you and i have already crowned the
lakers
uh we've declared that everybody is
playing for second
so the seasons of formality and speaking
of formalities
they before yesterday or was it
yesterday they all run together for me
now lebron did a two-year extension
85 million dollars kept 123.
wow and then anthony davis there's a lot
of speculation about whether anthony
davis is going to do some kind of
shorter deal or
how he was going to try to manipulate
his situation five year one
190 million dollar max um
so i have commentary on both
but i will pass it to you because i want
i want you to talk about the lakers
extending not only
these two contracts but extending their
windows yeah i mean i i think
you know in baseball you know baseball
managers
always say hey it's easier for me to
build a bullpen
if i know i've got a closer at the back
end who can shut it down
so once i know i got that that guy at
the back
i can go forward and build the rest of
my t best of my rest of my bullpen
and just like a pitching staff you know
your pitching staff is good you got an
ace
and if you got a number two oh you're
good i mean
really you're good you think about the
postseason you don't need five
all you need is like three or four
sometimes right with the lakers
with lebron james there was no question
lebron james was gonna stay but the
two-year
extension just makes it official and i
think the same thing with anthony davis
but you know going forward mike that you
have
a star who not only
has the age has the uh has a profile
that you're looking for
but this is where i think this is how
dynasties
extend when you can have
uh the junior member for the sort of for
the for the
purpose of this conversation you can
have the junior member
of the of the duo anthony davis
win a championship with the lead dog in
lebron
practice with him travel with him have
conversations with him
so when it is eventually lebron's time
to leave
anthony davis is not asked sitting
around asking
how's this work like this is critical
what's happening now with the lakers
this is not just a championship window
for for 2020-21
having anthony davis there for the long
term
means that if when lebron decides that
he's
he doesn't want to play anymore anthony
davis is now positioned as that guy
who could bring somebody along just like
lebron did it for him
this is this is really great news for
the lakers
i just wanna talk about a.d particular
in particular i'll start with that then
because
you know we know in new orleans that he
couldn't break through which is why he
wanted to go to la
he goes to l.a he makes first-team
all-nba
wins a title alongside lebron
i believe he's 27 years old
michael forget about like matching up
money forget about draft pick
packages players i'm not talking about
literally
but when you look across the nba
tell me a player that you would
give up anthony davis in order to
acquire
like i'm not saying he's the best player
in the nba
yeah right but i'm saying there's nobody
i'd rather have
right given what he does at both ends of
the floor he's he is a
singular transcendent talent
has been for some time now he's got the
stage to showcase that talent
and there's not a player that i find to
be more
valuable whether he wins an mvp or not
more valuable than an nba
that i'd rather have at the center or
the four if he prefers but he's better
at the five but at the center of my
organization
there's no there's no there's nobody i'd
rather have and i and and the fact that
not only is he with lebron with an
organization
has a track record of building not just
championship teams but frankly dynasties
and
we're at the front of another in all
likelihood
um he has an opportunity to add the type
of hardware
and the type of moments to his resume
that listen it's gonna be hard to break
the big man mount rushmore
with the la lakers when you're talking
hey guess hey man i actually have a home
you have a home line i have a home line
people people give me grief all the time
but i still got a landline you have a
landline no i don't have one
no i really am one of the last people
with a landline wow
like for the alarms no no wow okay
anyway
um point being he has an opportunity
to join this pantheon
shaq karim will going to minneapolis
miken of laker
great big man and therefore nba all-time
great big men
um you know the sky's the limit is a
cliche but my god
you know i i can't think of a more apple
when you're talking about somebody who's
always been brilliant
his brilliance has been underrated i
hate to use that word it's overused but
bear with me
but even now alongside lebron
and and even though he's not in his
shadow they're side by side they're
co-stars
but in the league with giannis and luca
and durant i think a.d
kind of sort of doesn't quite get the
props that he deserves
for being right up there alongside
anybody else in basketball right now
yeah first team all nba is tough it's
tough to say this tough to say you're
underrated when he's first seen all nba
i know
i know but you know but this is what i
think about him though
i think you're right about that he does
get his eyes he gets his flowers
no it's a good it's a good question
about you know is there anybody out
there that you would take
over him just just flat out just pretend
like salaries don't exist you can say
hey i can take this guy and trade him
for this guy would you
would you take james harden for anthony
davis did you take giannis
instead would you say honestly giannis
is probably the guy
giannis is probably the conversation but
i i'm going to say that i would do it
it's the conversation that that's the
