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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.
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This is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during Undisputed. And by the way, Undisputed returns August 28th, just in time for me to unleash about the upcoming NFL season. Understand, LeBron James hasn't been the only one in the lab this summer. I cannot wait to unveil Undisputed on August 28th. And trust me, it is going to be sick.
Something. I divulged some details, but I've been told I have to be tighter-lipped than Belichick, so I'm on to Cincinnati. And by the way, those Reds have been hotter than July, haven't they? On today's show, I will respond again to my dear friend Charles Barkley. I will tell you why the Lakers stole Austin Reeves for just $14 million a year.
for their best player during the recent playoffs and I'll tell you why Austin Reeves is really the biggest reason I give LeBron James a real shot at winning ring number five next season with the Lakers. I will tell you why Ty Lue as much as I do believe in him will not be able to win with Russell Westbrook, the Westbrook nobody else wanted. I will tell you why I still
I'm still not quite sure that Damian Lillard really wants to be traded. And as always, I'll ask or answer several of your very provocative brain-teasing questions, including this one, one of my all-time favorites. If I had a superpower, what would it be? Hmm. Maybe I could use that superpower on Charles Barkley. But I digress. First up, as always, it is not to be skipped.
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in one of my all-time favorite songs, Shoop by Salt-N-Pepa. Maybe you know it, maybe you don't. It goes, "Here I go, here I go, here I go again." Maybe you know the rest of it. Well, here I go again. I have said several times on this podcast that for the last 20 years, not exaggerating, 20 years,
I have tried to ignore all the shots that Charles Barkley has taken at me, all the low blows, all the times on live national television that Charles Barkley has said he would like to kill me. Not funny, ha-ha, he'd like to kill me. Dead serious, he'd like to kill me. Which, of course, as I've said before, has horrified my wife Ernestine and her now late great mom in years past, both of whom feared that some nut
would take this clown Charles Barkley seriously and well, you know. So I finally went public on this podcast and I said, "Okay, Charles, if you want my blood on your hands, just keep firing at me with that K word." I guess to Charles' credit, last three or four shots he's taken at me have not included said K word. But I also vowed on this podcast that
I no longer was going to turn the proverbial other cheek to Charles and his onslaught, unless maybe it's my butt cheek. I can trash talk with the worst of them when I so choose. And I am certainly not afraid of Charles Barkley. In fact, I have challenged him. I have dared him time after time to join me on this podcast or live on Undisputed. Hey, on the Undisputed podcast.
that we're in the lab building right now, Charles would be a perfect fit. Charles and me on that Undisputed would be just perfect. But of course, I haven't heard a peep back from him or his people because I'm pretty sure he's scared to death of going one-on-one with me on live TV. All Barkley, no bite. He really lets me have it from a distance.
Which brings me to my deepest point about Charles' latest shot. This one occurred during TNT's telecast of the golf match last Thursday night, a week ago Thursday night. This was Steph and Clay versus Mahomes and Kelsey. Now, I'm a golf fanatic, yet would you believe I forgot about it? I somehow got it in my head it was going to be on Friday night, not Thursday.
But the truth is, if you don't give me Tiger or Phil or at least Kepka and DeChambeau, I'm not exactly cowboy game ready to watch two NBA players versus two NFL players, as great as they might be at their own games. But all of a sudden, last Thursday night, Ernestine starts getting bombarded with Google alerts saying,
And she looks up from her phone and she says to me, your buddy Barkley has ripped you again. And I thought, oh man, I forgot to watch the match. Then on second thought, I said, you know what? I'll just deal with it in the morning. We were watching the first episode of the final season of Jack Ryan. And I just wasn't up for more of Charles court jesting. So when I woke up Friday, I called up what he said about me, which was,
"I want one of those jobs where you get a buyout for working with a damn idiot." I chuckled at that shot, and I shook my head and I thought for a few minutes, and then I tweeted, and I quote, "Still chuckling over a clown calling me an idiot. Short, not so sweet. Couldn't have said it more succinctly or perfectly." Now, what I have learned from the start about Twitter
is immediacy is everything. I love to live tweet about games because I'm immediately reacting at the keyboard to what we all just saw on television. That's the essence to me of Twitter. Now, not tomorrow. Tomorrow never works on Twitter except for me versus Barkley. That tomorrow tweet caught fire and wound up generating
6 million what are called impressions on Twitter. That's probably ranking in my all-time top 10. Not sure about that, but I am sure that it generated 6 million impressions. And I thought to myself a day later, "No, no, wait a second. Charles has been going at me for 20 years." So on the Barclay-Bayless-Richter scale of controversy, scale of 1 to 10, this one was probably a 2. But then,
I sat back two days later and I started thinking about what Charles said about me, about wanting this job against this damn idiot. Started thinking about my next debate partner on Undisputed, and this is what occurred to me. Charles Barkley would be my dream debate partner on Undisputed. I would dive out of bed every morning out here in Los Angeles at 2 o'clock in the morning to get to work with Charles.
