3 Most Overrated Players in Sports
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This, as always, is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during Undisputed. And I cannot wait for Undisputed to return. Today is also a brand new day for this podcast, as I now sit in a brand new studio. This one's called Stage D, as in dominant, a studio...

a brand new facility up here on the fifth floor that is blowing me away a stage to my right worthy of my man little wayne i'll get to him in just a moment a studio i fear i now cannot live up to but here i go here i will try in episode 70 i will tell you my three

most overhyped, overrated players in sports today. I will tell you why I disagree with the results of a recent Dallas Cowboy fan poll. I will tell you what Ernestine and I learned on our most recent trip out to visit our man, my brother, Lil Wayne, at his house last Saturday.

And I will weave in quick thoughts on Ja Morant, on extraction two, and on potential Laker trades. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. Here are my three most overrated players in sports, all for very different reasons. Yet in each case, my bottom line is very simply, the world just doesn't get it. He's not that guy.

as in capital T, capital G, that guy, not that guy. Aaron Rodgers is not that guy. Overhyped, overrated. You can have those four MVPs. You can have greatest thrower of the football ever. You can have all those stunning off-platform throws, all products of some of the worst footwork I have ever seen a quarterback do.

Attempt to make. Footwork no coach would ever coach. Heck, you can also have that Super Bowl that Aaron Rodgers won. It's long ago, far away. Galaxy far, far away. That was after the 2010 season. It's 2023. He's still living off that. As you might recall, the Packers that year, that's 13 seasons ago, pulled off

That Super Bowl win is a road wildcard team. And Aaron Rodgers stunk in that NFC Championship game in Chicago in which he almost lost to Caleb Haney, subbing for that guy from Vanderbilt I'm trying to forget.

Since that Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers is 7-9 in the postseason. Think about that, 7-9, and his seven wins are almost all flawed. With asterisks, he beat Joe Webb, a receiver quarterback for the Vikings. That was at Lambeau. He beat Kirk Cousins in Washington. Flawed. He beat my Cowboys at Lambeau in the Dez-Caudic game because he obviously caught it. We should have won that game.

He beat my Cowboys at Jerry World on two intergalactic field goals by Mason Crossbar, 56 and 51 yards, two hand of God field goals that looked no way when they were about halfway to the uprights. At Green Bay, you might recall,

Aaron Rodgers got to beat the Giants, who were led by an Odell Beckham Jr., who had prepared for his first playoff game up on the frozen tundra by taking a trip to South Beach. He further wrecked the Giants early in that game with two huge first quarter drops. And at Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers benefited from getting to beat a Rams team without a Jared Goff, who really couldn't play in that game because he had a pin that had been inserted into his surgically repaired thumb.

In that day, Aaron Donald was mostly a ghost playing with cracked ribs.

Three years ago, Aaron Rodgers had the number one seed in the NFC and lost a home NFC championship game, as you remember, to Tom Brady, a game in which Aaron Rodgers played like frozen tundra in the fourth quarter on the frozen tundra. Two years ago, Aaron Rodgers had the number one seed again in the NFC and lost a home divisional round game to San Francisco because Aaron Rodgers played like he had gangrene in Green Bay.

especially in the fourth quarter. And last year, of course, all the Packers had to do was win their final home game of the regular season against those woeful Lions. Again, this was in Green Bay, and Aaron Rodgers stunk again. Yet for years, Aaron Rodgers has led this league in state farm commercials, and he's led the league in tabloid headlines featuring baseball

girlfriends who rivaled his star power, and he's led the league in controversies involving such as deceiving the world about being vaccinated and about going to South America to experiment with a drug called ayahuasca, which is banned in the United States of America. For years, Aaron Rodgers has led this league in finger-pointing and blame-deflecting.

Until finally, even the arch-conservative Green Bay Packers said that is enough. Yet because Aaron Bleepin Rogers has gone to New York, that he's now a Jet, the Jets are about to be the center of the NFL media universe. And Aaron Rogers is about to experience more pressure and higher expectations than he ever did even in Green Bay following Brett Favre.

Aaron Bleepin Rogers, now called Broadway Aaron, the man about town in New York City, the talk of the town in New York City, says that he's happier than he ever was in Green Bay. We will see about that. We'll see in September. We'll really see in December. And my bottom line there is good luck, New York Jets.

My second overrated player comes from the sport I am addicted to playing, or at least attempting to play. It's called golf. Sometimes I call it goof because that's what I usually do when I try to play golf. But maybe never in the history of sports has a player been more overrated, certainly more overhyped, than Ricky Fowler. Never has a player in any sport had more national TV commercials while winning less than

than Ricky Fowler has. Now he has won a players championship, it's considered the fifth major quote unquote, but it is not one of the four majors. Ricky has had lots of high majors finishes, he's got 12 top tens, that's very, very good. He was second in the 2018 Masters to Patrick Reed, but it never was really close even though he finished just a shot behind.

Never really that close, never put that much pressure on Patrick Reed. The point is, Ricky Fowler has never won even one Masters, one US Open, one British Open, even one PGA, because Ricky Fowler is just not that guy. Way overhyped, overrated. Now, he's a very nice guy. I think the kids love him because of the hair, the tattoos.

the neon pastels, the shirts, the slacks that he wears, especially the orange for Oklahoma State where he played on Sundays. And maybe kids relate to him because he's smallish even for a golfer. He's listed at 5'9", 150 pounds. He might go 160 now. He's fairly stoutly built. Can kids better identify with that sort of stature? Maybe. Yet in this age of 400-yard tee shots, Rory's 380, 390, even in the U.S. Open.

