On this episode of the Bob Ryan & Jeff Goodman NBA Podcast, Bob has words for Perk's take on Lebron and Mike, plus gives a deeper look into how Michael Jordan thought of when he was drafted. That, and much more!
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00:00Two legends in basketball analysis with over 70 years combined experience, this is the
00:15Bob Ryan and Jeff Goodman podcast.
00:17Time for the Bob Ryan, Gary Tangwood pod here at CLNS Media brought to you by Price Picks,
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00:28Okay, Bob, Kendrick Perkins had some words that you certainly caught your attention.
00:35Kendrick Perkins, who is, you know, it's fun.
00:40I love it. He's a great TV personality. I think he's great for the broadcast. He's
00:43great for the game, whether you agree with him or not.
00:46No, and I think no one's 100%, you know, on target, but this is off base. He has said,
00:53and I can't have the exact words, but the basis of it is, is, is, and he's sticking
00:58up for LeBron. Okay, fine. I stick up for LeBron too. Okay. And in every way, and not
01:04every way, but most ways I stick up for him. But he's saying that if LeBron played 30 years
01:09ago, we never would have heard of Michael Jordan.
01:12Right.
01:12Now that's, now obviously there's hyperbole and he-
01:15Sure. He perks an entertainer. He's great.
01:17He's always trying to say is LeBron's better than Michael. Okay. Now that's a fun discussion
01:22that we all love in basketball. And I, I've got my, my succinct answer is that LeBron
01:28is bigger, stronger, faster, a better passer, a better rebounder than Michael Jordan ever was.
01:34But if I'm playing for my life tonight, it's no question. I want Michael Jordan because he's
01:41ruthless competitor at a high level that we have ever seen. You know, now the other guy,
01:46the other guy, people say, what about Bill Russell? Well, that that's, once again,
01:50that's a different thing. Centers, when we actually had centers, they're always in their
01:54own category. But in terms of other positional players in the history, the non-centers,
02:00Michael Jordan is the most ruthless, great competitor. Closest thing to him was Kobe.
02:04Kobe's 1A. He's Michael light, you know, but it ain't LeBron. And LeBron, I'm sorry. It's,
02:12LeBron is a nicer person in a sense. It isn't in him to be that way. He didn't,
02:19LeBron had to be coaxed into being the best player on the floor. And I'll say this again,
02:24the two great differences, a great difference is how each of them ascended to the top of the
02:29mountain in their respective times. Michael in the 70s and 80s and 90s, excuse me,
02:35and LeBron in the teens and in the 20s is that LeBron, Michael won championships when he learned
02:44how to share, that the Michael Jordan of 87 and eight would not have made those passes that he
02:51made the John Paxson and Steve Kerr that won championships for that team. Okay. Meanwhile,
02:58conversely, LeBron didn't win until he learned how to assume the responsibility of being the
03:02best player on the floor and acting accordingly and appropriately. He literally quit against the
03:09Celtics and the next year, he didn't really want the ball the way he should have against the
03:16Mavericks when the Mavericks won that championship. Well, somewhere along the way, I don't know who
03:20got to him, but we figured it out. He got the message and he got it down, right? And he gets
03:24it down now. Okay. But he had to learn that I'm the best guy. I got to accept that. And that's
03:30a very different personality than Michael Jordan, obviously. Okay. But technically, LeBron, I mean,
03:37what? Don't be silly. It's outrageously stupid to say that. I mean, you could say, well, I would
03:45take LeBron in a photo finish or I take LeBron, but to say you never would have heard of Michael
03:51Jordan that, you know, and see, that's a knock on the whole era. That's that J.J. Riddick, you know,
03:58they're playing against plumbers. That is the thinly veiled knock on the past
04:06players in general, not just on Michael, not just on Michael Jordan. And I'm really, I have
04:13very little time for these people, you know, that they think that athleticism was born in the 20th
04:18century, that we didn't have great players, great talents, great athlete, quote, athletes.
04:24No, I'm sorry, Perk, you couldn't be more wrong.
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05:37What about MJ initially when he was drafted? We all know there was a lot of attention placed
05:43on LeBron. But what about Jordan? OK, I love this topic. OK, somewhere along the line,
05:51it occurred to me to think about this in depth, if you will. And it's because
05:58when he was drafted, and he's a good way to start. He was the third pick in the draft.
06:03And the two people picked ahead of him were big people. One is a hall of famer, unquestioned,
06:10one of the top five centers of all time. In fact, I think he's number four. And that's
06:15Akeem Olajuwon. The other guy who was the first pick, the next pick by Portland was Sam Bowie,
06:22who, injuries were the story. We'll never know. We'll never know about Sam Bowie. But he was,
06:30it was automatic that he would take those two centers though ahead of Michael Jordan.