Please, Charles, please come and please work with me, me, this damn idiot. Please. What a joy it would be to do battle every day with Charles Barkley live on television. I could semi-retire. I could mail it in. I could, dare I say, actually have a life and forget about prepping so furiously hard night after night after night for every day is undisputed.
All I'd have to do is let Charles go first and listen to him make a fool of himself. I'd get to sit back and watch him walk himself right into an indefensible trap. I wouldn't even have to try. So please, please, please, Charles, come be this damn idiot's debate partner. Please let me annihilate you on a daily basis, ten times per show.
Let me make barbecue chicken out of you, as Shaq often says that he did, my man Shaq, of those who tried to guard him. You know, compared to my former formidable partner, Stephen A. and Shannon, you, Charles, would be a one-man Washington Generals. You'd be a solo Shaqton the Fool on a daily basis. You'd be the equivalent of an Adam Morrison,
an all-time draft bust. A bust that I would put straight into my debate hall of fame. This damn idiot would cherish working with you. Hey, they'd buy you out over my dead body. Heck, I would pay your salary to work with me. How about it, Charles? You and me, every day on Undisputed. Think of all the fun I'd have. You, Charles Barkley, could actually be on your favorite show to watch.
I'm sorry that I haven't been on lately to irritate you and educate you and make you think, "Damn, I wish I'd said that." But Charles, we do return August 28th. We return like Jordan did on March 19th of 1995. And I now officially offer you the opportunity to be the damn idiot's permanent debate partner. Please say yes.
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Let's get to your question, shall we? This is Lucas from Long Beach, California. Title number five for LeBron next season? Question mark. Huh. Lucas, I'd definitely give the Lakers a legit shot of winning it all next season. I can make a case they won free agency. But just for the record, I can also make a case they were slightly better after last year's trade deadline and through last year's playoffs.
when they of course wound up taking the Denver Nuggets, the eventual NBA champs, down to the wire for four straight fourth quarters and losing all four because they did not have a closer. Well, they had a closer. They just didn't let him close. More on Austin Reeves in just a moment.
But I do stand by what I said right at last year's trade deadline. Rob Palenka deserved to be the executive of the year for what he basically threw together after he miraculously was able to get out from under a Russell Westbrook I thought they were flat out stuck with. He got free of Russ. And he added, as you know, Hachimura,
Lonnie Walker and Malik Beasley and Jared Vanderbilt and obviously D'Angelo was there, Mo Bamba. That team, that team as is, if it could have clicked a little bit faster under its rookie head coach, Darvin Hamm, that team easily could have won it all. You know this and I know this. And I think LeBron James knows this. Now, obviously, next season's team,
will have a huge advantage because it's going to have a full training camp. Heck, it's going to have a full season to figure each other out. And Darvin Hamm now has a full season under his belt to figure out which buttons worked and which buttons he pushed gave him nothing. Obviously,
the Russell Westbrook cloud won't be hanging over this team for two-thirds of the regular season as it did last year when it took a lot of life and a lot of energy out of that bunch. But please remember, this team, through this recent free agency period, did lose Dennis Schroeder, Dennis the Menace, who did make a lot of late-game free throws, clutch free throws, and steals. Schroeder does know how to play defensively,
I think they'll miss him a little, and he's now a Raptor. This team did lose Lonnie Walker IV. He's an explosive athlete. I know him so well from my days as a Spurs fan. Pretty high pick for them. Finally found his confidence late last year in the playoffs as an explosive late-game scorer. He's now a net. It did lose a Malik Beasley, who joined them...