Ricky's actually just too small to be dominant. Man, back in, I don't know what it was, maybe 2012, I was on vacation in Oklahoma City and I was introduced to, I think it was Ricky's manager at the time out at Oak Tree National. And I actually got into an argument with this guy about Ricky not being big enough to ever be a superstar in golf to win, the topic of conversation was to win five or six major championships. I said, no, sorry.

And this guy said, "No, you have no idea what you're talking about." And I think I did. Here's the punchline on Ricky Fowler, marketing lightning rod. He's not even funny. There's nothing particularly witty or entertaining about the interviews that he gives. There's no magnetic charisma. There's none of that. Yet he's routinely viewed as golf's most popular player.

more likable than Tiger, who's obviously the ultimate polarizing lightning rod. But hey, for me, give me Tiger any Sunday over Ricky or Rory or Jordan Spieth or Justin Thomas, any of the live defectors. Yet Ricky endures at age 34 as golf's number one super salesman just by being the all-time Mr. Nice Guy with some fashion flair, certainly in the realm of golf.

So he can shoot you, Ricky, can. Majors record 62 in the first round of the U.S. Open as he did out here in Los Angeles at LACC a couple of weeks back.

He can be the co-leader at the United States Open after three rounds going into Sunday, and he can quietly fold on Sunday with a 75. 56 players shot better on Sunday than Ricky Fowler did as co-leader at the United States Open. Did you hear any criticism of Ricky Fowler's final round? I did not. I heard only sympathy.

overrated, maybe all-time overrated. Which brings me to basketball, to the National Basketball Association and the third of my three overrated players. But I could argue he's number one. No, I'm not talking about him.

As unclutch as he was in all four fourth quarters of the conference finals against Denver, a combined 7 of 23 he went, a combined 1 of 10 he went in those four fourth quarters. But at least he has won four championships, albeit with six finals losses. So no, it's not him. It's Damian Lillard.

It's Dame time, which too often has been lame time. Dame is simply not that guy. Yet he has social media mystique of any superstar, of a Kevin Durant or a Steph Curry, of any player who's actually won something. Yet Dame Dalla has made lots and lots of dollars, making lots and lots of TV commercials, the latest for Modelo. I like the ads.

But every time I see one, I think, him? He got this? Dame has a very smooth style about him. He has a good, strong, very pleasingly deep voice. I mean, the man can rap. To me, he's the best of the athlete rappers, but that obviously has nothing to do with winning championships.

Night after night after night, Dame trends on Twitter because median fans are trying to get poor pitiful stuck in Portland Damian Lillard traded to the Lakers or to the Heat or to Brooklyn or to the Knicks or to fill in the blank. Night after night. And I always think, huh? Why?

Damian Lillard doesn't want the pressure of being hailed as the savior in LA or Miami or New York. And even though Dame is obviously a very good player, I don't want those other cities that we're talking about, those desperate for Dame teams, to have to find out that their savior is not that guy.

Look, I know Dame has hit a couple of big walk-off shots in playoff rounds, always the first round. There was the one against Houston in a closeout game back in 2014, first round. There was the even better-known one, 2019, fueled by his Russ-hating fury, remember, against Oklahoma City? That led to Dame time as he waved goodbye to Russ. Those were his two big moments, and boy, have they fueled him

Man, has he ever lived off those two moments. Dame has now played 61 playoff games. His playoff record is 22-39. He is 4-8 in playoff series. His playoff winning percentage since he entered this league is the second worst of any active player. His plus-minus in playoff games since he entered the league is the second worst of any active player. Is that his fault or Portland's fault? Well, it's some or both.

but I see it as more of Dame's. He has come up so unclutched so many times in so many other playoff series deeper into the playoffs, although I can go back to an early round 2018 against New Orleans when Portland got swept. Dame averaged 19-5-5 in those four games. Combined in those four, he went 25-71 from the floor. That's 35%. That is pitiful.

In those four games, all four losses, he went 9 of 30 from 3, 30%. Game one, he missed a little jumper to take the lead with 15 seconds left. He pretty much just stunk in all four games. And then does anybody but me remember the 2019 conference finals, only time he got to the conference finals against the Golden State without Kevin Durant?

It was pretty much Dame and CJ against Steph and Clay. Obviously they had Draymond, but it was sort of a two-guard versus two-guard series. Guard duo versus guard duo. They lost all four. All four games, sort of like Lakers versus Denver this year in the conference finals. Portland had every opportunity to win all four games.

Game two, Dame missed two late shots that could have pulled it out. Game four, he missed four late shots that should have pulled it out and did not. In the fourth quarter of those four games, Damian Lillard from the floor went 8 of 26. 8 of 26, that's 31%. He went 5 of 17 from 3, that's 29%. In those four fourth quarters, he was a minus 30%.

That is not good. But for me, what really sums up Damian Lillard were two excruciatingly memorable end of games that I will never forget. The first was a pretty forgettable game. It was one of the final regular season games in the bubble. The few that they played to get ready for the playoff run in the bubble in Orlando. This game was against the Clippers on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe you remember, maybe you don't. I certainly do.

