Hour 3 – Dabo Swinney Gets Loose, Dave McMenamin

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Speaker 1: You are listening to The Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio Final Hour.

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Speaker 2: On this Wednesday, Dan and The Dan Nets Dan Patrick Show, We'll check in with The Mothership's Laker reporter Dave mcmanhamon. He was there in OKC last night recapping what we had yesterday and what we have tonight. A couple of games tonight, I guess, most notably the Nix and the seventy six Ers. We're going to find out exactly what the seventy six Ers have to offer because you go through that grueling seven game series and that quick turnaround to face the Knicks who were waiting, and it certainly showed the Sixers getting six and a half, the Timberwolves getting nine and a half against the Spurs. Looking ahead to Thursday, the Lakers are fifteen and a half point underdogs against the thunder eight.

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Speaker 3: Seven seven to three.

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Speaker 2: D P Show email address dp at Danpatrick dot com, Twitter handlelydp Show stat of the Day brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cards of the program. Make sure you check out Wrecked. It's our e C T e Q dot com search the Dan Patrick Show details on how you can win a rectech grill. It's a Pizza Wednesday. There's a pizza insert that we have for the Rectech Grill and Dylan and our cameraman Weeks have done a wonderful job. Now I'm gonna give a lot of credit to the Grill. But you guys have come up with the ingredients the different pizzas that we have today. Would you run down the list there?

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Speaker 4: Yes, Dan, So we started off with a little pepperoni, classic pep and hot honey. We did a just regular old cheese, soaper soadin onion, pesto, arugula and perscudo, and a sausage in ricata.

00:01:42
Speaker 3: Who has it better than we do?

00:01:45
Speaker 5: Lot money?

00:01:46
Speaker 3: All right?

00:01:47
Speaker 2: Ted Turner passed away today at the age of eighty seven. He of course created CNN, He created TBS, He owned the Braves and at one point one of his pitchers, I think it was Andy Messer Smith. He had him wear number seventeen and his name on the back of his jersey was Channel and that's where Ted started his cable operation Channel seventeen.

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Speaker 3: He was unique.

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Speaker 2: I was around him only a handful of times when I was in Atlanta at CNN, and I was with him in New York one time and a couple of times in Atlanta. Fascinating, fascinating person.

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Speaker 6: Boy.

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Speaker 3: I think the.

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Speaker 2: Sports part of Ted Turner, you have the Braves, made him a superstation where you had people all over the country that loved the Braves because Ted Turner was like, why don't we share this with everybody? If it's going to cost the same, why don't we have a superstation. He also had wrestling. He had wrestling I think before anybody did. I remember that the old CNN headquarters on Techwood in Atlanta, and they would be wrestling above us, and you would hear like guys being thrown on the canvas. There were crowds up there, and meanwhile we were down where the original CNN headquarters were before they moved to the Omni in downtown Atlanta. I remember he was so proud when he told me one day. Everything he had on he didn't pay for and he had that draw. Oh and he always had a pretty woman on his arm that was guaranteed he was what was he Captain America on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Yes, so he won the America's Cup and I believe that was in Newport, Rhode Island.

00:03:41
Speaker 3: Does that sound right?

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Speaker 2: And he was just brash, but what he said he was going to do, he did. I think he also somehow brought together the biggest buffalo population in the world that he was really big on being having conservation.

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Speaker 3: And I don't know how.

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Speaker 2: Many herds of a head of buffalo that he had, but I know that that was really important. I remember seeing him at a World Series with Jane Fonda, who he was married to.

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Speaker 3: But he just he was who you thought he was like you saw.

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Speaker 2: Him, and he lived a life truly truly a remarkable guy. He did have a poster that I remember having and it was I was Cable before cable was cool, I think was the title of the poster, and I think it might have been talking about TBS at the time, a promotion for that. I think he managed one time, or he tried to manage, and then Baseball wouldn't let him manage.

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Speaker 3: You, PAULI, yeah, I've got that story.

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Speaker 7: That's the first time I remember hearing about him, this kind of wild, eccentric billionaire from the South. In nineteen seventy seven, they were in a long losing streak, a sixteen losing streak. The Braves, he sent the manager on a road trip for ten days and took over as the manager that night without telling anybody about his staff.

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Speaker 3: They won.