last year, having over the previous two seasons made the third most three-point shots in all of basketball to Steph, number one, and Buddy Heald, number two. Malik Beasley has the body and the mind of a top-notch perimeter defender. And for some reason, some shockingly inexplicable reason, they couldn't punch either one of those buttons. Darvin Ham couldn't. Couldn't unlock either one of his strengths as a Laker,
Now he's a buck. Watch him do very well for the bucks. So the big question is, up front is, will a Gabe Vinson, Cam Reddish, Taurian Prince, will they be able to fill those now vacant roles? I hope so, but I think it's more of they possibly might than they probably will. Look, I love Gabe Vinson's swagger.
The defensive chip he has on his shoulder. He can get hot. He can make you six out of nine threes and score you 29 points as he did against Boston in the conference finals in game three. But for the regular season, I do remind you, Gabe Benson shot 33% from three. Not great. And remember those last three games in the NBA finals against the Denver Nuggets? Gabe Benson went one of 14 from three.
I guess there was a reason that he was undrafted out of little UC Santa Barbara, which brings me to Cam Reddish. Did I ever love him when he was at Duke? Not at UC Santa Barbara. He was at Duke, top recruit. In fact, he was valued as a recruit even above Zion. I'll never forget the walk-off shot I watched him make, the walk-off three for Duke at Florida State. They were down one. It was January 19th of 2019.
That shot was a reason, a big reason probably, why Cam Reddish went 10th overall to the Hawks. He's 6'8", he's got an NBA body, and he's been on three teams in three years. And he shot 32% from three during his NBA career. Are you sure about Cam? Can LeBron? Can Phil Handy?
who can be a very handy assistant coach. Ken Darvin, can they unlock what nobody has been able to unlock in Cam Reddish? I sure hope so, but I have my doubts. Tarian Prince, watched him a lot at Baylor, once the 12th overall pick. So far he's averaged in three years nine points, two rebounds, and two assists. Has made 38% of his threes, that helps.
Also has the body and the mind to defend at a high level. That certainly helps. But are you sure about Torrey and Prince? I can't be. D'Angelo Russell, they did resign. Shock to some. He shot 41% from three during the regular season, and it fell to 31%, as you know, during the playoffs. And all too often, D'Lo made you think, get him out of there, Darvin'.
What a talent D'Angelo Russell can be, which is why he was the second overall pick in the draft. But what shaky intangibles this still young man does exhibit. What flimsy basketball backbone he can have. Yet, the Lakers, as you know, did manage to keep Rui Hachimura. What a revelation he was. So mentally and physically tough on both ends of the floor.
Just got that look in his eye, that "I'll show you" look. Finally living up to being the ninth overall pick out of Gonzaga. Way to go, Rob Palenka. A steal, which brings me to the steal. The biggest reason you can make a case that the Lakers won free agency. The biggest reason LeBron James has a very good chance of winning his fifth ring. In all my time,
of watching and studying the National Basketball Association, I have never ever seen a player improve so much from college basketball to pro basketball. Never ever the way Austin Reeves has right before our very wide open eyes. The Lakers just stole him back in free agency. He deserved twice what they paid him, twice what they paid him. In fact,
They made it clear they were prepared to pay him almost twice what he wound up with from the Lakers. But obviously, they didn't have to pay that much. And that was because nobody else was willing to plunge and offer Austin Reeves remotely what he is now worth. Let this sink in, if you would. The Lakers' best player in last year's playoffs. The best player easily in the conference finals against Denver.
will now be the fifth highest paid player on the Lakers next season. Go figure. LeBron James will make $47.6 million. Obviously, I got no problem with that. Face of the league, face of the franchise, he's LeBron bleepin' James. Anthony Davis, $40.6 million. No problem with that, even though he comes and goes. But, hey, he's still Anthony Davis. He's still, on any given night, a top 10 player in this league.
40.6 million. D'Angelo Russell will now make 17.8 million. Hachimura will now make 15.7 million. And Austin Reeves will make 12.6 million. Huh? 12.6? Now, he's scheduled to make 13.6 the following season, and then 14.6 three seasons from now, so his average is right around 14 for the three years.
