeBron finally put his head down and drove it.
He did get fouled. To this day, I wish I could have seen whether he could have gone to the free throw line to make two free throws to force overtime. Maybe he could have, but I just wanted to see it for once. I am not slandering. I am truth-telling. Please, you can fact-check me on any of this. Please tell me I'm wrong. So there was LeBron later Monday night in a post-game interview session. Maybe I missed it, but...
I don't think he was asked about those two last second missed shots of his or about his one of six in the fourth quarter or about his seven of 23 in all the four fourth quarters combined. I don't think he was asked about it. I think I watched the whole session. Protect, protect, protect. LeBron did go on and on about how great Jokic is. I got you. With you. Then in closing, as you well know, he dropped his little bombshell.
he will consider retiring. I thought that was just brilliant on the part of LeBron James. That is master media manipulation. LeBron James took a page right out of the Aaron Rodgers playbook. Each time the last three seasons that Aaron Rodgers has finished the season by stinking it up in a huge home loss, he immediately dropped the I might retire bombshell.
That immediately changed the narrative from Aaron Rodgers choked his guts out to once again, oh, please come back, Aaron. Please come back. We need you. Oh, please, LeBron, please come back. Please don't retire. You see, he brilliantly, LeBron did, changed the narrative for all those easily led blind witnesses out there. Nobody remembered LeBron's fourth quarter choking.
those four blown late chances. Nobody remembered his deluge of missed playoff threes. All of a sudden, it was just all about, no, no way LeBron's going to retire. Is there? Master media manipulation. Look, as wealthy as LeBron is, LaShannon says he's
a billionaire and it was funny to me, Shannon calls him the Billy goat as in he has a billion. He well might, but hey, who walks away from a hundred million more even if you're a Billy goat, quote unquote. 50 million on the table for next year and then it's LeBron's option for a second year at 50-ish more. So let's call it a hundred million. LeBron's not going to walk away without a retirement tour. He
He's got a huge ego. Who doesn't? We all do. I do. Everybody does. He deserves it. He's earned a retirement tour where he can just do a tour of NBA cities. To be celebrated at every stop is the all-time leading scorer. Why not? That's why he will not walk away now. I guess there's some question that he might limp away now. LeShannon kept bringing up LeBron's foot injury. Maybe it was bothering him, but...
Did you watch the first quarter the other night? Did you watch him score 21? Did it look like his foot was bothering him? It didn't to me, and I have a pretty good eye for those things. As I did report on Undisputed, I do know a doctor who has actually viewed LeBron's x-rays. And he said, I don't see anything wrong with the foot. There was something about a tendon issue. The doctor I knew, or excuse me, know, took...
one hard look and said, he's got arthritic ankles. He's got scar tissue. He's turned them so many times. Maybe he needs an arthroscopic cleanup surgery after the season could really reinvigorate him next year. Okay. So fine. Can he still play at a high level? Sure. Next year, man, this year, even through this playoffs, his explosion looked just fine to me for long stretches.
But with LeBron, there are always excuses, always so many excuses, often perpetrated by his inner circle. I will never forget 2010, that last series first go-round in Cleveland against Boston. They lost games four, five, and six. I'm on ESPN, on First Take, and it was reported that morning after the game six loss, coming from a source close to LeBron, I assume it was Rich Paul, maybe Maverick Carter,
But the source said, and it was reported on ESPN and I had to respond to it, that LeBron had to be sedated, quote unquote sedated, before games four, five, and six because of an issue with a teammate in the locker room. You probably have heard it. I won't go into the gory details of that. But sedated? So he played sedated, so that's why...
He struggled in games four, five, and six. I still laugh when I think about the sedated day on first take. Remember, his owner, Dan Gilbert, soon accused him of quitting in games four, five, and six. LeBron James, I don't remember anybody ever accusing Michael Jordan of quitting. I could have missed it, but I don't think so. Then remember what happened when LeBron got swept in 2018 by the Warriors?
LeBron showed up in the interview session right after that game wearing some kind of splint or brace on his right hand. A source close to LeBron, C. Rich, C. Maverick, that source told the media that LeBron had broken his hand hitting that dry erase board in the locker room after J.R. Smith's blunder at the end of game one. What? What?