06:35The draft, of course, was in June. And then the Olympics came. And he was on the Olympic team in
06:421984. And during the Olympic trials, it's when the Michael Jordan that we have come to know
06:49really started to take shape that the people were, and the guy who, Bob Light was blown away
06:56how good Michael Jordan is. Okay. And when he had him in his practices, he, and he's the guy that
07:03got people's attention with how good he was. Remember, Barclay, he cut Barclay, because
07:09Barclay was a little heavier in those days. But anyway, Michael Jordan turned out to be better
07:16than anyone dreamed. Okay. Well, guess what? That is more often the case of the inner sanctum Hall
07:23of Famers. Very, very few didn't, weren't people who actually turned out to be better than people
07:29ever thought. Even if you thought they're going to be really good, they turned out to be spectacularly
07:32good. Exhibits A, Larry and Magic. Exhibit A is Larry. I mean, people, there were doubters,
07:40you know, on the athleticism, he's too white, quote, unquote, you know, he's not, he doesn't
07:46jump high, he doesn't run fast, but he knows how to play basketball. Well, I mean, no one,
07:51very few people projected Larry Bird to become the, you know, the greatest forward of all time
07:56that automatically, no. And Michael, and Magic, I knew Magic was good, but Magic turned out even
08:01better. Most, this is, I'll give you some modern examples. Steph Curry, the seventh pick in the
08:08draft. Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time. He's a candidate for Mount Rushmore.
08:17He's better than people thought. The very, here's the short list of people that jumped out at me
08:22in the history of the game, the big, the modern history, you know, of the game, that turned out
08:31lived up to all the hype and didn't fall short of hype or exceeded any, they lived up to everything.
08:40Wilt, Wilt was a mega high school star, a college star. He turned out to be, you know,
08:48the Wilt Chamberlain. Kareem, the greatest career of all, you know, lost four games in between
08:56his sophomore year in high school and his end of college, by the way. Kareem, and he turned out to
09:02be a five-time MVP, I believe, and you know who he is, he's Kareem, you know. Okay. And the answer
09:10was nobody. LeBron, excuse me, he's the fourth. LeBron covers Sports Illustrated at age 16.
09:18You know, he's the second coming. He's turned out.
09:20What about Kobe? What about Kobe?
09:23Not quite the level, he didn't have the notoriety, national ultimate that LeBron had,
09:29but regionally, yeah, that's a, that's a fair possibility.
09:33Here's my thing, here's my thing with Kobe, what I, he was obviously, I mean, God rest,
09:38he was a great player. I think Kobe benefited from the media a little bit at the time. I mean,
09:44you know, now everybody's covered, right? So I think that because he had been with his dad,
09:50Kobe was a very smart guy, we all know, multilingual. He wore the sunglasses,
09:56he acted like Jordan. I mean, Kobe, as a young man, was good TV.
10:00So I think we got exposed to him on that, but I don't know. I think you get the attention because
10:06A, technology, and B, he was really good in front of the camera. And that's hard to, you know,
10:16that's part of the hype machine. So I'd maybe make him three and a half because of the hype.
10:20Now, there are fans of various players that are going to say, what about my guy?
10:24Example, coming out of college, Dominique was pretty hyped, okay? And Dominique had a great
10:30Hall of Fame career. You know, he wasn't Bird or Magic, or Michael, but he was the next level,
10:36you know, a very, very good of the Hall of the Damned. Now he's an unquestioned Hall of Famer.
10:40But then another guy who's turned out, we knew we liked him in college, but Durant,
10:47Durant turned out to be even better than people thought. He's more versatile.
10:51Oh, there's no doubt, because he was a one and done.
10:54Durant, yeah.
10:55Yeah, Durant, is he too thin? Is he going to be strong enough? Can his body hold up?
10:59Yeah, so-
11:00Oh, yeah, yeah.
11:01But, you know, he's an unquestioned, all-time great, you know.
11:04Plus, these kids are 19 now when they're coming out, you know, so you're like,
11:07there's so many, like LeBron, one of the reasons why LeBron was and is LeBron is he was body ready.
11:14I mean, even Jason Tatum, right, Bob? I mean, Tatum at 19, he wasn't ready for this league.
11:21No, he wasn't.
11:22Physically? No way.
11:24No, he had to grow. So the point is that, so Michael Jordan, back to your original question,
11:29yeah, Michael Jordan, he was, you know, we discovered him and he wasn't, first of all,
11:35he wasn't ballyhooed in high school outside of-
11:37Not at all.