Dame went to the line for two crucial late free throws and he missed them both. Do you remember what several Clippers were doing, several starters who'd been pulled from the game over on the bench as he went to the line and as he started to miss? Pat Bev, Paul George, others were mocking Dame, tapping their wrists. "It's Dame time, ha ha ha." On and on it went. I was shocked.

It showed me that the Clippers had little to no respect for Dame's clutchness. No way would they have mocked Kevin Durant in that situation or Steph in that situation, even though they both had their issues, but no way. I doubt they'd even have mocked LeBron, and we all know how unclutch he can be at the late-game free-throw line. The second unmemorable memory I have of Dame is going to the free-throw line

late in the Olympic gold medal game a couple years back and turning into damn Dame, missed them both. Next possession, Kevin Durant demanded the inbounds pass so that he could get fouled, so that he could walk to the other end to the line, so he could go swish, swish game over gold medal. The truth is Damian Lillard acts way cooler than he really is at the end of games.

The truth is, he has high cool factor, but shockingly low, to me, clutch factor. The truth is, the one game that Dame always wins, always dominates, is what I call the Portland game. A year ago, he signed for the Macs. Oh, Dame is committed to bringing a winner to small market Portland. Then he subtly began to refuse to shoot down Portland.

This trade rumor, that trade rumor, because he clearly enjoys the narrative that poor Dame is still stuck in rebuilding Portland without a superstar teammate. If only he were in LA, if only he were in New York, then Dame very cleverly blasts the idea that a superstar is a career failure if he hasn't won a ring. So back and forth we go with poor Dame, the best player, not on a championship contender. The truth is,

Dame just wants to be the biggest fish in a pretty small pond, making great money, max money, making Modelo commercials, making Mystique, while living in what I consider a great place to live. I love Portland. A place that for Dame is packed with Dame-worshiping fans. Damian Lillard, overhyped, overrated, definitely not that guy.

Let's get started.

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and 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. To your question, shall we? This is Monty from South Carolina. Is Jets at Cowboys the biggest game circled on your calendar?

Thank you for this question, Monty, but it is the flip side of my first topic about how overhyped and overrated Aaron Rodgers has become because, unfortunately, that has not applied to Aaron versus Dallas Cowboys when he turns into, as I said last year, Count Dracula swooping in and sucking the life out of us time after time after time. Remember last year at Green Bay? We led by 14 going into the fourth quarter.

And Aaron turned back into Aaron Bleepin' Rogers. He goes six of eight just in the fourth quarter alone for 66 yards and two touchdowns, while my man Dak disappeared right on cue. Three of eight in the fourth quarter for all of 18 yards. Green Bay won the fourth quarter 14 to nothing, and we went to overtime in which we, Dallas, won the toss.

And we hit, and we missed, and we hit, and we missed, and finally we missed on fourth and three at their 35. We should have tried the field goal. I don't know what Mike McCarthy was thinking. Probably nothing. And Aaron turned right around and hit Lazard for 36 yards, and they walked it off with a field goal by Mason, crossbar 31 to 28. But yes, Monty.

I do have that game circled this year because I'm already on record. We will finally beat Aaron Bleepin' Rogers in Dallas on Sunday, September 17th at 425 Eastern Time. Then again, the game I have two big metallic blue circles around is on Sunday, November 5th. That one is at Philadelphia. Cooper Rush very nearly pulled off that game last year at Philly. This time, we win.

You might have noticed I blew right by the at San Francisco game on the Cowboys schedule. That's Sunday night, October 8th, because I don't have a lot of hope for winning that game or for the Cowboys winning the NFC Championship game. I've already predicted that we will lose at San Francisco, where we, of course, lost last year's playoff game, as well as losing to San Francisco the year before at Jerry World in the playoffs. But I must admit, I was intrigued.

and occasionally baffled and sometimes amused by a Cowboy fan survey that ran the other day in The Athletic. I disagreed with the results of the first question, which was, "What grade would you give the Cowboys for the offseason?" The winner of that fan poll at 65% was a B. Hmm. Maybe as in blah. I don't know. But a B. I'm sorry. I believe the Cowboys had the NFL's best offseason.

I'm going A for offseason. They traded for two must-haves, stole both of them. Just stole them in trades that shocked me. The more I think about them, the more shocked I am. Pleasantly shocked. A proven deep threat in Brandon Cooks, who just might help Dak Prescott rise from middle-of-the-pack Dak to, I don't know, maybe the NFL's 9th or 10th best quarterback.

And they traded or stole Stefan Gilmore, traded for Stefan Gilmore, still a top five corner with top one brains and instincts, the missing link for what I believe will be the NFL's best defense, the Dallas Cowboys. Somehow the Dallas Cowboys managed yet again to keep their defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn, from becoming a head coach elsewhere. I don't know how Jerry Jones does it. I don't know exactly what he pays Dan Quinn, but...

I don't know what he has promised Dan Quinn in the way of replacing Mike McCarthy, but year after year, he keeps Dan Quinn advantage us. Micah Parsons, 11 from heaven, will be the defensive player of the year next year in his third year in this league. Yes, I wanted Dalton Kincaid in the draft as I went on and on about, but we did land Amazi Smith.

who is precisely the immovable object this defense needed to plug the leak versus the run. I think Mozzie Smith is going to dominate the middle of the line next year. This defense did resign Donovan Wilson, love him as a blitzer. That gives them the league's best trio of safeties.