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Speaker 7: I'm sorry they lost the game, but his plan was to continue managing. The Commission of the Baseball said you can't do that. You can't own and manage a team at the same time. But he was going to try to continue.

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Speaker 2: Ted Turner eighty seven, he lived a life, lived a life. All right, We'll get to more phone calls coming up final hour. Obviously, with the basketball last night, we've covered that throughout the show. Dabo Sweeney making a little noise, the Clemson head coach, and he was on Greg McElroy's podcast, or might have been on the show and always college football on ESPN. Here is the Clemson head coach, Dabo Sweeney on playing against teams that have more resources than Clemson does.

00:05:55
Speaker 5: I mean, at Clemson, we always got to have a chip on our shoulder. I mean, because I mean we're I mean, it just is what it is. We don't have the alumni base that some places have. We don't have some of the things that some of the schools that we've played and had to compete with over the years have it's just the way it is. But I've always liked I mean, we're three and one against Ohio State, We're four and two against Notre Dame.

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Speaker 8: I mean, Notre Dame has.

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Speaker 5: Their own TV station, they make their own rules, they print their own money. They got like a money machine in the backyard or something. I mean, like, I mean, we've beaten tex A and m a couple of times. We've beaten Oklahoma a couple of times. We've won four in a row against Alvard. I mean, we've beaten Nick Saban and Alabama in two national championships, and so you know we've had We've done all of that at Clemson.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so what's he complaining about. If you're good enough to beat everybody, then what's the complaint. And by the way, guess who had nine players drafted this year, fourth most nationally, most in the ACC and they went seven and six. So let's be fair. You had nine players drafted and you won seven games. That has nothing to do with Notre Dame or Ohio State. Now this might be one of those Well Saban did this a few years back where he was at a fundraiser in Birmingham, and he's basically saying we got to spend more money. Is that what Dabo's saying, telling the boosters we got to spend more money. But my response would be, well, wait a minute, you're beating all those teams. How much money do you need? The problem is you were beating those teams a while ago. You won seven, you were seven and six last year. Now, has he done a great job. He did a great job at Clemson. Is he doing a great job?

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Speaker 1: No?

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Speaker 3: Not now.

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Speaker 2: But blame this on your boosters, Like why would you single out Notre Dame or Ohio State.

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Speaker 3: They're taking advantage.

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Speaker 2: Of the rules, and there are many rules, but they're taking advantage of everything that you can take advantage of.

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Speaker 3: And Ohio State is as well.

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Speaker 2: But if you're going to brag about beat if you weren't meeting these teams, now you got my attention where you go. Look, we can't keep up with them. We need more money. I want to compete for national titles. Again, I can't do that with the budget that we have.

00:08:25
Speaker 9: Yes, Marvin, Yeah, Now you see schools like Alabama and Clemson that we're meeting for the national championship year in a year out like, oh, it's different now when the playing field is all evened out, you can't stockpile. I always go back to Alabama. Alvin Kamara had to transfer because he was the fifth string running back on Alabama. They were stockpiling guys, and guess what now everyone can do it. Everyone has money, so you got you can't dominate like you once did.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Dyling, I mean when you just look at the like the SEC's dominance over the last two seasons, it is a shadow of what it was when the time Davos talk came out like the Alabama's and Auburns of the world.

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Speaker 10: I mean Alabama lost to Vanderbilt last year.

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Speaker 11: Yes, Ton, Why can't coach have that conversation behind closed doors with school heads and potential boosters, because then it looks like whining and it doesn't come across well at all that you would say those things publicly. If you need to raise more money or you don't have enough of a budget to get the best players, why does that have to be shared with the world unless you're making an excuse ahead of the next season.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: Well, I can pretty much guarantee he's had these conversations pretty much probably didn't go well, that's why he's going public and letting everybody know, Hey, we used to beat these teams. Well, you used to beat them, so what changed? You weren't embracing the transfer portal to begin with. I don't know what kind of resources you have, but I can't blame Notre Dame for doing what Notre Dame is doing, or Texas is doing, or USC is doing, or Michigan is doing, Ohio State is doing. You're the one being left behind. We said that with the transfer, we said that about nil Dabo didn't want any part of that. And I'm thinking, you are a dinosaur man, and we know what happens with dinosaurs, certainly in the college ranks. But now he's easing back in because he knows that he needs to. But if you have nine guys drafted, you win seven games, I would look inside. I wouldn't be looking at other programs and saying, well, that's not fair. Notre Dame gets the print money. Okay, well that's not fair, Ohio State gets it. Okay, they're not breaking any rules. Yeah, Paul, it's a bit.