tough conversation
yeah and if durant weren't coming off a
major
injury at the age of 32
okay uh maybe but not right now with
durant
uh five years older than uh yeah anthony
davis
yeah but this is what stands out to me
oh great about david yeah no i'm scared
but just real quick what stands out for
me
is that winning championships
we always say oh championships aren't
everything no they're not
everything they don't define a player in
the nba yeah
but they they trigger something they
trigger something in a player
that's why throughout nba history
when it great players the greatest
players
whoever's in your debate i don't know
who it is for you if it's kareem
it's magic if it's lebron if it's magic
it's a separator whatever it is
it's a it's a separator they got
multiples
but whoever it is they got multiples
yeah there's not a
nobody says this player is the greatest
of all time
and they have one championship because
those great players
once they win one it's almost like they
become
they unlock they become hoarders i gotta
jordan said that maybe
jordan talked about like you know when
he first when he made his first game
winner
you know at unc he always you can go
back to it like whether he missed or not
he knew he can go back to it it's like
something unlocks for them but you're
right the perception is different i was
gonna say the only person
he's not considered the greatest but the
person who is a lot of people's favorite
player with no rings
uh is alan iverson you know i mean
people people hold them in
a regard that typically you know or
charles barkley's in that conversation
but you're right
they're not in the greatest
conversations because in order to get in
that club
you need a pass and that pass comes in
the form of rings
i want to talk about the king real quick
though because a number that you may
have seen yesterday
when he got that extension 85
million over two years it will bring his
career total to 435 million dollars
the most money all time and keep in mind
that for the first i think dozen years
of his career he wasn't the highest paid
player on his team
but check this out though not to not to
get into another jordan
lebron debate but i am gonna repeat
sort of what i said a while ago which is
that
it's useless debating them because
they're so different
i want to marvel momentarily michael at
the mogul
at the master manipulator you talked
about this
what a great team builder lebron james
is not just team building
the businessman the business
man that he has been waiting for i was
waiting for it there it is career
when you talk about how it was a juicy
rebound right
how he's managed his contracts to
maximize
leverage and and flexibility
how he's moved and taking his individual
dynasty from franchise to franchise
how to go back to our boy alonzo he's
playing chess
not checkers he's changed the game when
it comes to player agency
that he now for all intents and purposes
has a player agency
okay where
people move differently because of him
and that's just
within basketball that's not even
talking about
uninterrupted or the i promise school
i mentioned clutch sports the the media
entertainment mobile most people wait
till they're done to do this
he's done them both he's been dominant
on the court and off the court
in a way that nobody else has
in a unique unparalleled way i'll say it
to you like this michael
you could debate whether or not he is
the best to ever play the game
but it is indisputable that
anybody and not just nba but maybe even
sports history
has ever played the game capital t
capital g nobody's ever played that game
quite like this dude that's right that's
right and
and the game was the game was set up in
a way
where he was not supposed to be able to
meet
the expectations that were laid out for
him we've seen the story many times
it just he was he was set up he was set
he was set up to succeed
there was a path to that that path was a
little more narrow
then he was also set up to fail which is
the more likely path believe it or not
because when you are when you are a
national name
when you're 14 or 15 years old and a
whole state
is following you around when you're 15
16
and you're uh on magazine covers and
you've got an
endorsement deal a 90 million dollar
endorsement deal before you even go to
the nba
oh you have all of this attention when
your high school says
no your games are not in this high
school gym anymore
no no no you're too big for that you're
high school we're going to the
university of akron
because we're going to have personal
seat licenses
in high school for you to accommodate
your talent
yes in high school okay
so all of these things and you're the
number one pick
and you're playing for the local team
at some point somebody's a hater will
look at that and say well the guy can't
be that good come on now come on
come on 90 million dollars come on god
never played in the league all this
and he exceeded think about those
expectations that were set for him
and he exceeded that that is wild that's
wild
it cannot be mike it cannot be
devastated and and the last thing i'm
saying because you know
uh those who are uh joining us on the
radio may not know i'm from akron ohio
and i think so was rich paul i think
rich paul said this before
you've got to drive those streets
you got to travel where lebron traveled
to really
understand what a great story this is
the neighborhood that he grew up in
and the man that he is today that'll
tell you one it's a great story
and that'll tell you here's the phrase
mike look at god
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