Wait, he played with a broken hand? It wasn't on any injury report, so we were supposed to believe he played with a broken hand in games two, three, and four, and that's why they got swept. Okay, so what really happened down the stretch of game one? LeBron was as hot-handed as I have ever seen him. At the end of the regulation game, he had scored 49 points. He'd made three of six threes, which is great by his standards. He'd made seven of 14 shots outside the paint.
Remember what happened at the very end? They're down one point. He gets the switch onto Steph. Steph's, what, 6'3", LeBron's 6'9". And I'm like, LeBron, just go up and shoot it. He pushed him back to almost the free throw line. So he could have taken a, I don't know, let's call it 17, 18-foot jump shot. There's no way Steph's going to bother it. Just take the shot. It's do or die, sink or swim. I got it. But just take the shot. And you know what LeBron did.
He passed the ball to George Hill, a former Spur. I never loved him when he was a Spur. Clay just reached and grabbed him immediately as he should have. Smart play. George Hill had never been thrust into a situation like that, having to make the two free throws to win. He did make the one to tie, but he missed the second one to win. J.R. Smith forgot where he was. He forgot how little time was left. Didn't get up a shot in the break between regular game and overtime play.
LeBron just remembered this. He sat on the bench pouting away from his team, a couple seats over from his team, wouldn't participate in the sideline huddle, continued to pout for about two and a half minutes of the overtime before he took a shot. His team got wiped out 17-7 in overtime, then got swept. Broken hand? I don't know anything about it. I'm just not sure there was anything wrong with his hand, but he wore that thing to
to the post-game interview to signal everybody I couldn't play because of my hand. I don't know. How does LeBron keep getting away with all this childish excuse-making? I mean, Michael Jordan never stooped to any of this phony baloney. That's why I call LeBron the phony goat. Now I'm hearing this new narrative that, oh, LeBron dropped the retirement hint to put the pressure on the Lakers.
to improve the roster. LeBron just doesn't have enough help. I'm like, what? This was supposed to be vintage, passive-aggressive LeBron applying pressure to the Lakers? Timeout, wait a second. I kept saying since the trade deadline on Undisputed, Rob Palenka should have been the executive of the year for turning that roster around, just for getting rid of Russell Westbrook. LaShannon kept saying to me, there's no way they're going to get out from under Russ's deal.
And they did. They had to give up a protected pick, lightly protected, the 2027 pick. But Rob pulled it off. He got rid of Pat Bev. He brought in pieces that fit. Austin Reeves just kept getting better and better as an undrafted free agent. Rui Hachimura is a player, a starter, who finally started, as I kept pounding the table for, game four. Everything came together, even D'Lo.
D'Angelo Russell, I know he struggled the last couple of games, but he's a natural born scorer and he has his moments and he has his stretches. Not much of a defender, but they had turned into, as a team, the number one defense in basketball since the trade deadline. They could have won all four games against Denver. Now LeBron needs more help. He needs Kyrie like a hole in the head. Kyrie Irving, are we talking about the same Kyrie
now 31, who blew up the Celtics and then went haywire in Brooklyn and then went to Dallas and could never blend with Luka and they missed the playoffs. Are we talking about that guy who's admitted publicly he no longer prioritizes basketball? The same Kyrie Mark Cuban desperately needs as a gate attraction alongside Luka,
The same Kyrie who's going to get offered a max in a no-income-tax state of Texas, and you're going to blow up your roster. You're going to lose Austin Reeves and Hachimura and name three or four other players to add Kyrie, and that's going to change life in L.A.? I think not. And then I even heard the rumor, we talked about it on Undisputed, that the Lakers are considering trading for Trae Young. For Trae Young?