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Speaker 7: Of a blame shift by Dabo, and he could be right and weirdly wrong to say it like we're seven and six, I'm the same coach when we're fifteen to oh a decade ago. I don't have the ingredients to work with. And he's basically shifting the blame to the funding, which is could be true and weird simultaneously.

00:10:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, just it was kind of a strange comment there that I get it. If you say, look, we need more money to keep Alabama this Saban did this. But you know you're trying to get these players signing season. Let them know, you know, we want to be playing for a national championship. Didn't They lose to Syracuse at home last year? Does that sound right?

00:11:14
Speaker 6: I believe so?

00:11:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Syracuse wasn't any good. But I remember, like it was a rain rainy game, and I'm thinking, man, how far has Clemson slipped here?

00:11:26
Speaker 7: Yeah, Paul, Yeah, they lost thirty four to twenty one to Syracuse. They lost to Georgia Tech, they lost to LSU, they lost to SMU, Duke and Penn State.

00:11:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, quality losses effected.

00:11:38
Speaker 9: Yeah, yes, Mark is DAOs when the emeritus, Like, is he on scholarship at Clemson?

00:11:46
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm not.

00:11:47
Speaker 2: I'm going to stay in my lane on this, but it feels like you got one more year. We can't go seven and six again. Yes, Still, they've had.

00:11:57
Speaker 10: A couple of years of like underperforming quarterback.

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Speaker 4: I'd say to the DJU years were not kind cade club Nick who was here's a Heisman favorite going into this season and didn't play poorly, but he definitely his draft stock went down. They just haven't quite been able to put it together. Even with getting whatever nine guys drafted this year.

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Speaker 2: Trevor Lawrence didn't walking through the door. No, who is the quarterback who went to Missouri?

00:12:22
Speaker 6: Kelly Brian Kelly Bryant.

00:12:24
Speaker 3: He not walking through the door either. They could use him. Yeah, where's Perry Tuttle when you need him?

00:12:28
Speaker 2: Mestage boydaj boyd yees Mart.

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Speaker 9: But without but without Dabbo Sweeney, Clemson is basically a third tier college football program. Before he got there, what were they eight wins? Nine wins?

00:12:42
Speaker 2: A long time before then? They have Danny Ford. They won a national title, but that was probably back in nineteen eighty one or something like that.

00:12:52
Speaker 3: Yes, Paul.

00:12:52
Speaker 7: Before Dabbo, they had Tommy Bowden for a bunch of years and they would win seven nine, seven nine and never really got over the hump.

00:13:00
Speaker 3: And Dabo has done a wonderful job.

00:13:02
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know if he's if he's sending out the message he wants to send, because you're telling me you're beaten. You know, these great teams, powerhouses. So what's the problem you. I'll start with you. You won seven games, you lost six games, You lost a home to Syracuse.

00:13:25
Speaker 3: Good luck. Uh, let me.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: See Jeremy and Cincinnati. Hi, Jeremy, what's on your mind?

00:13:32
Speaker 12: Hey?

00:13:33
Speaker 13: How are you Dan?

00:13:33
Speaker 10: Good?

00:13:35
Speaker 13: Two quick comments for you.

00:13:37
Speaker 14: First of all, I found out I'm getting a Rectech grill for Father's Day and I'm super excited. And I my family didn't get me the pizza insert, so we're gonna have to get that. So thank you for notifying us of that.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Yep.

00:13:50
Speaker 13: Second, I wanted to notify or ask, I guess or kind of comment. Todd's been taking some shots. I want him to know his hands are at least digging up to block those those balls coming in. If Marvin was taking those shots, it'd be a problem.

00:14:06
Speaker 3: We're taking shots at Marvin. You didn't do anything wrong.

00:14:11
Speaker 6: The audience is turning on us.

00:14:12
Speaker 3: I know, I thought they liked us.

00:14:15
Speaker 6: Even in support of me. They have to take a shot of another day out of the same breath.

00:14:19
Speaker 10: It's kind of odd.

00:14:20
Speaker 2: Uh, Brian in Texas? Hi Brian, what's on your mind?

00:14:25
Speaker 15: Hey Dpe, I'm going to pick on Dylan here for a minute.