And God bless him, he does have a player option after three seasons for a fourth. Player option. And it will be very interesting to see if at age 27, in three years, if Austin Reeves hits the free agent lottery and breaks somebody's bank the way I believe he will. I do not believe that Austin Reeves is some two-year mirage.
Now, can I see him making an NBA All-Star team? Now, my first instinct when I asked myself that question was, well, I might need a telescope to see him as an All-Star. But who saw coming what Austin Reeves turned into after Russell Westbrook was moved out of his way? Yes. Yes. I admit it. I can see Austin Reeves making an All-Star team in the next three seasons.
The NBA is still laughably and sadly underestimating Austin Reeves. The Lakers made it clear they would match up to, this is what was reported, $100 million for four years for Austin Reeves if somebody else offered and they had the right to match. And all they had to match was $54 million, not $100, $54. I just thought somebody out there would call the Lakers bluff.
I thought somebody would at least go to $100 million for Austin Reeves after what we saw over a pretty good sample size of games, late regular season and all through the playoffs, and nobody plunged for Austin Reeves. But yes, I'm talking about the same Austin Reeves. I watched a whole lot at the University of Oklahoma, in part because that's the school I grew up loving and living for in Oklahoma City. That Austin Reeves could not shoot.
That Austin Reeves, let me pull out my notes. That Austin Reeves at the University of Oklahoma in two years, he started out at Wichita State, but his first year at OU, he averaged 15, five and three, and he shot 26% from three. His second year, he improved slightly to 31% from three. That is abominable for a six foot five inch two guard. He's got some point in him, but he's mostly a two guard.
He averaged three assists his first year at OU, five assists the second year. So he averaged over two years 28% from three. That's why he was an undrafted free agent. First year with the Lakers, he averaged seven points, three rebounds, and two assists and shot 32% from three. Obviously not good enough.
But then I guess he went deep into the lab. I don't know if it's Phil Handy who helped teach him. I don't know if he just taught himself. But Austin Reeves woke up and realized, "I can't make it in this league unless I can make nearly half of my threes." And here he came after the trade deadline. Again, after they miraculously, Rob Pelinka miraculously got out from under Westbrook, the stumbling block in front of Austin Reeves,
Austin Reeves started 27 games down the regular season stretch. He averaged 30 minutes a game in those games. He shot 58% from the floor. That's beyond LeBron. He shot in 27 games 48% from three. That's obviously Steph territory. 48% over 27 games? I'm convinced. And then the playoffs happened.
In the playoffs, Austin Reeves played 16 games. He averaged 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists. And from 3, he shot 44%. So let me repeat. 27 regular season games, 48% from 3. 16 more playoff games, 44% from 3. That's 43 games worth of 46% from 3. You buying it? I am. That's no small sample size.
Austin Reeves is legit. Austin Reeves has turned himself into a very trustworthy three-point shooter. The bigger the pressure, the better he is. Just against Denver, just against Denver in those four games, they got swept. I give it to you, but remember, all four went to the wire. All four times they had chances in the fourth quarter to pull out the game. Austin Reeves played 40 minutes a game against the eventual NBA champs.
40 minutes. He averaged 21 points a game in those four with four rebounds and five assists. He shot 55% from the floor and 56% from three. Does anybody out there get that? In four games against the Denver Nuggets, he shot 56% from three. That's 14 of 25.
He also went to the line 15 times and made all 15. He's always been a good free throw shooter, even at Oklahoma. He's always been around 85%, but that looks like 100% to me in the conference finals. And now we get to those four fourth quarters. Austin Reeves, in those four fourth quarters, managed to shoot the ball 10 times, only 10 times. He made eight of 10.
He made seven of eight threes. Think about that. In four close fourth quarters, he was allowed to get off eight threes and made seven of them. He also got to the free throw line and took only two of those, but made both. Guess how many turnovers he had in four fourth quarters? How about zero? He played 10 minutes per fourth quarter.
And his shot attempts per fourth quarter were only 2.5. Something is very wrong with that picture because meanwhile, alongside Austin Reeves, a player who loves Austin Reeves and trusts Austin Reeves is this guy named LeBron James, who you might remember passed Kareem Abdul to become the all-time leading NBA scorer just last season.
