expert tom haberstrow is here with us uh
stroke before we get to why 80 is
lebron's secret weapon in the goat
debate
uh your latest column at nbcsports.com
uh i don't know how much of our last
conversation you heard
um i'm sure you've been following lebron
on instagram and he talked about what
they're gonna say now
you know uh come up with some criteria
that nobody else in history
has ever had to uh to deal with
what do you think he's saying there
what's he getting at
well i wrote in the intro of this column
is like when you talk about lebron's
legacy
it is filled with doubt every step of
the way the chosen one
sports illustrated cover he was a guy
who went to the finals at 22 won a
scoring title at 23
and an mvp at 24. okay check the guy
leaves cleveland
everyone thinks there's no way that guy
can be beloved by cleveland
he wins at two titles in miami finals
mvps
and then goes back to cleveland and wins
the title
beloved by cleveland again check wins
the titles in miami which
a lot of people thought he was a flawed
superstar who couldn't win the big one
check and then he goes to la and
replenishes
the stature of the lakers check
so every step of the way of his career
lebron james has quieted the doubters
and so i can totally get why he's
sitting here being like i wonder what
they're gonna make up now
and i think you know what i get in this
column
and what i'd love to hear you guys talk
about here is
i think it's wrong to think that lebron
should try to get to six titles
as if that's gonna change the
conversation in his favor because
i think no matter what he does and how
unfair it is for lebron
james if he gets to six titles most
people are just gonna think six losses
in their head the six and oh spotless
record by by michael jordan
is unassailable in his corner but for
lebron to win the goat debate
he's going to have to in my opinion
change the conversation like he always
has
and to me that's getting all-time
scoring leader beating kareem aldul
jabar's record he's 4 000 points away
and i think anthony davis is the perfect
running mate
to get him to that next step of his
career and once he wins that
all-time scoring leader when it's not
even his best skill
i think the goat debate will be over you
know it's so interesting stro i mean
we talked about this yesterday of how of
how he is
he is totally fine with anthony davis
too when they talk when he talked about
from that press conference he said we're
not jealous of each other and we push
each other
you can see that i mean anthony davis
was their leading scorer he gives you 10
assists a game lebron did
highest assist total in his career he's
equipped
to do exactly what you're saying to play
with another superstar and be fine with
it but
my question for you is where do you
think he goes
in the next four years in terms of his
play
championships what's in store for lebron
four years from now
you could say that his body is going to
deteriorate somewhat but this dude
just led all postseason players in
transition buckets
by amanda you can put jimmy jimmy butler
yanacinda de cumpo and russell westbrook
transition baskets this entire
postseason combined and lebron still has
more
so we're talking about a guy who's almo
he's approaching 40 years old and no one
can still stop him like a freight train
in the open court and so when people say
like
what's this decline gonna look like for
lebron i still think
that lebron james has a couple more
years of being an unstoppable force in
transition and
the pick and roll with anthony davis is
gonna become
that much more impossible to guard now
that anthony has seen he can win a title
at the five
when he becomes a center defensive
player of the year
pick and roll partner with three
shooters around them good luck
and so in the open court and in the half
court i think lebron james
is going to have a field day even as he
turns 36 37
38 i think he's going to win this
scoring title um
and especially with brawny his son on
the horizon
i just think at the end of the day
people are going to see this guy
aging into 40 and he's not going to fall
off like we see typically
because he takes so such good care of
his body i think he's going to be more
or less the same player we saw last year
that's my question for you yeah you talk
about taking care of his body
uh we were talking the other day i said
to mike you know you very rarely saw
michael jordan just kind of sucking for
air he was just all
his motor was very high same thing with
with lebron james any stories any
legendary stories i know
uh how workouts are important to a pat
riley organization some of his stories
are legendary of like how he would find
guys for being a pound overweight but
you hear any workout stories of lebron
and
some of his feats in the gym
yeah lebron like he he doesn't need to
do
the the off-season workouts to just walk
in and run anybody out everybody out of
the gym
there's one time where in the f in the
finals he was doing a
a practice where he was beating ray
allen and mario chalmers in a
three-point contest around the world
and i remember watching this and being
like this guy
is going to lead the nba and assist
potentially he's going to make