00:14:29
Speaker 13: Why I look at Dylan? Yeah, everybody, I look at Dylan.

00:14:32
Speaker 14: I think of old school for animal house and I don't think he's gotten the proper treatment for just getting that chair.

00:14:40
Speaker 13: I think we should.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: Oh, we got to haze him, Yes, sir, Okay, what kind of hazing are we talking about here?

00:14:51
Speaker 13: Color is always right, the.

00:14:53
Speaker 3: Collar is always right.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: I thought you were talking about the dog collar that he wore during the gambling podcast. Yeah, I've been Hayes, yeah you yes, yes, he has Brian on the gambling podcast, he was tased, he had a dog collar on and Shaye would press the button and shock you.

00:15:13
Speaker 3: How many how many shocks do you have some sound from that, marmon?

00:15:16
Speaker 4: So whoever loses and based on how many points, that's how many shocks you're permitted to administer to the other one in that episode.

00:15:24
Speaker 8: Let's do it.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, Max Setting, Okay, do you have one more? Marvion? I'm grabbing it okay.

00:15:35
Speaker 4: He has nine nine shocks. That was more torture than hazing, I think by definition.

00:15:39
Speaker 8: And you were sweating.

00:15:41
Speaker 10: I was sweating. I was a willing participant. I want that on the red.

00:15:43
Speaker 3: No, I give you credit here. Here's how it sounded.

00:15:46
Speaker 6: What's worth the anticipation? What's worth?

00:15:48
Speaker 10: I think not knowing ying is way worse.

00:15:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's like when we were smashing each other.

00:16:00
Speaker 10: We're feeling of all the time.

00:16:03
Speaker 3: That's three. I'm sweating, you got six to go. I'mitz remember when we.

00:16:13
Speaker 2: H You took it, though, Man, I give you credit because Shay was coming after you.

00:16:20
Speaker 4: This is when I learned for sure that you are a sadist, Dan, because that was the hardest I've ever seen.

00:16:24
Speaker 10: You laughed and I was like, I'm with you.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: I made Dylan sign a waiver though, just in case you were wondering, because I am human resources here.

00:16:32
Speaker 3: If I croaked there, I know, but it would have been good content.

00:16:37
Speaker 10: What a way to go?

00:16:38
Speaker 12: Yeah?

00:16:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, how did he die? He had a dog collar on.

00:16:42
Speaker 10: He died doing what he loved, being an idiot.

00:16:46
Speaker 9: Yes, Marvin, that's going to be the hardest part about getting a new job in twenty twenty eight, going somewhere with real hr.

00:16:54
Speaker 6: Like, man, you got to respect one another?

00:16:55
Speaker 2: And what when are the Lakers expecting Lukaduncic to come back?

00:17:01
Speaker 3: Find out next here Dan Patrick Show.

00:17:04
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

00:17:13
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00:17:26
Speaker 3: Yup, that's right.

00:17:27
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00:17:44
Speaker 3: Dave McManamon was there.

00:17:46
Speaker 2: He witnessed the uh kind of I don't know, average game for OK see, if you think about it, it just felt like this was more of a yeah, all right, we got a game tonight, nothing special. SGA didn't have a great game and Lebron showed up, but anything that you didn't expect happened last night.

00:18:08
Speaker 8: I think the Lakers, if you told them you'd hold SGA to eighteen points with seven turnovers, you'd like to think that's a pretty ideal circumstance to steal one on the road. But when you shoot ten for thirty yourself as a team, and Austin Reeve goes three for sixteen, and really after two and a half quarters, the Thunder look like the team that beat the doors off you in the regular season, I don't know. I mean, they're going to have to find a way to turn the page and not have this seep into what happens on Thursday.

00:18:41
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure this out and you'll follow it closer than I will. But did Boston have a different game plan when they're making their threes? Do the Celtics or the Lakers have a different game plan when you're not? There's nice when you're just not going to make shots. But these teams keep shooting these shots, And I just want under how much adjustment happens in the NBA during games when this happens.