So in those four fourth quarters against Denver, all four close, chances to pull it out. LeBron James shot seven of 23 from the floor and one for 10 from three. So while Austin was going seven of eight from three, LeBron was going one of 10. What? LeBron made eight of 12 free throws. What?
So LeBron was shooting six shots per fourth quarter to Austin's 2.5 shots per fourth quarter. Something is very wrong with that picture, Darvin Ham. You know it and I know it and LeBron knows it. Austin Reeves was showing you again and again, I can close. I got big you-know-whats. I'm not afraid. I'll take it to the rack.
I'll go straight up from three like I believe it's going in every time. He made seven of eight in those fourth quarters. It's a shame to me that Austin Reeves was not allowed to close for the Los Angeles Lakers. If he had been allowed, if he had been featured in those four fourth quarters, I am convinced the Lakers would have won a couple of them. Who knows? Maybe it goes six games. Maybe it goes seven games. I don't know.
Austin Reeves showed me at no time that the stage was too big for him. He looked like a star who was arriving, but a star who was not allowed to thrive because the Lakers didn't yet completely believe that he was more trustworthy under fire in fourth quarters than LeBron bleepin' James. And you remember what happened that closeout fourth game, the sweep game.
LeBron had the ball twice at the end. Didn't even get a shot up to the rim. One was at the shot clock. He was heavily guarded. Hit the side of the backboard. The other one he drove. Thank God he drove. I've been pounding the table for years. Just put your head down and drive it and go make those free throws if you have to. I know you don't trust yourself at the late game free throw line, but just go make a free throw if you have to.
And he put his head down and Jamal Murray beat him to the punch, beat him to the spot, got on his ball side hand and just took the ball right out of his hands basically. And it wound up getting blocked. Man, Austin Reeves was something in those fourth quarters. Under radar, off Broadway, he was something.
So, 43 games worth of sample size, 27 regular, 16 playoff, aberration? I think not. Flash and pan? Nope. Fool's gold? Stop it. But it feels like the NBA still fears that he's not the truth. Nobody was willing to offer the $30 million a year
that the Lakers might not have matched, might not have been able to match, might have feared matching because they might have feared that they would get stuck with Austin Reeves at $30 million a year for four years. I truly believe he will be worth every penny of that, and they got him for half of that, more than half of that. So in the end, it's clear to me,
It's just too hard for NBA teams to see Austin Reeves as a $30 million-a-year player because he's still got that Hillbilly Kobe label, still looks a little too much like a hick from the sticks, from little Newark, Arkansas. But all I know is if LeBron James does win a fifth ring, old Hillbilly Kobe is going to have a whole lot to do with that. Another question.
This is Dean from Los Angeles. You are good at sports debating, but are you good at sports trivia? That is a great question. Yep, you're right, Dean. I will debate anyone, any place, any time on any hot sports topic, any now topic. But I seriously doubt I'd be very good in sports trivia, in a sports trivia contest, because...
I know only quote unquote trivia that is not trivial, if you get my drift. I know quote unquote obscure sports facts that mattered, that counted. I'm still obsessed to this day with the whys of sports, with the hows of sports, with the who can play and the who can't play, who can win and who can't win. And
I'm still on fire with all the stats to validate my opinion and making that opinion virtually impossible to invalidate or to argue against. Now, I sometimes shock my producers with my recall of great games I covered, great teams I covered, all the way back to the first Super Bowl I covered, Mel Blunt, who was, to me, the most physical NFL cornerback ever played.
I was there. I watched him break the ribs of a Cowboy receiver, a Cowboy Golden Boy named Golden Richards out of BYU by way of Hawaii. This was Super Bowl X, first Super Bowl I covered. It was January of 1976 at the Orange Bowl in Miami. Cowboys lost 21-17.
And they lost because those Steelers were just tougher than those Cowboys were. And Lynn Swan was just better, way better than Golden Richards was. Lynn Swan was the MVP of Super Bowl X. But there are dozens of other MVPs in other sports. I just don't know. I'd have to go back. I'd have to do my homework. I'd have to memorize them. And I don't because they don't matter to me right here, right now. So I'm having a conversation earlier today with my producer, Tyler Korn,
And we're just throwing out random sort of trivia questions. And he threw out, who is the MVP of the 1935 World Series? I said, I have no idea. So he looks it up and he realizes there was no MVP because there wasn't an MVP until 1955 World Series. And I said, well, who was that? He said it was Johnny Padres. He was? Really? Okay. I know that World Series. I know that Johnny Padres...
beat the New York Yankees. He was in a Brooklyn Dodger. They hadn't moved to L.A. yet, but he was a Brooklyn Dodger, and he wasn't all that great. In fact, I did have to look this up, but he only went 9-10 that year, but he pitched a Game 7 for the ages and beat the New York Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra, beat them 2-0 in Game 7.