They resigned Leighton Vandrash when I did not believe they could. If only he can stay healthy. I know it's a pretty big if, but he has at least one Pro Bowl left in him because Wolf Hunter can flat fly. And on offense, that offensive line that is so questioned, I don't think it's offensive at all. It's still extremely talented with Ty Smith at left tackle, Tyler Smith at left guard, Zach Martin right guard.

Terrence Steele should be back full speed, right tackle. Look, Tyron Smith and Zach Martin are not too old. They're only 32. People treat them like they're 42. They're only 32. Sounds like Tony Pollard had a breakout year last year, will return 100% healthy by game one. And trust me,

Little Deuce Vaughn will play very big for this team. He will wind up being the steal of the draft in the sixth round. Deuce will get loose for Dallas. Just you watch. CeeDee Lamb will continue to rise into a top five receiver. And my team will survive with a tight end by committee with four decent tight ends, starting with Jake Ferguson. Next fan question in the survey was,

How deep will the Cowboys go in the playoffs? And the winning answer was at 35.3% losing the NFC Championship game. So that's my prediction. So there, I agree. But by the way, this would be the Cowboys, the Dallas Cowboys' first NFC Championship game appearance since the 1995 season. So for me, an NFC Championship game loss would

would be huge progress. I would be ecstatic over even that. But the next fan question result riled me up. Who will win the NFC East? The answer was the Eagles. It was just barely with 50.5% of the vote.

Does anybody out there who voted remember what happened last Christmas Eve at Jerry World? The Cowboys won over Philadelphia 40-34. Think about that. It was 40-34.

to 34 and no Jalen Hurts did not play and Gardner Minshew did play at quarterback for the Eagles, but Gardner Minshew did not play defense for the Eagles and Dak through Dak Prescott through for 347 yards and three touchdowns with only one interception. The man who led the league in throwing interceptions through only one that day against Philadelphia because Philadelphia was not great on defense last year.

They will not be great on defense this year. My team will be. Advantage my team. Now I move down to the sixth question in the athletics fan poll. What grade did you give Mike McCarthy entering his fourth season as the Cowboys head coach? It's been four years. God, four long years. The overwhelming majority, 62.4%, gave Mike McCarthy a three-year B.

A B? Huh? For doing what? For pregame, halftime motivation speeches? Uh, no. Mike McCarthy should have his own ASMR YouTube channel because this man could put you right to sleep. Has McCarthy done any or much of any game planning or play calling? No, he pretty much left all that to Kellen Moore, but not anymore.

And you know what? I'm actually good with this. I'm glad that Mike McCarthy got away with firing Kellen Moore and taking over and calling plays this coming season. If your quarterback does lead the league in interceptions and he misses four or five crucial throws in that playoff loss at San Francisco, said quarterback needs a new voice in his ear. And now finally, Mike McCarthy will actually do something.

He will actually slide right onto the hottest seat in the National Football League because now we get to find out what he's actually made of. If he was nothing but a product of the early success of Aaron Rodgers. Or did he actually deserve the label he once had around the National Football League as one of the NFL's best play callers? So now surely he can no longer be just Mike McGarry,

the owner's puppet and beer buddy. Now we find out what you got Mike McCarthy for his first three years. I gave McCarthy a letter grade of, I don't know, of incomplete, of nothing. He did nothing. There's no letter grade for nothing. He just didn't show up to class. But this year, this year, this coming football season, I'm hoping to give Mike McCarthy something.

A B, maybe even a B+, as the voice in Dak Prescott's head. This is Drew from St. Louis who asks, "Do you visit Lil Wayne once a week? Do I detect, Drew, a hint of sarcasm in your question?" Huh. No, Drew, Ernestine and I drive out to visit our man Wayne, I don't know, maybe four or five times a year. We always go on a Saturday.

Hoping the L.A. traffic will be just a little bit lighter, and it never is, as we take the 405 freeway from West L.A., where we live, up over the hill and down into the San Fernando Valley and out the 101 toward Thousand Oaks, where I used to attend many Dallas Cowboy training camps. I loved it out in Thousand Oaks. I could live out in Thousand Oaks. It's just too far from here at Fox. Ernestine and I always have a great time, a memorable time at Wayne's.

Yet not once have we eaten a single bite there. These visits are not about eating or drinking. They're just about talking, about delving, about conversating, about feeding off each other's psyches and stream of consciousness. Now, there are bursts of sports talk between me and Wayne. Ernestine is not a huge sports fan, but she gets it and she can talk it when necessary. But there aren't a lot of these bursts.

The connection here is my wife, Ernestine, and I are endlessly fascinated by Wayne's gift for recording and performing, just as I believe he is unquenchably intrigued by behind the scenes at Undisputed. Other than Ernestine, I don't know anybody, any human who watches more Undisputed, and for that matter, more FS1, than Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. does. I'm pretty sure he never misses an Undisputed.

This past Saturday session for me was the most memorable we've ever had at Wayne's because the three of us went out onto the back porch because the weather was just glorious on Saturday. And we talked, and I'm not exaggerating, as God is my witness, we talked for four straight hours without one bathroom break for any of the three of us. Four straight hours. Didn't eat anything, didn't drink anything, four straight hours.