00:19:07
Speaker 8: It's a great question, and certainly anyone who watched that Philly Boston game. I think had that thought come to mind, I'll give jj redd a credit. I don't think he's someone who just tries to pound his head into the wall doing the same thing. He is someone who's shown, whether it be with the rotations, whether it be his defense that's gotten better this year by throwing in some zone, by throwing in some two men on the ball action, and obviously the offensive sets. But at the end of the day, if your goal is to get into the paint and collapse the defense and spread out to an open shooter, you are a professional basketball player getting that shot. And you know, I understand, you know at some point you got to change things, but you kind of trust the shots that you're generating in that sense. And the Lakers from the All Star Break onward or a top ten three point shooting team, and so you know, obviously the one guy missing from that equation throughout these playoffs than Lukadaca Chu is their most lethal three point shooter.

00:20:10
Speaker 2: And I know it's going to be spun in a different way. But Lebron was asked about you know, you're not scoring, and he reminded the media that, hey, we don't have Luca here, it's probably going to be spun where he's making excuses, which isn't fair to him. He didn't say, hey, we lost, but keep in mind, I don't have any help out here. So how did you take that answer from Lebron?

00:20:35
Speaker 8: Yeah, and you're totally right. You've been around it for forever. You know that there'll be some who try to turn it into him complaining or saying woe is me. To me, it was just addressing the obvious elephant in the room that hey, I know it looked bad tonight, but we are playing the defending champs and we have the leading scorer in the NBA this season in Street Close. Still, well, if you're going to honestly assess what you saw, if you don't take those two pieces of context into consideration, then you're being a little disingenuous about your expectations for what the series could be.

00:21:14
Speaker 3: What's the time frame? Any update on Luca?

00:21:17
Speaker 8: No update, And I'm just quoting JJ Reddick by sharing that with you. He has been on the court late form, shooting, not much, movement, hasn't progressed to one on one, hasn't even run to my knowledge. But the thing about that is these things can change rather quickly once a hurdle is cleared. He's about thirty five days since he suffered the injury, so we're talking about five weeks. These things can take as many as six to eight weeks. Sjom Serania reported the other day that sources told him he's being evaluated on a week to week basis, which would mean Game two's out of the picture. But you could still theoretically have a shred of hope for games three and four back in Los Angeles, but that remains to be seen.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Talking to Dave McManamon covers the NBA for the Mother's Ship is okayse beatable.

00:22:17
Speaker 8: I mean, if you watched last year's playoffs, you saw Denver take them to seven, you saw Indiana take them to seven. So certainly they are. And right now when Jennen Williams is out of the lineup, you would say that that's by their second or third best player, so they're more vulnerable now. But then you watch the game last night and you see guys like AJ Mitchell, you see the other Jalen Williams, you see Jared McCain come in and make plays. You see the bench outscore the Lakers bench thirty four to fifteen, and you're like, man, if they can do this on a night where Shay literally has his worst scoring game in two years, they do seem like in a class of their own right now.

00:23:01
Speaker 2: You hear athletes at the end of their careers say well, I don't want to go out like this, but you can't decide what's going to happen by Oh, I don't want to go out this way. I'll come back next year. There's no guarantee next year is better than this year. But is there a scenario you see for Lebron where this is how he wants to go out or this is how he will go out.

00:23:25
Speaker 8: There was a time this year where I really believed it was this last season, and it was early December, after he had made his comeback, and he's doing things like scoring twelve points on the road in the fourth quarter against Phildelphia seventy six ers and afterwards waxing poetic about how much it meant to him to soak in the road crowd because that's a place he's ad to. Always appreciated that kind of narrative coming from him changed around the All Star break, and I would be pretty shocked at this point if this was his last season. His game is still elite and not what it was in his prime, but it's still all star caliber. He has found a way to play winning basketball with this team. They went sixteen to two with him taking a kind of a supporting role through March in early April, and if they make some adjustments to this roster, they should be right there up with the top echelon of the Western Conference. So to me, it doesn't make sense because he still loves the game for him to walk away from the game, and quite frankly, it doesn't really make sense for him to look for another team to play for. I think the Lakers offer him pretty much everything he'd want at this stage of his career.

00:24:47
Speaker 2: Does he ever talk and this is probably not the way to phrase it, but just patting his stats like he may not win another title, but the longevity that he's showing, like he's doing something that nobody has done at this level. I don't know how important those things are. If you say you're not going to win another title in the next two years, but you're still going to be able to play and contribute. How much does he care about the final numbers of his career.