And Johnny Padres was one of the first baseball trading cards that I pulled from a pack when I was in kindergarten. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I was outside on the curb on May Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And I opened up a pack and there was Johnny Padres. And I read the back of his card and I thought, well, he's not that great, but he was really great in World Series.
It's almost like Joe Flacco was for the Ravens. Never that great in the regular season, but boy, was he great in the postseason. You can't argue that. So I looked it up, and Johnny Padres went 4-1 in World Series games. That'll work. But I mostly remembered him later as the pitching coach for the Red Sox and the Phillies and other teams. My point is, that's the kind of sports trivia I know that would win me no sports trivia contest. I just know the sports and the teams I know.
I don't study sports trivia and I definitely don't try to impress my friends with the sports trivia I know because I'd much rather just beat them at golf. That's the way I impress them. So Ernestine and I play Jeopardy against each other, more or less. Every Friday night we go back and forth, try to watch all five from the week. We're a little behind right now, but...
Ernstine often says to me, you know, she says, I got to get you on Jeopardy because you could win. And I always say I'd win if I lucked into getting the categories I know that I just naturally know. I know literature. I know Shakespeare. I know U.S. history. I know war history, especially starting Civil War, World War I, World War II. You give me those categories. Yeah, I'd have a pretty good shot.
But I don't know the periodic tables. I don't know the vice presidents. I don't know royal lineage. I don't know any of that stuff. And if you put me on Jeopardy, I would beat my own brains out doing homework trying to memorize all of the above. I would have to study my brains out to get ready for Jeopardy. And frankly, I just don't have time. I'm too busy trying to know everything there is to know about sports right now.
everything that matters right now. I suppose I could be pretty good at sports trivia if I actually studied it, if I memorized it, but that does not interest me. Look, I don't want to criticize Russell Westbrook any more than I already have or any more than a whole lot of people have. He did play a little better.
In the 21 games, he did start for the Clippers late last year. In the five, he started against Phoenix in the playoffs. He played his tail off. He did improve his three-point shooting all the way up to 36% in those 26 games he played for the Clippers. You can live with that, even if it's hard to swallow the four turnovers game that he averaged, especially against the Suns. It was risky business as usual for Russell Westbrook when it came to handling the basketball.
But I must applaud him. He made 88% of his free throws in those five playoff games. And that's a far cry from the 66% that he made in the regular season, which was just inexplicably awful and near the bottom of the NBA. So...
This offseason, once again, Russell Westbrook became a free agent and at 34 years of age, a slam dunk first ballot Hall of Famer, an all-time top 75 player. Nobody wanted him. Nobody but the Clippers again. So next year, Russell Westbrook will play again for the Clippers for a grand total of $3.8 million.
he will be the 273rd highest paid player in the NBA. I'm going to repeat that. Russell Westbrook, slam dunk first ballot Hall of Famer, will be the 273rd highest paid player in the NBA. He's also signed, sealed, and delivered for a second Clippers season, during which he will turn 36 years of age and make a grand total of $4 million. Yep, it has come to this.
for a former NBA MVP who averaged a triple-double over four out of five seasons in one stretch. But you know and I know, history says that next year he'll wind up shooting about 30% from three while leading the league in turnovers yet again. That's why the rest of the NBA took one sniff at Russell Westbrook and said, "'Recipe for disaster.'"
I'll say it again. Russ played his tail off against Phoenix, and that was without Kawhi, without Paul George. But the NBA now sees Russ for what I always saw him as. He's a solo act of a stat machine. He's more interested in statting than winning. Too many air balls, too many jaw-dropping turnovers, too much out of control. Russ plays hard for Russ. So to me, the biggest shock
is that the Clippers said, "Sure, we'll run it back with Russ, even at $3.8 and $4 million." Which brings me to Ty Lue. I believe he's still the best coach in the NBA. I also believe he has so much stubborn pride that is getting the best of him when it comes to Russ.