Not a fan. University of Oklahoma fan. Watched him carefully there since he entered this league. Trey Young has led this league consistently.
in total turnovers. The last two seasons, he has led the league in each of the last two in turnovers. This past season, Trey Young shot 33% from three and shot way too many threes. So you want a mini LeBron to play alongside LeBron? I give you, Trey can pass the basketball. He's not LeBron as a gifted passer. LeBron's still the best passer in basketball. But you got two really good passers who can't shoot threes. I
And did I mention defense? You want to talk about liability? You think D'Lo's a liability? Try on Trey Young. He's about five feet, 11 inches tall. Try him on for defense. Tell me I'm slandering. Tell me I'm exaggerating or fabricating. Tell me LeBron, who's four and six in the finals, is mentally tougher and more clutch than Michael Jordan, who is six and O in the finals with six MVPs.
capped off at Utah, I was there, by that late steal and that hold the pose walk-off shot over Brian Russell. I was there on press row at Utah in 1998, game six, done, over and out. Goat, LeBron, lowercase goat of the Denver series. Please, please, please, you LeBron protectors, defenders, idolaters,
Please tell me I'm wrong.
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and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Bayless. Just go to Indeed.com slash Bayless right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Bayless. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Let's get to your question, shall we? This is Ben from La Jolla, California. Are the Spurs back?
You might remember a couple of podcasts ago, I went into depth on why I have fallen out of love with the Spurs coach, Greg Popovich. I detailed how I believe Pop has gotten exposed without Tim Duncan, just the way Belichick has gotten exposed without Tom Brady. Very similar, similar personalities. I am pretty sure my San Antonio Spurs, I've been a fan since late 70s,
George the Iceman Girvin. But I'm pretty sure my Spurs eventually will be back in business as a Western Conference contender with Wimbanyama. They hit the lottery. Sometimes you can hit the lottery and it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really get you any place. But they hit the lottery for a potentially life-changing player.
a player LeBron has already called an alien. That's really all you need to know. Never before have we seen a player this tall, some have him at seven feet five inches tall, with this kind of point guard, shooting guard skills. My only question, my only question about Wimby as he's called, does he have the mental and physical toughness to dominate this grown man's league that is the NBA?
My best guess is yes, but I don't know that for sure. All I can say right now is go Spurs, go. Yet I'm very serious about this. I wish they would go young at coach right here, right now. Go with a younger school coach who will treat Wimby with respect, who will encourage him, support him through some tough times he inevitably will go through.
Instead of putting him through Sergeant Pop's boot camp, in which you know and I know Pop will try to break him down before building him back up. Pop's huge ego will require that he get the credit for Wimby's ultimate success. Remember, Kawhi Leonard was the first Spurs star to just reject Pop.
to just say, "No, all this my way or the highway, I went the highway," said Kawhi. "Get me out of here." Demanded a trade, finally got it. As you know, to Toronto, championship happened. Will Wimby actually put up with Pop's coaching initiation grind that he'll put him through? I don't love this. I do love the Spurs and I ultimately love Spurs fans.
But I do not love pop, hard coaching Wimby. I got a bad feeling about that. This is Grant from Rockford, Illinois, who asks, where is Zeke Elliott going to play this season? Grant, I'm not sure he's going to play anywhere unless maybe Jerry takes him back on some vet minimum deal. My friend Robert Smith asked me this same question when we had lunch the other day here in LA. Robert,
You might remember All-American Ohio State, way ahead of Zeke, but All-American and then a Pro Bowl running back was Robert Smith for the Minnesota Vikings, now a Fox NFL commentator, analyst. Robert could not believe that I don't believe anyone will sign Zeke. Robert's like, he's only 27.
Yep. But Zeke is the counter opposite of a guy I talked about on a few podcasts back. Emmett Smith, counter opposite of Emmett Smith. The NFL is, of course, all time leading rusher. Emmett lasted 15 seasons until he was 35 years of age.
because he avoided contact better than any running back ever has. I was there, I covered it, I witnessed it firsthand. Emmett was only five feet, nine inches tall as a player. Norv Turner, his coordinator, used to tell me, "I've never seen this kind of quickness in a confined space." Nobody could draw a bead on Emmett. No linebacker, no strong safety.