00:25:17
Speaker 8: In the stat I can tell you that he cares about is he has two assists to Bronnie James as far in his career. He wants to add to that, and he's had one assistants received from Bronnie James. Like that's certainly accounting stat that he wants. But it's about doing all the things he does to keep his body and mind sharp to still be doing the same thing he's been doing all these years later with the context of winning. If there was not a chance to contend, I really believe he would walk away. He doesn't need it, but so long as that sliver of a window is open, And truly, I've been told by people within the organization when they were putting together that run and the second half of the season, he really believed. He bought in on everything. You saw the best version of lebron James. If he can stay in that mode, why would you walk away? Because that's the type of stuff that's going to gnaw at you and eat at you when you're only have golf as your outlet for years to come. You'll think back that, you know, I almost squeezed everything out of that. But there was a little bit more juice left to be squeezed.

00:26:31
Speaker 2: Explain to the audience that you had an opportunity to ask Lebron twenty three questions, questions you've never asked him before.

00:26:42
Speaker 8: Yeah, So the idea was and as I was talking to you briefly before, I thought this was going to be the last year, it was kind of feeling that way and kind of the same deal. I wanted to squeeze all the juice out of it as well, and so I approached him after his season debut in Utah, after he missed the first fourteen gamesatica. I was like, I've been kind of thrown around this idea in my head. I just love to kind of empty the notebook of the stuff that either I didn't ask you because it was kind of a one off throwaway question, like why does he wear the same quarters that every game that the Nike he came out with in twenty twenty one and he doesn't wear the new warm ups. I just always wanted to ask him that to like way more basketball centric, like what have and and antagonators Antagonistic players like Lance Stevenson and Dylan Brooks meant to your career he said, let's try it, and so over the course of the season, it would be mostly always a postgame window, more often on the road because we're not trying to get home to our families, and you know, you can linger a little bit longer in the locker room. And yeah, it's just kind of peppered him with these questions. Then to his credit, he played ball like there wasn't one of them that he said now, I'm not going to answer that, And for the most part, I think there was some insightful answers.

00:28:13
Speaker 3: What surprised you the most?

00:28:17
Speaker 8: I think that when I asked him about guys that I know he respects Carmelo, Anthony, Dwayne Wade, Richard Jefferson, guys Tracy McGrady, his peers in the game, several of his teammates and that have gone on to broadcasting careers. When I was asking him, does he look to them as an example of how you fill your time in retirement, He's like, f No, He's like, it's not because there's anything to do with them or broadcasting, just I just don't look at my life that way, Like I have my own journey and I just found like I think if I was in his shoes. I would probably look to my friend my peers as they did XX and next, and I'm going to try to do XX and XT as a way to kind of had what we all know to be a really awkward and difficult time of your life. You know, athletes suffer too, deaths when they retire and when they expire. That would be something I would do to try to like maybe have a little bit of a head start on it. And he flatly rejected that he puts his mind through what they're going through at all. I thought that was pretty revealing.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: When do you think not everybody turned on him, but when do you think there was this I don't know if it was fatigue that people had with him social media. Mike didn't go through social media. So it just felt like, was there a time where this went from a feel good story, local kid without a dad, Leeds, you know, goes with the Cavaliers, does everything they possibly can. I didn't know if it was when he went to Miami. Then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, okay, Michael never did this.

00:30:06
Speaker 3: You had to go.

00:30:07
Speaker 2: You want to wear twenty three, you want to be Michael Jordan has Lebron ever or did you talk to him about being the villain or how did he become a villain?

00:30:18
Speaker 8: I actually didn't talk to him about that because I feel like that's something that he kind of had exercise those demons in his Miami tenure. And I didn't start covering him day to day until twenty fourteen when he left Miami go to Cleveland. I could tell you from speaking to people within his kind of orbit, his Q score plummeted from the decision, and that was something that was the reason why he hired a political strategist to be his publicist for many years and tried to find a way to dig out from under that just nastiness, and he became the poster child of modern sports and you know, not enough athlete loyalty towards the markets they play for. Mind you, on the other side, I think if you walk away from his career and take the thirty thousand foot view, the best part of his athlete empowerment that he has been the kind of I guess the main advocate for is that these organizations aren't going to care about you. You know, Blake Griffin's going to go through a major free agency presentation where they have him up on posters next to dignitaries of US history for the Clippers, and the next thing he knows, he's traded to the Detroit Pistons. And so if that's going to happen to you, while you wield the power, you'd be the one kind of deciding that your own future. And I think that is incredible and I think all power to him. Where we've seen some of the backlash that have led from that is too many players who want to follow that first part of that playbook but then not have the accountability on the back end. I mean, Lebron James, every franchise he's ever played for, he's won a championship four. He's the only guy in NBA history to do that, to win a championship and at finals MVP on three different franchises.