I believe that Ty Lue still wants to show the Lakers that he, Ty Lue, can win with Russell Westbrook after the Lakers and LeBron failed so miserably to do so. My gut feeling is that even Ty Lue can't win with Russell Westbrook. Maybe, maybe he can make the playoffs with Russ, but he won't win a round of the playoffs with Russell Westbrook as his starting point guard. There's no way. But now...
I'm even wondering about making the playoffs. It sure sounds like Kawhi Leonard is not happy with the Clippers over his injury situation. And Paul George can't be happy because his name has been part of so many trade rumors. So in conclusion, I'll be the first to admit ahead of last season, I picked the Clippers to win it all. There was no Russ. Lakers were stuck with Russ.
But now, with Russ at point guard, I doubt I'll even pick them to make the playoffs. I'm sorry, Ty. And I love you, man. I just don't get it. This is Jerry from Denver, Colorado, who asks, what is the one superpower you wish you had? Another great question. So, when I was a kid, I read a book you might or might not have heard of. It's called The Kid Who Batted a Thousand.
This is about a kid from Backwoods, Oklahoma. I was a city kid from Oklahoma City. But this kid made it to the big leagues because of his superpower. This kid could foul off the toughest pitches, every single one of them, until he finally got walked. So he walked every single at-bat until he finally got his first hit ever—this is a kid's story—
But he finally got his first hit ever, a home run to win the World Series. So that gave him a perfect batting average for his career, 1,000, one for one. And he returned to raise chickens, said the book, somewhere in rural Oklahoma. So what drove me crazy, even as a little kid, as I read The Kid Who Batted 1,000, what perplexed and astounded me was if this guy...
had a superpower of hand-eye coordination that was so, so rare. Why couldn't he use his rare hand-eye coordination to actually hit the ball solidly for hits instead of just getting a piece of it for foul balls? Again, I thought too much as a kid. But oh, how as a kid and all the way up through high school, I loved hitting a baseball solidly. It has something to do why I'm still obsessed with golf because...
My favorite club is my driver. I love to catch one, as they say, on the screws, feel that indescribable feeling just resonate up my arms, that solid feeling. Now, I also love coming up, making three-point shots, even though for the longest, we didn't even have a three-point line to shoot from, but I loved making deep shots. But I've often thought if that were my superpower,
if that's what got me to the NBA, 'cause I could make anything inside half court. I could make every shot I took inside half court. Well, obviously once I got to the big league, to the NBA, they just put their tallest, longest, best defender on me and I couldn't get the shot off. So it seems like they could negate in human fashion, my superpower. So then as I thought last night about Jerry's question, I'd want my superpower to be in the sports context,
the ability to hit any pitch from any pitcher hard every single swing I made. Hit it right on the button. Now, again, as you know in the sport of baseball,
The whole idea, it's from way back when, of you want to hit them where they ain't. Well, sometimes you can hit a ball right on the screws, and it's right at somebody. And it's hard to actually, I guess if you gave me a superpower, maybe I could aim my hits. If I could aim my hits, maybe I'd be the kid who batted 1,000. But even if I couldn't aim my hits, if I just had the superpower ability to strike the baseball solidly, no matter who was throwing it,
the greatest pitchers ever could not get it past me. I would hit it solidly someplace. I hit 400. I'd be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So I wouldn't want my superpower to give me the ability to rule the world. I just want to rule a sport. That's all I would care about. I'd want to be so great at baseball that they'd have to use the Barry Bonds defense against me. They'd just have to walk me even with the bases loaded. Now,
One other more practical superpower I've thought about, this is just me in my little life. I'd love to have the power right now to write faster, to think and create and write at warp speed so that I could just blast out screenplays and books and podcasts in a night, in a couple of hours. You have no idea what that would do for my life if I could just empty my head at warp speed.
but I can't. It takes forever. I guess it's worth it in the end, but it takes forever. This is Brandon from Bowling Green, Kentucky. If you had to, could you do an entire Undisputed or podcast without your notes and papers in front of you? Man, Brandon, I wish I had the answer to that question, but I don't know. I honestly don't know. As for this podcast, trust me,
It is extremely difficult to talk for an hour straight without stopping while staying on point and continuing to make fresh new points. Stay on point, make fresh new points. So thank you, God, you did give me the ability to write. I can write in book form or I can write to what's called broadcast. Two very different voices. One's my writing voice.
and one for this podcast is my speaking voice. So I do script out most of what's on this podcast. That way I have a roadmap, I have a blueprint, so I'm not just shooting from the lip and saying things that might or might not come out the way that I originally wanted them to. I am constantly surprised by how often I get quoted out of this podcast.