I never saw Emmett take what I considered a dangerous hit, a career-threatening type shot. And especially over the last three years of his career, Emmett just gladly ran out of bounds ahead of contact and lived to fight another play and another play and another play and more and more yards until he's the all-time, all-time. Emmett Smith stayed astonishingly healthy because of that attitude and approach. From the start, as you know,
Zeke ran to and through contact. He looked for contact. He was the ultimate warrior. Teammates loved him for that, but Zeke's body did not love him for that. Zeke's yards rushing per game dropped every single year for all seven of his seasons in Dallas. Every single year it went down, down, down, down, down, down, down to 55 yards a game this past year.
Zeke was never better than his rookie year. Talk about dominant. But after three years, Zeke hit the wall that he kept trying to run through. And unfortunately, Zeke was on the verge of, as LeBron says, washed. We used to call it washed up. But he was on the verge of being washed, just as Jerry made him the highest paid running back in pro football. Last year, Zeke
I think the staunchest cowboy fan would admit was a sad shadow of rookie Zeke. Seriously, who wants that? I mean, now Zeke is what he is not. And I hope I'm wrong about this. This is John from Houston, Texas. Do you ever have time to pick up a book and read? Ugh, man.
This question hurts me to the core. This question rips my soul out because I am ashamed to admit I don't have time. That's in large part because I love doing this podcast so much that I spend so much time putting it together every Monday night and certainly every Tuesday night along with carefully watching every game ever played. The NBA playoffs wear me out like no time ever.
of the year. This podcast gives me great joy and satisfaction, but it takes so much out of me, so much of my time, that I just don't have time to read. I used to be a reading beast, voracious. I love to read because I love to write. I love to get lost in an epic creation of a novel. It's my favorite thing to do in the world. My all-time favorite, F. Scott Fitzgerald
It's the great Gatsby. It gives me chills to even talk about how superhumanly written that book was. Close behind on my list, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, works of true genius. The movie version of Bonfire was an abomination, yet they are finally, they say, making a movie of Blood Meridian.
even though Tommy Lee Jones tried and failed, James Franco tried and failed, Ridley Scott tried and failed. So I say good luck to John Hillcoat, who did direct another Cormac McCarthy epic called The Road. It was a movie of moderate success. Blood Meridian is ultra-violent, even by Hollywood's fairly liberal violent standards.
Last book I actually read, I must admit this was maybe three years ago, cover to cover, couldn't stop, couldn't put it down, was the real life version of Blood Meridian called Empire of the Summer Moon. It's about the Comanches versus the invading white settlers. It's about man's almost unreadable inhumanity to man in a death struggle over land.
that belong to the Comanches. You want to talk about chilling, read Empire of the Summer Moon. But I must admit, I miss reading, but I love this podcast. This is Robert from Denver. What is your number one pet peeve? Okay, you asked, so I'm going to answer. I am addicted to golf. I've admitted that before on this podcast. I'm addicted to practicing and playing, loving and hating golf.
in chasing and chasing and chasing, breaking 80 in golf. I do not have time to play golf on weekends. Obviously, courses are too crowded. I have too many games to watch. So I try to practice or maybe play nine or maybe even sometimes squeeze in 18 holes on a Tuesday and or Thursday morning right after Undisputed, right around 10 a.m. L.A. time.
My biggest pet peeve in the world times 1,000 is slow play on the golf course. You've heard about it on the pro tours. You've heard about Brooks Koepka and his issues at the Masters with slow play. I got way bigger issues. My windows are tight. I have to get home in time to take an hour, maybe an hour and a half nap before I'm
I dive into my work nights. I get up at two o'clock in the morning. I rarely sleep for more than four, four and a half hours at night. Listen, if there's nobody on a golf course, and this has happened to me rarely, but if there's nobody on the golf course, I promise you I can play 18 holes in two or two and a half hours. I promise you no sweat. Play 18 holes of golf well, probably better than if there are people in front of me.
But invariably, 18 holes today take at least four hours, maybe four and a half, maybe five hours because people waste too much time while playing golf. Only if you play do you have any idea what I'm talking about. So forgive me if you don't. But people spend way too much time looking for lost golf balls. Two minutes, three minutes tops, drop one and let's go. It's not the U.S. Open.