Most compelling for me was when Wayne went deep about what a force he is on stage because we got to see him perform for the first time at the Will Turn back a couple of months ago. Now, I saw Prince twice. I saw Michael Jackson once. And trust me, Wayne's sheer energy would blow both of those all-time great performance right off the stage. I am talking ball of fire. Completely genuine, completely authentic.

Nothing contrived, nothing forced, just ball of force of nature fire. On stage, Lil Wayne becomes Big Wayne. He plays seven feet tall on stage. Yet Lil Wayne made a big point to us. He is not Michael Jackson. He does not dance. Yet he also made the point he's never had any dancers and he has no hype men or hype man backing him up.

Yet, when this man comes flying out across that stage, he immediately owns every last inch of it. Just explodes all over it with G-force, the likes of which you can't find this side of Cape Canaveral. I'm talking about nuclear force. The force of a thousand dancers and a thousand hype men. By the way, Wayne cannot sit still while we talk. He usually, he'll sit for a moment, but he's usually standing. He's almost always up.

He's emphasizing his points with body language that would give Michael Jackson a run for his money. I'm talking about art form body language. He moves as well as he speaks. Can this man ever go deep? So we stayed from maybe two-ish to six-ish. By then, Wayne was beginning to get absorbed by what was up on the TV outside on the back porch. It was a big screen TV.

His beloved LSU Tigers were playing Florida in the College World Series. He says to me that he was very surprised that my Vanderbilt Commodores weren't in the College World Series this year. And he wasn't needling me. He was actually truly surprised, as was I, because we almost always make it. So I said, hey, at least we won the SEC tournament, which we did over Florida and over LSU. Then we managed to get eliminated at home by Xavier?

at home by Xavier? I said to Wayne, I didn't even know Xavier played baseball. Neither did he, but we do now. So Saturday night, Wayne would watch his LSU win. Obviously they went on Monday night to win the overall championship. He was out of his mind, texted me that this is going to be LSU's year, both in baseball and he thinks football has a chance to win it all also.

But after Wayne watched that game on Saturday night, he headed right down the hill, about 50-odd yards, to his private recording studio near his home. And he'll spend the rest of the night, until the sun comes up, recording. This man cannot stop recording. God made him to record and to perform what he records. He recently finished an album featuring a male and a female artist,

I could give you a million guesses and you'd never get either one of them. That's Wayne. So fearlessly creative. I saw the other day Bow Wow, I believe, said that nobody is doing anything new and different in hip hop. Try this when it drops. I have heard bits and pieces. You should try this Bow Wow. Wayne will be involved more than ever.

in undisputed going forward. So will young money. I love you, ma'am, and I thank you for yet another very memorable Saturday. This is Vance from New York who asks, "What is on your travel list this summer?" Speaking of New York, Vance, Ernestine, native New Yorker, is going to go to New York, see all of her old friends for one week. This is the first time she's been back to New York since the pandemic.

And meanwhile, as I have every single summer since my first year out of college, I'm going to spend a week in my hometown of Oklahoma City playing golf with my, I was gonna say high school friends, heck, they're my grade school friends. Gonna play with my grade school friends on the courses we grew up on, Lincoln Park East and West in Oklahoma City. For me, going to Paris or London or Rome,

would not make me any happier. This is Tim from New Jersey who asks, "What does Jot Morant's season look like?" Seriously, I hope I'm very wrong about this, but to me it looks like business as usual. Same time next year, ho-hum, another little suspension, another speed bump. He'll be back in early December, somewhere around December 10th, after his 25-game suspension.

It'll take a little while for him to ease back into the flow, to play his way into shape, to get up to speed. But then, I believe, hope I'm wrong, Ja will go right back to being same old Ja, living life the very same way he's lived it since he arrived as an NBA star. Hope I'm wrong, but I do not think this punishment was anywhere near severe enough

to force him to get the help that he says, that he has said several times that he needs to get, to force him to grow up, to force him to give up all the old off-the-court lifestyle, all the old friends who clearly were not good for him. I figure right away when he comes back, December 10th-ish, he'll go right back to, it's a parade inside my city, Ja, that Ja who owns the city of Memphis, that will have his back,

that will, as they say in AA, enable him to do pretty much whatever he wants to do. Enable him to tell the adults exactly what they want to hear. He's very good at that. He's a smart kid, Ja. And then he'll continue to run the streets with the same old buddies, same old issues. Hope I'm wrong. Fear I'm not. But I will not be surprised if Ja Morant has yet another incident before next season ends.

This is Mel from Portland. Remember, it's Portland. Question is, the Lakers should trade for blank in order to turn them into NBA champions next season. No, no, no, no, no. They do not need to trade for that blank. Not for Dame time. In my humble estimation, the Los Angeles Lakers should trade for nobody.

Rob Palenka, their GM, I'm a fan, should do everything in his power to bring back last year's team intact and give it an entire training camp and a full season to hone its chemistry come playoff time. I really like last year's Lakers. I'm being honest about it. I did. I'm not the biggest LeBron fan, but I thought he had a great stretch past Kareem.

He had great moments in the playoffs. I fully expect LeBron to be very good next year. Better than last year because he's past Kareem now and he can concentrate on just winning basketball games instead of trying to score 40 a night. But remember, that team last year got thrown together fairly late in the season at the trade deadline. And that team four times in the Western Conference Finals after eliminating Memphis and eliminating Golden State.

