Kawhi Leonard, Lakers, and LeBron James

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
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to Fox Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is

(00:27):
the Herd, wherever you may be and however you may
be making this part of your day. When the Colin
says in a daily basis, I'm Doug Gott leave in
for Colin Cowherd, who has promised to join us. If
Kawhi Leonard makes a decision somewhere the mountains Utah, Colin Cowherd,
who's backpacking through the wild wilderness for the Wahsatch Valley,

(00:51):
we'll join us via cell phone. If Kawhi decides, and
we wait, and there are three very unique and interesting
possibilities here right remain in Toronto, which by some people's estimation,
will change how we view trading players who don't want
to go to a specific location. And Paul George last

(01:14):
year Kawhi Leonard this year. If they both stay at
a place that they previously said they had no interest
in staying. What does it say about Los Angeles, where
both players grew up, And what does it say about
trading a guy to a place he says, thanks, but
no thanks, I don't even want to go there. It's
just a way station. If he chooses the Clippers, I mean,

(01:39):
we could be in an era where Kevin Durant and
Kyrie Irving choose the seventh most popular professional sports franchise
in the Tri State area. That's what they did. The
Nets are the seventh most popular professional sports franchise in
the Tri State area, behind the Yankees, the Mets, the Giants,

(02:01):
the Jets. Yes, of course, behind the Knicks, and behind
the New York Rangers. And the same could be said
for the Clippers. Like the Clippers are lovable, likable, that
they've built a good culture. But if Kawhi Leonard chooses
the Clippers over the sixteen banners in the same arena

(02:25):
that the Clippers occupy, it's staples. That is, they are
at best the seventh most popular sports franchise, counting USC football, right,
Dodger Baseball, the Lakers, the Rams. I would even put
the Chargers all right, maybe not the Chargers. Chargers are better,

(02:50):
just not as as as beloved. But the point is this,
there are three very interesting choices, and none of them
look or feel really alike. Of course, the Lakers will
be aligning yourself with two fellows superstars with almost no
real culture of winning. Been the losingest franchise in the

(03:13):
NBA over the last six years. Like that is stunning.
It goes counter to what you think of when you
think of the Lakers. But that's the decision that Kauai has.
I grew up in southern California twice in my life.
I made the professional decision to move back home. Now.
I was not making the thirty plus million dollars that

(03:35):
Kauhi will make. So different tax bracket, different lifestyle, different
proximity to where I'm going to work, different profession altogether.
But I can tell you that everyone does this thing.
Why don't y'all put a pro in a conlish together.
You do the pros, you do the cons. I actually

(03:56):
think that's a highly flawed process because pros and cons.
It makes every pro and every con seem like they're
actually equal, and they are not like taxes that you're
gonna pay they're high in California. They're higher actually in Canada.
But that's not really what leads to happiness and enjoying yourself.

(04:18):
I don't know how affected he is by weather, right
like my wife does not like cold weather, does not.
But we chose live in southern California and we live
in one of the beach communities where, you know what,
it actually doesn't get hot, and she kind of doesn't
like it as much because he's like, man, when's it
gonna get to the the hot? People like to live here

(04:40):
because the sea breeze that never gets hot, Well, that's
not what I wanted, whereas some people like the cool air.
Depends on where you live. Not every pro, not every
con equals out to each other. And so let's just
say it as we know it and as it's real.

(05:01):
I'm Doug Gotlie filling for Colin Cowherd. It's a mistake
to go to the Lakers. It's a colossal mistake. And
it doesn't mean that if you went to Lakers, they
wouldn't win a championship. It doesn't mean if you went
to Lakers, it wouldn't help his brand. Tying to one
of the most powerful brands in sports. It doesn't mean
I'm cheering against the Lakers or cheering for any other team.

(05:22):
I'm just telling you that sports people, basketball people, adults
will tell you it's a mistake unless there is something
pulling you home. Like the first time that I moved
home my dad was my dad had his first bout
with cancer, And in hindsight, even though it was probably
a mistake professionally to move home, I look back in

(05:46):
hindsight and I had two years with him that I
will never get back. If that's what's pulling him home,
i'd back off. But in terms of playing basketball, when
has it ever been fun to go and like, let's
just go get the three best players. It's not fun.
That's not what you look for. If the idea is

(06:09):
I want to win, and you can win. It was
just proven. Granted, a lot of things had to go
in their favor. Like to people who think that the
Toronto model is the model for the future, like, look, yeah,
I guess it is. If you can promise that the
better team on the other side of the bracket is
going to lose half of their roster due to injury, sure,

(06:29):
but the point is this, you know you're going to win.
They've established a culture of winning over the past half
decade that you help put them over the top. You
know how they're going to treat you. You know how
much time you're going to get off and oh yeah,
by the way, you can still have your offseason life
in Los Angeles while you have kind of your professional
life in Toronto. Heck, i'd make the case that the

(06:55):
Clippers are the better fit. You can still get southern California.
You still get a quality culture of winning and of
guys that are playing together and playing the right way,
and you get to have the ball. If you think
that it's going to work out with Lebron James, you
might be right. Proof is in the pudding that he
did go to eight finals in a row. But how

(07:17):
enjoyable an experience was it really for Chris Bosh to
be the third wheel, or for Dwyane Wade to be
the second wheel, or for Kyrie Irving who could not
wait to get out from the shadow of Lebron James.
If you're chasing brand recognition because you're not getting it
in San Antonio or in Toronto, maybe you should tell
your uncle, Hey, dude, I don't talk, I don't speak