Just drop one and let's get on with it. People spend way too much time lining up putts the way the pros do. Way too much time walking to the far side of the hole to look at the putt, back side up. Way too much time practice swinging before they actually hit their shot. My clock is ticking. I stand in the fairway watching this happen on the green and I lose my mind. I lose my concentration. I lose bets.
I lose my golf balls because of those people on the green taking hours to line up their putts. Ask the guys I play with. I go completely psycho over a slow play on the golf course. People ahead of us are depriving me of the game that I live to play. As the clock ticks, you cost me
One hole, two holes, three holes. Maybe I only get to play five or six holes and I gotta go because my clock is ticking. That is my pettest peeve in the world. And you probably don't want to play golf with me. This is Brian from New York. If a restaurant, excuse me, if a restaurant were to serve a Skip Bayless, quote unquote, what would the food item be? That's easy. It would be chicken and broccoli and brown rice.
That's my twice a day go-to meal. I live on chicken and broccoli and brown rice. I actually like it and nobody would ever order it. This is Elliot from Utah. When you order a steak, do you ask for it rare or well done?
Elliot, the last steak I ordered was in London of all places while I was there covering what we used to call Wimby. Now it's just Wimbledon because the real Wimby plays in San Antonio. But I was there covering Wimbledon in 1982. That was the last steak I ordered and I ordered it medium rare. No more red meat for me.
That actually ended about two weeks later, covering the British Open in Scotland at Royal Troon. When I returned to my hotel in Ayr, Scotland, that's A-Y-R, Ayr, Scotland, after midnight, my newspaper deadline was much later with the time difference. I was hungry, so I went out looking for anything that was still open. I managed to find...
some sweet and sour pork that had been sitting out on display all evening, but the place was still open. Took it back to my hotel room. I was sitting on the bed. I was trying to eat it. It was like congealed. I finally looked up and I said to my girlfriend at the time named Nancy, I said, what am I doing? She actually took a picture of me that I still have eating that sweet and sour pork. It was right then and there.
I quit red meat, cold turkey, never again. This is Lou from Florida who asks, have you ever had a sip of coffee over diet dew to get you awake? Never, ever Lou, never ever. I do drink one 20 ounce bottle of diet Mountain Dew every morning before Undisputed. It's my one and only vice. I do not recommend it, but I do like the taste of it.
and I do like the caffeine kick of it, and I have just run for an hour before I get here to do Undisputed. So I drink my one bottle and I'm good to go. Two things happened to me when I was three or four years old that turned me permanently away from coffee and alcohol. I took one sip of my mother's coffee. I remember it like it was yesterday. It might have been four.
in our little two bedroom one bath house on 43rd street in oklahoma city oklahoma i took one sip of her coffee when she was not looking and i was done with coffee for life it just tasted so bitter bad to me so bitter bad and it smelled even worse did coffee i'm sure if you are a coffee connoisseur you're probably saying you are out of your mind and i might be
But to me, coffee, like alcohol, is definitely an acquired taste. I don't think people are born loving the taste of coffee or alcohol. That's just me. You have to acquire it, and then you're obviously addicted to it. But with alcohol, with me, at parties my parents used to host or throw, my father...
occasionally gave me a taste of his mixed drink as almost like a party trick. This is when I was, I don't know, four years of age. He did it, I don't know, four or five times and every time everybody at the party, eight or ten people, would laugh as I ran to spit it out in the sink because it was foul. That is the only thing I thank my father for because that saved me from turning into him
a hardcore alcoholic who died at 49 years of age of cirrhosis of the liver. Now, speaking of leaving a bitter taste in my mouth,
The other day, my friend Charles Barkley took another shot at me, which is like saying, well, the sun went down again. Charles has been taking shots at me for, seriously, 20 years. I never care about anybody taking shots at me unless that somebody repeatedly says on national TV he would like to kill me. This coming from a Barkley just completely unprovoked.