Ernstine gets her Google alerts. She often says to me, did you say this on your podcast? And I say, I sure did. Stand behind it because I actually thought about it. I scripted it out or I memorized it. I didn't shoot it from the lip. I'm just not sure this podcast would be any good at all. I'm not sure it's any good at all anyway, but I'm not sure it would be any good at all if I just winged it.
Again, not sure if it's any good scripted, but it's got to be better than if I just winged it. But maybe I should try going extemporaneous off the top of my head. I don't know, maybe it would be better. Sure would save me a lot of hours. Now for Undisputed. I did go solo one day for a full show in an emergency with very little time to prepare. It's just Jen Hale, our moderator, teamed me up with a question.
and me talking straight into the camera without notes, 10, 12 minutes straight at a time for two and a half hours. And it went, I don't know, pretty well. I didn't hate it. I didn't ramble. I didn't lose my train of thought. So maybe I should just trust myself more. But remember on Undisputed, my notes are my homework. It's my ammo. Most of them I have flash memorized.
But occasionally I need to glance down for that one case closing number just to make sure I get it exactly right. So maybe on August 28th, when Undisputed returns, I... No, I'm on to Cincinnati. Last topic. I found it interesting that soon after I included Damian Lillard as one of my three most overrated players in sports on last week's podcast...
during which I all but dared him to demand a trade, which I still don't believe he really wants, it did appear to me that Dame said, "Okay, watch this. I'm asking Portland to trade me." Bombshell story. Now, did that have anything to do with what I said in last week's podcast? I have no idea. Dame and I have clashed over the phone about some other similar things I've said about him in the past.
but I do not know if he listened to last week's podcast. Yet oftentimes in these situations, when a team is all in on trading a star or a superstar, I'll give Dame star, I'm not sure about superstar. But when a team is all in, gung-ho, got to get it done. And a whole lot of other teams are just as all in on acquiring said star or superstar,
The auction usually takes place pretty quickly as several teams go all in with big trade packages. And a deal is just done, boom, just like that. See Kevin Durant, see Joe Sy, Brooklyn, sitting back saying, okay, that's enough. I've had enough of James Harden and Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. I tried it, it failed. Next, auction seemed to happen overnight and all of a sudden, kaboom,
Kevin Durant is a Phoenix Sun. But now the word out of Portland is that the Blazers don't like anything Miami has to offer, Miami being widely speculated as the team most interested in Dame. So now, reportedly, Portland's going to sit back, take its time, making a decision. So I ask you, is it possible, is it possible that Dame and Blazers management sat down and agreed to
that he would be shopped, but not too hard. That the only way he would actually be traded is if a team just came out of the blue with a blockbuster offer, an offer so great that it would satisfy Dame's pride in his view of how valuable he still is at 33 years of age. And it would also be a team that Dame would want to play for in a city Dame would want to live in.
Hmm. But this way, even if Dame doesn't get traded, he can say, "Well, I tried." He can satisfy those critics, this critic. And now on a much deeper level, if he at least demands, quote-unquote, a trade, even if that trade doesn't happen, he very well can accomplish three things. Number one, he'll make Portland fans even more thankful that he's still
Damian Lillard playing for the Portland Trailblazers. Number two, he'll still be the biggest fish in a very small but very great pond. And number three, this way, Damian Lillard won't have to deal with the pressure of being some new team's savior in a new city on fire for what Dame can do for them that he never was able to do for Portland.
That's pressure I do not believe Damian Lillard wants at age 33. That's pressure I do not believe he could stand up to and live up to at this stage and age. That's why I still have my doubts that Damian Lillard really, truly wants to be traded.
That's it for Episode 71. 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. Mark your calendar. Undisputed returns August 28th. The Skip Bayless Show returns next week.