00:32:23
Speaker 2: Do you think deep down, maybe not deep down, Lebron thinks he's better than Michael Jordan.

00:32:29
Speaker 8: So that was an interesting conversation we had. And I didn't want to talk about like goat because that there's no way to really determine it. But I wouldn't ask what parts of your game is better than his game and what parts of his game are better than your game, and he admitted to me or I guess, I don't know. I don't know if he's trying to had a problem with committing it, but he said Michael's mid post game, his ability to get to his spot and rise his fade away, and to me, the part that he wouldn't say it was better, but the punts he admired about his game was his will to win. And I think that's what Lebron was kind of knocked for for many years, just not having the quote unquote killer instinct. I mean, from the time I've covered him, I've seen him make a handful of game winners in the NBA playoffs. Mean to me, that's a guy who can deal with the pressure. Saw him lead a three to one comeback against a seventy three win team in the Golden State Wars. Again, impervious to pressure, and so I don't know how accurate those knocks for him were on him at any point, but that is the reputation of Jordan that's in the ether that he'll probably never overcome. And I love that he spoke to me candidly about the fact that he's four and six in the finals, and that's viewed as a knock on his career. There are people who would if he lost in the first round, lost in the second round, didn't make the playoffs, they would not bring that up as much as him getting to the NBA Finals and losing.

00:34:07
Speaker 2: Well, then you say, they don't do that to Jerry West. Jerry, I think was one and nine and your nickname is mister Clutch and you're the logo, and look, Jerry was one of my favorite players. But it feels like getting there ten times to play for ten titles. You have to give credit to that. I know Mike was six, and oh, I know Montana was four and oh, but damn Brady got there. Even if you lose. Lebron got there. I mean, you can't win it if you don't get there. And I always thought that that was a shame that it was viewed as a negative. Well, he can't win the big one. Jerry West, as great as he was, only won one title.

00:34:47
Speaker 8: And I mean, yeah, you're a golf guy, right, and he's becoming a golf player. Like we look at all the second place finishes for guys like you know, Tiger and Arnold and yeah.

00:34:58
Speaker 3: That's Jack had nineteen. I can place finishes.

00:35:01
Speaker 8: There, you go, right, that's something that should be celebrated the fact that you were playing on Sunday with something to play for. Lebron's been playing in June with something to play for. I don't think we'll see another player that to me is as important of any stat that he was able to kind of accomplish at this time.

00:35:23
Speaker 3: Thanks for spending time. We appreciate it.

00:35:25
Speaker 2: Thanks for the insights, Dave, You got it da anytime, Dave McManamon. He's covering the Lakers in OKC Game two coming up tomorrow night, and the Lakers.

00:35:35
Speaker 3: Are fifteen and a half point underdogs. Well take a break. Last call for phone calls? What we learn? What's in store tomorrow?

00:35:41
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to listen live. Last call for phone calls?

00:35:54
Speaker 3: What we learn?

00:35:55
Speaker 2: What's in store tomorrow? I think we h I think we can settle in on pizza Wednesdays around here. Man, you did a great job, Dylan, you and Weeks our cameraman. These pizzas are great.

00:36:08
Speaker 10: Thank you.

00:36:08
Speaker 4: I burned the absolute crap out of my mouth. I couldn't wait.

00:36:12
Speaker 2: Well you yeah, you were just taking that pizza out of the oven.

00:36:15
Speaker 3: That is great.

00:36:16
Speaker 10: Yeah came out. Really that's a that makes a legit pizza.

00:36:19
Speaker 3: Yes, it does.

00:36:20
Speaker 2: And that's an insert in the rectech grill giving away a rectech r e c t EQ dot com. Search the Dan Patrick Show for details. Let me see Ryan in Detroit. Hi, Ryan, thanks for holding what's on your mind today?

00:36:36
Speaker 17: Yeah, thanks for calling back.

00:36:37
Speaker 4: Dan.

00:36:38
Speaker 17: Hey, dnet, don't let the haters. Hey, you guys are great just the way you are. I got a quick story Dan that kind of weaves.