I have never criticized Charles Barkley one time. I've never said anything personally about him or do I even know him? I've never had any kind of conversation with Charles Barkley and he wants to kill me. So this went on and on and on until my wife Ernestine and now her late great mother Evelyn got so increasingly angry about it that finally,
Ernestine says to me, how can a commentator of Charles Barkley's stature be allowed to continue to suggest that you deserve to die? I kept saying to Evelyn, her mom, and also to Ernestine, don't pay any attention to this clown. Nobody takes him seriously. They just laugh at him, not with him. So it was a few months back, you might remember, right here on this podcast,
I finally called out Charles Barkley for saying he wants to kill me. I challenged, I all but begged Charles to join me on this podcast. No way would he ever do that. But I begged him to please come on here and explain to me exactly why I should be killed or why he literally would murder me if given the opportunity. I literally, I have no idea why he would say that. So,
This was on Barstool's Spittin' Chicklets podcast the other day. Barkley was asked if he ever had a problem with any reporter when he was playing. And his answer was, and I quote, I very seldom went after reporters. I go after Skip Bayless because I don't like him at all. And I just like, pardon my language, I just like fucking with him because he's so sensitive and shit.
I just like fucking with him because he's so sensitive and shit, said Charles Barkley about me. Okay, so we have made some progress. This time, Charles did not say he wants to kill me. So maybe my message has been received, but now comes a new plot twist. He likes to F with me because I'm so sensitive? I waited 20 years, 20 years to finally stand up
and call him out for saying very publicly again and again and again that he'd like to kill me. I waited 20 years to do that, and now I'm so sensitive, I am still laughing about that one. Not with Charles, but at Charles. Again, I don't even know Charles. I've never spoken a single word in conversation or in communication with or to Charles Barkley.
I did not cover Charles' teams when he played in the NBA. All I know for sure is that Charles does watch Undisputed religiously. He knows every word I speak on TV. And for that, I am greatly appreciative. My theory is that deep down, Charles resents me because I all too often see and say things that he wishes he had seen and said. But the other day, we had Kenny Smith on Undisputed.
Kenny obviously works closely with Charles on TNTs inside the NBA. Known Kenny a while, like Kenny a lot. Kenny actually brought up Charles to me on air, I think because he figured I was going to bring up Charles to him on air, but I seriously did not have any plans to bring up Charles. But Kenny probably remembered what had happened back when we first had Kenny on first take. It was the very first time
We ever took first take on the road to, this was to the NBA All-Star Game in Orlando in 2012. My man Stephen A. on live TV asked Kenny as our guest, what's Charles' problem with Skip? And Kenny maybe caught off guard a little, said he didn't really know. Maybe it was just Charles being Charles. So the other day, maybe Kenny wanted to go on the offensive line
by suggesting on live TV on Undisputed that Charles and I are actually a lot alike, said Kenny. And I was like, huh? A lot alike? I will say, Charles, weirdly, Charles has sometimes been an even harsher LeBron critic than I have been. But alike? Because we both just say exactly what we think, sometimes even just blurt it out? Maybe that's it. I'll say this again. I do not hate Charles. I do watch Charles.
I think he's very good on TV because his reputation, his cachet is very different than mine. Charles can get away with saying just about anything on TV because that's just Charles. With me, people try to read the tiniest bit of controversy into something I said or tweeted and then blow it absurdly and wrongly and unfairly, completely out of proportion.
Not Charles. Charles is Charles. Charles can get away with just about anything. I envy that. Kenny on Undisputed also went on to say the other day that, and this is probably half jokingly, that he suspects that Charles and I are actually in cahoots about our quote unquote beef. Kenny suspects that we actually communicate, as he said, on the down low. Maybe even game plan what we're going to say about each other.
Trust me, that is just not the case. So I assume Charles will keep taking his shots because now I will no longer turn the other cheek as I did for 20 years. I no longer will let him get away with slinging mud, whatever mud that he wants to sling. So I guess now that I'm sensitive and shit, as Charles says, that he's going to take advantage of my sensitivity
by slinging more and more mud just for fun. I mean, here's the truth. Charles's favorite punching bag has finally had enough. And when he punches from this point on, as I just did, I will punch back.
That's it for episode 66. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, The Skip Bayless Show, every week.