11:38Carolina. Nobody knew him outside of the state of North Carolina, okay? Unlike LeBron,
11:42unlike Luis Indor, you know, I mean, unlike Will, nobody knew him at the time. I'll tell you another,
11:49one of the most ballyhooed high school players of all time who lived up to his hype
11:55that people forget, Jerry Lucas. Jerry Lucas was, you know, was recruited in the 50s,
12:02his recruiting stories, his high school exploits in Middletown, Ohio, you know, are still
12:09legendary in the state of Ohio. He goes to Ohio State, they win the championship as a sophomore,
12:13they go to the finals twice. He's hurting one of those, you know, they might have won,
12:16they should have won two and three, but he only won one. And then he goes to, and he was a great
12:19player. He wasn't, people don't, but not, he was a great, he lived, I think he basically lived up
12:25to what he should have, but that's another possibility. But the fact is that most of the
12:29players, they all work on their game to get better. Look at Barkley. I mean, Barkley turned
12:34out to be, you know, even better than, much better, not much better. He can go on and on.
12:41But LeBron puts him in the category. LeBron has lived up, you cannot possibly denigrate any,
12:47take a, tear down the city. He has to live up to that, what's illustrated hype at 16,
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14:36I wonder what Duncan would have done with another organization.
14:40Duncan and Pop were the perfect marriage, perfect marriage, because Duncan is low-key,
14:48Pop's no BS, Pop's not glamour, and their temperaments, he was so lucky to have. It's
14:57like Russell and Red were a perfect marriage. Red understood what, how to, and he had,
15:03you want to say the word handle, how to nourish Russell. I'll put it that way. And Russell
15:09appreciated the Red's sensibility. Manage. I mean, those guys, yeah,
15:13it knew how to manage players. I mean, a coach, whether you're in business or a team,
15:20I mean, you're managing personalities. I'll give you two others that I have to say,
15:26I've almost forgot them. I've got to be burying the lead. Oscar Robertson definitely lived up
15:33to everything. And Jerry West, the two of them, they lived up to everything that they were supposed
15:38to be. And Oscar at Christmas Addicts, they went to the first all-black school to win the state
15:44championship. He does, he goes to final four, he doesn't win, but, and then Oscar Robertson,
15:50in the NBA, a superb career, phenomenal career. I don't know how many times, first team all-star,
15:56at least 10. I'll throw one name at you. The only guy, the only non-center to win an MVP
16:03in a 20-year period when the NBA, when the league was big, the one guy to break through
16:08was Oscar Robertson. Oscar Robertson. As we wrap up, what about Hakeem the Dream?
16:14Well, better. Better. Right. I mean, look, the whole, the college team got a lot of attention.
16:22Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, those two, those-
16:25Coming out, he was number one pick, but it turned out to be even better. I mean, he's the guy who
16:30proves this rule. He absolutely turned out to be better.
16:35Right. That's what I thought. He improved technically. His passing,
16:39he wasn't this kind of, he couldn't pass the ball the way, at the end, the way he did in the
16:42beginning, the way he did at the end. You know, he could always rebound. He had that beautiful
16:46footwork and all that, but he still, he expanded his range and he became a terrific all-around
16:52player. And I know it coincides with Michael leaving the game for a little bit for baseball,
16:57but he was awesome. I mean, those two, I mean, when Houston went back to backs,
17:03he was awesome to watch. Now, another guy you can make the case for,
17:07see, I'm not knocking him. He's just not my favorite because I do have one quarrel with him,
17:12and that's Shaq. Well, I know. Yeah. I know. You're not big on Shaq.
17:15Shaq's rebounding thing drives me- He's rebounding.
17:17He led the league in rebounding. Yeah, I see. Shaq did everything I expected him to,
17:23you know? I mean, I don't- No, I mean, so, but anyway, the fact is that more guys,
17:28these guys tend not to be better, but just from the sheer hype, the trio, and of course, Russell's
17:36exhibit A, nobody, he was barely recruited out of high school. Barely recruited. I mean, there was
17:44an alum that had a thing. He almost held the Julius name, I think. Anyway, Russell was nobody
17:53special out of high school, nothing, and look what he turned out to be.
17:57Well, to me, the current example for this is Curry. Curry is the one where, okay, he went to
18:05a mid-major, right, and a nice player, a nice player, but, you know, to become the greatest
18:16shooter of all time and to win rings and to be one of the most feared offensive players in the game,
18:23never thought that was going to happen. Never. Absolutely. Yeah.
18:28Bob, always a pleasure, my friend. Gary Tanguy, Bob Ryan, brought to you by Price Picks,
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