Four times in the Western Conference Finals against the eventual NBA champion Denver Nuggets, the Lakers were in position to win all four games. And four times, as you well know, they failed to close. That was mostly LeBron's fault. Surely he can be better next year, next time around. Or surely Austin Reeves, who's becoming a star in this league,

I think he was the closer last year, but they didn't allow him to close against Denver. He just didn't touch the ball enough. But surely Austin Reeves or Dennis Schroeder, he can be very clutch, especially at the late game free throw line. Surely they can hit a late shot or two here or there that could help carry the Lakers past the Nuggets next year and into the NBA Finals next year. They would have beaten Miami this year.

I don't know what happened to Jimmy Butler. He was playoff Jimmy. He was way off Jimmy. The Lakers, LeBron would have won his fifth championship if only he could have closed a couple of those Denver games. Four times in position, four times they failed. Nope, I would not change one thing.

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Allow me to conclude with this. No, before I do, I got one more. I've got to throw this in. Forgive me for this. I'm a frustrated movie critic. A quick thought, a quick review of Extraction 2. Huh? Extraction 2? I liked Extraction 1. I wasn't blown away by it, but I liked it enough that when Extraction 2 popped up, looking at Ernstine like, will you? Sure. For her, Chris Hemsworth is a movie star.

He commands the screen. He owns the screen. You buy every last ounce, every last drop of blood. I believe he's doing in these action flicks exactly what he's doing. He feels like he doesn't need a stuntman. He is that character. He owns that character. He owns these movies. I've never seen anything quite like Extraction 2. It runs for two hours and two minutes. Two hours and two minutes.

Trust me on this. If you like action movies, that genre, Extraction 2 gives you more bang for your buck than any action movie I have ever seen. Any of the Wicks, Atomic Blonde, name them. This is three-fourths of two hours and two minutes is top-shelf action, first-rate action, clever, creative action.

Not repetitive, not boring, not ho-hum. Edge of seat action. Not giving any of it away, but once he goes into the prison to extract what he needs to extract, I won't go any deeper than that, it starts. You've got a 45-minute chase scene that winds up on a train that is blow-you-away stunning. Even Ernstine was like, I'm worn out from watching this.

The plot involving a son is pretty good. It sustains throughout the two hours and two minutes. The first of it's slightly slow. Only the first of it, because he's trying to recover from what looked like life-ending injuries he suffered at the end of Extraction 1. So you have to sort of hang through that. But once you do, once the action starts, the last, say, three-fourths of the movie is just flat-out nonstop. Great grand finale.

I don't know what's not to like here. For what it is in the action genre, I gotta give Extraction 2 an A. I'd give it an A+, except it's a little tedious at the first as he recovers. But after that, trust me, you better buckle up. I congratulate these people for making as action-packed an action movie as ever there was. Now for my grand finale.

I read the other day that the United States leads the world in traffic accidents and fatalities, and that the worst time for car wrecks is on and around our country's birthday, Independence Day, the 4th of July. The day we've long celebrated by letting our kids set off small bombs called fireworks that can blow off their fingers. Hmm.

I still have a little scar right here on my forefinger that reminds me of the 4th of July out in my own backyard when I held on just a little bit too long to a little bomb called a Black Cat after lighting its fuse, and it went off in my hand. A little bomb went off in my hand as I was celebrating our country's independence. Go figure.

We had smaller little bombs called ladyfingers. We had black cats. We had bigger bombs called cherry bombs. Whew! We had bottle rockets. We had sparklers. We had it all. Now a lot of people just gather for big fireworks displays. Accidents can happen, but at least you have professionals handling the actual bombs. But I celebrated with black cats and cherry bombs from, I don't know, age 5 until probably 13 or 14.

And I was very lucky I didn't get hurt much worse. What a bizarre tradition fireworks are, but I digress. The story I read about July the 4th traffic accidents got me to thinking about my history with wrecks and my wife Ernestine's. She's actually a very, very good driver. I don't like to ride with her because I'm the worst sort of backseat driver. I drive her crazy.

But she did recently make her first mistake behind the wheel. She got distracted, which is the number one cause of wrecks in this country, and she bumped into the car in front of her. Thank you, God, that nobody got hurt, especially her. So I've really had only one wreck in my life, but it was way more than a scratch. But in high school, I will quickly tell you about two quote-unquote car wrecks that actually happened

If you're ready for this, in my driveway and in my front yard, so me. Strange but true. Now, the moral to all three of my wrecks is that haste makes waste, especially when you're driving. The first incident happened the summer before my senior year of high school. I had a summer league high school basketball game. I was to play in all the way downtown in Oklahoma City at the YMCA.

It's maybe a 30 or 40 minute drive from where we lived out in the northwest part of town. And I don't know what happened. I dozed off for a minute in front of the TV. And when I awoke, I realized I was going to be cutting it just a little bit close to get down to the YMCA on time because it was in rush hour traffic. We had a weirdly pretty long driveway that ran beside, along the side of our three bedroom, two bath house. It was pretty modest, but the driveway was long.

and I had parked all the way up at the end of the driveway under the basketball goal. Nobody was home but me, or so I thought. So I ran out the back door because that was the quickest path to my car, and I ran along the back of the house and straight into my 1967 Camaro SS350 sitting under the basketball goal and net.