you know lead everyone in the paint
percent field goal percentage
and yet we still haven't seen him at his
peak in terms of shooting
and this guy does have that lever where
he can pull and be like i'm just going
to hit six three you saw that at the end
of the finals where he was like i'm
gonna hit six threes
and in terms of fitness i mean
i remember brian winhurst who had
covered lebron for
you know a half decade before i got down
to miami
and he said when you see lebron's ankles
they're the size of
normal person's thighs and when you look
at it in person it is just jarring
is just how big those legs are you can't
put it into words
like they're tree trunks they're huge
and so when you talk about lebron james
as a point guard
that dude in any other era is a center
like he's 280 pounds and six
nine he's bigger than ben wallace he's
the same size as dwight howard
and so when we talk about his abilities
to age
he's just got such a strong base and
he's just he's a point guard like he's
got so many different skills
and you know i don't want to hear this
whole michael jordan you know against
the magic
series like he wasn't in shape i i hate
that narrative like
the guy scored 48 points in that first
game
of that postseason when he came back
against the hornets and he dropped 39 i
think in game five of that orlando magic
series which he lost
so like this idea that michael jordan
wasn't in tip-top shape and therefore we
can discount that i'm back season
it's ludicrous we would never give
lebron the benefit of the out there
let me go back to your original point i
mean i agree with you obviously that
anthony davis is is going to extend his
career
um in a multitude of ways
but i was thinking when you were talking
and this i'll tell you what i said
yesterday about what lebron
may do in a laker uniform which is
important let me stress that again tom
laker uniform he could pass kareem in a
laker uniform
he'll probably pass magic and assist in
a laker uniform
and he'll join a a interesting
conversation whereas
laker greats are their own kind of nba
history top five you could do a top five
on mount rushmore with just laker
players
that's a pretty good all-time nba top
five so there's something
emotional and that's where i would go if
if you still think
lebron can win the goat debate if
there's a winning
uh the debate for lebron i don't think
it's empirical
because he's already passed jordan on
the all-time scoring list so he's
already got more points than jordan
and jordan people just say well yeah
jordan went to college for example
you know what i mean or he retired twice
you know what i mean so
you know he's already got more points
than jordan more assists there are
people and i'm not one of them
who like to think that lebron is so much
better an all-around player than michael
jordan to begin with so i'm not sure
what i'm saying is
i'm not sure that for some being the
all-time scoring leader
is a mic drop moment for lebron james or
michael jordan i think it's got to be
something more emotional
and it just might be running off
with anthony davis to your point as a
sidekick three four
five more titles to where it's just like
okay look yeah he lost six but my
goodness
you know he's got he's got seven or
eight it might have to be that kind of
thing you might just have to
really dominate the league for another
five years to win it in some people's
mind
right so what you're saying is there's
gonna be have to be a story in his favor
uh legacy and narrative yeah
yeah he already has more career win
shares than michael jordan he's already
got more points than michael jordan he's
already got more playoff wins than
michael jordan he's got more
finals appearances than michael jordan
so what you're saying is i agree
is that if this isn't going to come down
to the numbers it's going to come down
to how
i mean if it or not the narrative right
and so i think
one thing we don't talk about enough is
lebron james
he rides in the sunset with his son on
the lakers
i mean we haven't seen that right like
the the whole
story of lebron james changes if he's
right he's playing nba basketball long
enough
that we saw him as a teenager and bring
his own son
who was a teenager like talk about the
narrative
lebron being beloved by cleveland
think about that he imagine if i had
told you in 2010
when you saw what was happening in the
arena in cleveland the signs that they
were holding in cleveland
which is the ugliest that sports has
ever been that that same city with
beloved lebron would love
lebron again never count him out
michael could you understand what i'm
saying michael like it's just because
this whole argument is emotional not
right now because if anybody
if he passed kareem then maybe that puts
him above kareem on the goat list
he's already passed jordan the whole
thing is emotional michael can't you
just see somebody
20 years from now yeah but michael
jordan they never played with his son
lebron played with his son
people will reach for anything in this
conversation well but you know
and uh tom you just said something you
know to talk about the emotional part of
it michael you said the same thing
what what is that for you what is that
emotional thing that