00:36:45
Speaker 8: Together the.

00:36:47
Speaker 17: Green Room Riders and Nick Wright's theory on seeing celebrities in public. I was on a flight many years ago, about ten years ago, from Frankfort to London, short flight, and we were waiting for the door to close, long paths we were supposed to take off, and I see a Mercedes pull up next to the plane.

00:37:10
Speaker 8: Out of the.

00:37:10
Speaker 17: Mercedes and comes onto the plane, sits right in front of me in seat one. It's legend tennis player Boris Becker. And as a kid from the eighties, I couldn't stop staring at him. It's like he had a glow the whole time the plight. The tenant comes over with two beers. He pounds two beers, goes to sleep. She wakes him up right before her landing, gives him two more beers, pounds those and gets off the plane.

00:37:37
Speaker 2: Dan Ovi was he's seventeen when he showed up on the scene at Wembledon diving all over the place, bloody knees.

00:37:47
Speaker 3: What a character. Ryan in North Carolina, Hi, Ryan, what's on your mind?

00:37:53
Speaker 12: Hey?

00:37:54
Speaker 15: Dan, great to talk to you again. I appreciate you taking the call. I had a comment about Davos Seleni and I also want to just say that I think Dylan's doing an awesome job taking Seaton's role. I really loved Seaton, and I think Dylan's filling in amazingly, doing a great job. And I just think Dado needs to call Danny Hurley and ask Danny Hurley how I coach these kids, because they're not the same kids that he coached when they beat Notre Dame in Alabama and Auburn. And they're not the same kids they were ten years ago. Their minds are completely different. With Nil and the transfer portal, and you can't coach them the same way.

00:38:33
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ryan.

00:38:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just surprised that Dado's taking shots at Notre Dame in Ohio state and he's got a winning record against them. If you want your boosters to give you money, then just talk to your boosters, but also produce a better season than seven wins, including a home loss to Syracuse when you have nine players go in the draft.

00:38:53
Speaker 3: Yes, Marvin, I.

00:38:54
Speaker 9: Think the kids that the saying the prices are different. Now, guess what you couldn't afford Trevor Lawrence ten years ago.

00:39:00
Speaker 3: Leave that Clemson Zach and Knoxville Zach.

00:39:05
Speaker 8: Hedip, thanks for taking my call.

00:39:08
Speaker 10: Quick story about shooting right and left handed.

00:39:10
Speaker 12: I went to the Rick Mount shooting camp when I was younger, and just casual conversation. He's addressing the whole camp and makes ten in a row right handed, then turns around and makes ten in a row left handed. But I wanted to ask you about Kirby Smart's comments about the Big ten surpassing the SEC and the.

00:39:31
Speaker 3: Guys that were interviewing him.

00:39:33
Speaker 12: His theory was that now that you can pay players above board, that's kind of sewed things.

00:39:40
Speaker 14: Do you agree with that.

00:39:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been saying that for years.

00:39:44
Speaker 2: There were schools that were paying kids under the table, and now all of a sudden, everybody gets to pay players what they want to pay them, and things have shifted. Rick Mount played at Purdue back in the late sixties. One of the the greatest shooters wasn't a great NBA or ABA player, I should say, I think the Indiana Pacers, But man was he a great shooter? Great great, great outside shooter. All right, let's go around the room. Oh this day and sports history, Paul, can you squeeze anything in there?

00:40:16
Speaker 3: I got one.

00:40:16
Speaker 7: Nineteen twenty nine, the American League announced that it would discontinue the MVP Award. I don't know why.

00:40:23
Speaker 2: Isn't that weird? Babe Ruth hit his first home run on this date nineteen fifteen overad to Todd.

00:40:32
Speaker 11: Would you learn today when she's on tour morak carrier, QUI has it be somewhat assigned to her with the responsibility of throwing out her gum?

00:40:39
Speaker 4: Dylan, if Aaron Judge is chewing gum, he's chilling apparently.

00:40:43
Speaker 6: Marvin, a caller, says Dylan needs to be hazed.

00:40:47
Speaker 7: Paul Pizza Wednesday.

00:40:49
Speaker 2: Thanks for the phone calls, emails, tweets, They all around support for Fritzie, Dylan, Marv, Paul, yours truly and we'll talk to you tomorrow