Little did I know that for the first time ever, my father had come home to, I don't know, to take a nap. I don't know. He just lived drunk. Maybe he got too drunk that day to work through the day.

Maybe he came home just to kind of sleep it off a little before the dinner rush at night at his little hole-in-the-wall barbecue restaurant, which is clear on the other side of town, maybe a 45-minute drive from where we lived. But for whatever reason, my father came home, and I was not aware. Never done that. He had parked his panel truck that he used to cater parties out of the little barbecue restaurant. But he parked his panel truck, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 yards behind my car.

So I turned the key, my Camaro roared to life, I threw it in reverse, and without a single glance in the rear view, I pushed down on the accelerator. Now there was about a three or four foot high retaining wall that went along the edge of our driveway to keep the neighbor's garden from falling into our driveway. It was just a little above. So

I just used the retaining wall to go right back down the driveway to guide me back down the driveway. So all I did was look sideways at the retaining wall to make sure I stayed straight. Never looked back one second. So you can imagine the impact. You can imagine the jolt I got when I hit the front end of my father's panel truck without ever touching my brake. I did quite a bit of damage to the front end of his truck.

I did some to the back end of my car, but it was still very drivable. He came staggering out to see what the hell had just happened. We didn't have much of a relationship. He surveyed the damage and he shrugged and said, "Well, I guess I got to call Walter." That was our longtime insurance agent, Walter Steff. Without saying much at all, I maneuvered my Camaro right around his truck and I made it to my game on time.

When I told Ernestine this story, she said, "That is so you. Haste made waste." And my next quote-unquote wreck happened the following summer before I went away to Vanderbilt, and it's even more inexplicably bizarre. This is very difficult to explain, but we actually lived on a dirt road right in the middle of Oklahoma City.

It's city all around us, but the dirt road we lived on was called Grand Boulevard. And for some reason, it just never got paved. I don't know why. It had fairly high traffic. It was just two lanes, but cars constantly up and down Grand Boulevard. And it never got paved. Then it curved around up into Nichols Hills where the rich people lived. And it was paved up in Nichols Hills. But by us, never paved. Don't know why.

So on either side of Grand Boulevard were two graveled access roads in front of the houses. And from these gravel roads, it was maybe 20 yards of just weeds downhill to a drainage ditch.

that ran on either side of the dirt road Grand Boulevard. So our house was set way back from Grand Boulevard because we had a gravel access road that you took up to the five houses on the block or whatever it was that were our neighbors. So one night I was supposed to play in a church league softball game and I forgot to put my contact lenses in and I turned around on Grand Boulevard and roared back in my Camaro to our house.

And instead of pulling into the driveway because I was in such a rush, haste makes waste, I just pulled straight off the gravel access road onto the front yard. It was the dead of summer. The grass was pretty much yellowed out. We didn't really care about the front yard. I just drove and sort of angled around by the front door and left my car running. It was a four-speed manual with the clutch.

And so I just put it neutral, left it running. And as it came to a stop, the nose is pointed back toward the gravel road. And I hopped right out, right in the front door, by the way. I remember I didn't need a key in those days because we never locked our front door. Can you imagine today? Never locking your front door. We just never. I don't think we locked it at night. I don't remember locking it. Nobody broke in in those days. I don't know. Who knew? I ran in.

Put my contacts in and maybe two minutes ran straight back out and what a sight I beheld. I got out onto the front porch just in time to watch my Camaro plunge nose first down into the drainage ditch alongside Grand Boulevard.

And I'm like, this cannot be. Our front yard is flat, flat as a pancake. How did my car keep rolling, roll completely across the gravel access road, down through the weeds, down, down, down 20 yards and crash nose first down into the drainage ditch, dirt drainage ditch alongside the dirt road that was Grand Boulevard. I was dumbfounded. I was stunned. I was thunderstruck.

And for the next two hours, it took two hours to get somebody to pull my Camaro up out of this drainage ditch. A number of my friends drove past on Grand Boulevard and leaned out the window and asked, what happened? Can you imagine the shame, the embarrassment I felt? What happened? Again, my father, not happy. My mother shrugged and said, oh, well.

That's you. I told my wife Ernestine this story just the other night. I'd never told her this one. She said, that is so you. I have brains, but they can be so scattered. I'm getting better at it, but they can still be a little scattered. Once again, haste made waste. Now for my only real away from home wreck that I ever suffered. And this one easily could have ended my life.

And this one was way far away from home. This happened in 1998 after the last dance season of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan in Chicago where I was the lead columnist for the Chicago Tribune. This would be my first Bears training camp that July 1998. In those days they trained at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville.

It was a three and a half hour drive from Chicago, mostly on two lanes. I set up an interview with a man I'd covered in Dallas, Dave Wanstead, Cowboys defensive coordinator, at this point Chicago Bears head coach. I was to meet him at 7:00 p.m. in his dorm room on that campus at Platteville. So I left around 2:00, gave myself about five hours.

In those days I drove a little Toyota MR2. It was just something I had to tool around downtown Chicago. I didn't drive much. We lived right downtown. I was two blocks from the Tribune building. I often took the L, as they called it there, to Wrigley Field, White Sox Park. So I took off around two-ish. This is pre-ways, pre any kind of internet directions.