you won't let go of is it is it about is
it a sports thing
is it a musical thing because i'm just
trying to understand why it's so
important to people
to protect for those who are who are
michael jordan people so to speak
why is it so important for them to
protect george
like jordan's going to be great whether
he's already doing this
whether lebron passes him or not he's
still great you know why is that so i
don't know i already i already know the
answer but go ahead tom you guys i'll
tell you that's after tom go ahead mike
tom well for me i was a huge red sox fan
growing up
so you guys will appreciate this i was
at fenway park
for game three of the 2004 alcs i still
have
the ticket stub in my pocket and as a
red sox fan
being in fenway park for the bottom of
the barrel down 0-3 in a series against
your hated
yankees rivals and then that team coming
back from down three went four straight
against the yankees and then winning the
world series which by the way everyone
forgets the the world series after that
the way right happened that will never
that feeling of what it was like
to be in fenway park and feeling like
this was done the whole the whole
insecurities of being a sports fan is
true
and then to come back and roar back and
make everything right again
and be in that just euphoric state
that's what i think
cleveland fans have felt when lebron won
2016
and i just don't know if lebron has a
national
level of that where michael jordan's uh
follow through against utah i mean you
can't
you can't script it any better than that
and so it's gonna be hard for lebron to
top that
you know what's interesting too just
going back to like there's always
somebody doubting and i'm gonna answer
your question too for michael but before
i just pop to my head too
even if you go back to game five which
feels like you know it never happened
but then the game five that same old
right basketball play versus
killer instinct take the shot
conversation was kind of creeping up
but then obviously game six rendered a
move point michael you know why
you know why uh people won't let go
of stuff like michael jordan real simple
people like to be wrong
people don't like to be wrong they don't
like to change their mind and you know
who really doesn't like to be wrong
old people old people so the older you
get
the more set in your ways you are you
ain't bout to tell nobody who grew up on
michael jordan or before that magic
johnson that's somebody going to come
around and be better
you ain't telling them that it's you
know it's same with colby there's a
generation of people that are like yo
what about kobe what about kobe kobe's
the goat
why are you always talking about jordan
because they grew up on kobe and they're
not changing their minds
people just will not step back and say
we live in a society in general
people time you know this will not step
back no matter how many numbers you put
in front of them tom
they will not step back and be like you
know what you're right
you're right like hey i said you guys
like i saw what i saw never i don't care
what you said
never did keep your little never keep
your little numbers keep your little
numbers
exactly they will never do that hey
strobe before i let you go man i got one
more thing for you
um i want to talk about jimmy butler
because typically we don't
remember who finishes second that's not
somebody who i think will forget that
performance those two
masterpieces he put up in the finals
that iconic photo
of him being exhausted you want to talk
about somebody who was a worthy
adversary for the king sometimes you do
remember who finished second like
those are you see the numbers right
there 26 8 and almost 10 assists a game
how how will history look back at this
performance from jimmy butler
and also how do you view jimmy butler
now moving forward in terms of just your
overall hierarchy of nba stars or even
superstars
he reminds me of d wade before lebron
came to miami where
he is the institutional guy like he is
the reason why lebron went to miami and
trusted
uh d wade and eric spoelstra and pat
riley because
he's the incumbent right for me i don't
think jimmy butler gets his full flowers
until giannis and akumpo comes to miami
and wins a title next to jimmy butler
just like lebron did with d wade
like i think that is when jimmy butler's
true power will be
understood because that's the thing
jimmy butler
was supposed to come in here and in a
couple years maybe get to the finals
another co-star he's already there he's
already legitimized and and um pacified
the critics
and so i feel like jimmy butler i wrote
a call about this too
is people didn't give him enough credit
because he didn't win deep into the
playoffs and eric's pollster called an
anti-analytics guy
the analytics have loved jimmy butler
and now people are starting to see
he is super efficient gets to the free
throwing on that crazy
and people in the analytic community
love
free throws they like three-pointers but
they love free throws and so jimmy
butler the reputation that he's getting
right now man
like the analytics and the numbers
community have been screaming for years
for him to get in a winning situation
he's there in miami