All I had were handwritten directions from our Bears beat writer, directions that were, he told me, the fastest way to get to Platteville, but definitely the most complicated way. So I'm taking the fastest way. Haste makes waste. So as I took off from downtown Chicago, it was raining. It rained the whole way. Harder and harder it rained, especially when I got into Wisconsin. It rained and rained. I got lost twice. I got late.

I got perplexed. I got frustrated. I got out of my mind. I finally pulled over in some little tiny Wisconsin town. I said, man, I need some caffeine. It's pouring rain. I think I stopped at a Burger King to get a Diet Coke. Ran in and got it. Looked at my hieroglyphics of directions. I said, where am I? What am I doing? So I thought, I'll buckle my seatbelt as I pull out.

I didn't buckle my seatbelt for the next five minutes. Not like me. I'm a buckle up for safety guy. I've always worn my seatbelt back to the first day I drove at age 16. I always buckled my seatbelt. For some reason, I don't know what possessed me. I was so distracted. I was so upset. I was getting so late. I thought I'll buckle it in a couple of minutes. And within five minutes, I nearly lost my life.

Came around the bend as I left that town on this two lane I was on. I did not see the stop sign. I later heard that a whole lot of people had not seen that stop sign, that it had become a very dangerous intersection. I actually went back to the scene of my crime maybe two weeks later.

and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had mounted a yellow flashing light hanging over the two-lane where I'd had my accident that nearly took my life. There was actually an exit ramp off another two-lane highway up above the one I was on that dangerously, this access ramp, was dangerously allowed to cross my two-lane without stopping.

Don't ask me why not. There's no stop sign for them going across me. But I did have a stop sign that as you round the bend going, I don't know, 50 or 60 miles an hour, it's tough to see, especially when it's pouring rain and I'm trying to follow my directions. Now, where am I? As fate would have it, a semi-trailer truck was exiting, coming down the access ramp, the off-ramp, crossing my two-lane.

I admit it, I was distracted. I admit it, I had no seatbelt. I glanced. I assumed the semi would stop. I waited. I waited. He kept coming and suddenly I realized the semi is not stopping. There was one flashpoint moment when as I slammed on the brakes and I steered as hard left as I could steer, I realized I'm going to have a wreck.

And it feel, I can feel it now, it just felt like time stopped for a second as I skidded sideways toward the semi. I think I broadsided the semi. I think I actually hit in underneath it my little MR2. My airbag on the driver's side exploded and obviously saved my life. I hit the semi pretty hard.

I actually hit it so hard, I bounced off and wound up heading in the opposite direction from which I had come. But miraculously, when I came to a stop, I shook my head for a second and realized I was actually pretty okay. The exploding airbag had sort of ripped the skin up off my left arm. It was just skinned. No big deal. I sat for a second. I looked at the front of my car. It looked pretty totaled.

But I was able to open the driver's side door because I'd hit on the other side, more front, far side. I got out. The driver of the semi had stopped. He got out. And the great irony to this whole story was a frequent target of mine and everybody else's in the media in Chicago in those days was Jerry Krause, the GM of the Bulls.

Jerry Krause had become the bane of Michael Jordan's existence, would soon force Michael Jordan into a three-year retirement because he was forcing Phil Jackson out as Bulls coach. And the driver introduces himself to me, and his last name is Krause. I'm thinking, Jerry Krause hit me with his semi. It's perfect. That's the way my life should have ended, in Jerry Krause's view. Jerry Krause did not like me.

We had had our knockdowns and our drag outs. But he was a nice guy, this Kraus, and his semi really wasn't damaged much at all. My car looked totaled, and it was. His semi, like one big tank, he just shrugged, everything okay, got back in and left. The ambulance arrived maybe 10 minutes later. I'm just standing in the, there was a median there, as I recall, and

The EMTs, the medics, they come running. One guy came running up to me and said, what are you doing? I said, I'm waiting for you. And he said, you need to sit down, sir. I said, no, I'm fine. He said, no, no, you're not fine. Because he's looking at my windshield, which is cracked because the windshield hit into the semi, again, saved by the airbag.

But he insisted I sit down. They insisted I lie down in the back of the ambulance. And I kept saying, no, I didn't hit my head. I'm actually just fine. Took me to the hospital. They made me stay for, I don't know, two or three hours. I just kept saying, I just want to go home. I'm okay. I'm just skinned up. They treated my arm a little bit, bandaged it up. It was no big deal. It was gone in a couple of weeks. I was fine. I was extremely lucky. But I think about my one wreck from time to time.

I put myself in position to die all because of my next day's sports column that I wrote for the Chicago Tribune that I lived for the way I live for Undisputed. I did not make it that night, obviously, to interview Coach Wanstead. And guess what? Life went on. Haste nearly made fatal waste. So if you're going to drive this 4th of July,

As soon as you get behind the wheel, do me a favor. Just think safe. Just think focused. Just think alert. Just think about all the fatalities, God willing, I'm going to knock on some wood here, that are predicted to happen over this 4th of July, as always. Just assume that nobody sees you, that nobody's going to stop, that nobody has a stop sign.

Just always assume the worst and you'll almost certainly be okay. Just think no rush. If you're a little late, life will go on. If you rush, life might not. Please drive safely and please be careful with those firecrackers.

That's it for episode 70. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go in this brand new studio that I'm sitting in right now here on the fifth floor at Fox. Thanks to Tyler Corn for producing. I will talk to you next week here on the Skip Bayless Show, and I cannot wait for Undisputed to return.