(07:40):
it's kind of hard to be a spokesperson when you
don't spoke right. Maybe you have a new balanced deal
because it's just kind of hard to pitch a product.
And a guy that doesn't really sell any product because
he doesn't want to sell himself. His sale is I'm

(08:00):
the best player. You figure out the rest. I'm not Canadian.
I'm very realistic with the fact that as much as
they love basketball, they're going to always love hockey more.
I get it's a foreign country. I get it's not
a site that he placed that he chose. But I

(08:20):
can tell you that moving back home to move back
home is the most cliche thing ever. And oh yeah,
by the way, there's a reason that there's another cliche statement.
You can't go home again. You come back home, you're like, man,
I'm going to reconnect with people. If you weren't connected
with people since you left, there's probably a reason. And

(08:43):
it's not distance. It's definitely not expense. If he was
a guy that was so connected and wanted to be
interwoven in the community that he grew up in, well,
then he would be connected at interwoven in the community
he grew up in. He would be he would be
on Facebook on the MLK high school reunion page. That's

(09:04):
what he would do. I'm not telling you that Southern
California isn't a great place, and I can't imagine what
it would be like to be worth one hundred million dollars.
You can live where you here every morning, and you

(09:26):
can kind of melt into a community where, yeah, you're
a star, but he ain't the biggest star. The idea
that people are going to track him down and tmz
him not really, But from a professional basketball perspective, you
never want to be a part of that circus. There

(09:46):
is no established culture. You have no idea about how
the coach will coach your team, let alone your other
stars or you. You've already been shown by Toronto. They
give you the time off, they'll put the team around you,
and if it's not working at the trade deadline, they'll
go out and make some profound moves. Isn't it enough?

(10:11):
I don't know what Kawhi Leonard will do. I don't know.
I'm just as interested as all you are. I have
the people I know in the NBA, and everyone feels
confident in something La something Toronto. He's gonna stay he's
gonna go. I've heard clubs or planning celebrations in Toronto.

(10:31):
I've heard very smart people say no, now, don Dio
going to LA. I don't know, and it doesn't actually
affect me either way. The league probably wants him in LA,
but the league doesn't have a say in this matter.
They just don't. But the idea of lining up three
guys who all need the basketball, who all play some

(10:54):
form of the same position at different times in their careers,
and put them together on one team when you're already
on a championship team, like, what are we doing? How
do we get to a place in sports where you
would ever leave a championship team that gave you twenty
two nights off in the regular season, built everything around you,

(11:16):
celebrated your presence, and then would do anything for you
to stay. What are you searching for? What do you need?
Everything you have is right there, and if home is
what brings you there, isn't it pretty obvious the better
fit is the Clippers. Don't know what he can do,

(11:38):
know what he shouldn't do. He shouldn't go to the Lakers,
even though they would absolutely be competitive for a championship
with him and they may be competitive for a championship
without him. That's not always the point. The point. The
point is not always to win. The point sometimes is
how you play the game. And unless you want to
make a dramatic departure from how you've played and how

(12:00):
you've evolved as a player, Oh, Lebron's gonna play off
the basketball. Lebron is good. He's going to let everybody else,
everybody else make plays. When has that happened? Matter of fact,
we'll get to that. What it would mean for Lebron,
the uncharted territory that Lebron James would be in if

(12:26):
Kawhi Leonard chose the Lakers. I'll tell you what that
would mean to him up coming next. But first, the
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Discover Match for new card members only. Learn more at
discover dot com. Slash Travel be sure to catch live
editions of the Herd weekdays in newon Easter nine a
Empacific on Fox Sports FS one, and the iHeart Radio app.
Doug Gottliebin for Colin. This is the Herd. Chris Bruce
Artill join us upcoming about ten minutes or so. We'll

(13:10):
get you caught up on all the stories of the
day with our top newsman, John Goulay, also the only
one available that upcoming. I'm Doug Gotliebin for for Colin. Yeah,
this whole thing is fascinating. You know, I'm not sure
if anybody's thought about this. And I know that Nick
Wright's going to spit out his coffee as he drinks
going back to his palatial state somewhere in New York City. Look,

(13:36):
stats would tell you that Lebron James was not the
problem last year that he was. He was great all right,
twenty seven, eight and eight. And if you don't actually
watch basketball games again, you simply go buy stats. Russell
Westbrook was the best player in the league. Right, we
have a triple double for the third straight year. So
if we want to go buy stats, you'd say Lebron

(13:59):
was great and Russell was the best. Neither were true.
Neither were true. If you watched Lebron James. He tried
to fit into a different style at times, and maybe
that limited some of his production, But it wasn't a
production thing. It wasn't about the number of points he
put on the board. It was about the way he moved,

(14:22):
or maybe the way he didn't move. It was about
his inability to be well. Lebron impact a game at
both ends in so many different ways. He just didn't
move like he used to. He didn't defend like he
used to. He didn't obliterate mismatches offensively the way he
used to. Sure, he's become so skilled that he can

(14:45):
pick his spots and still make plenty of shots and
get plenty of rebounds, but the actual substance of what
he did, he was not the same. Lebron James is
thirty five years old and time is in fact undefeated.
And though I'm told he's down fifteen twenty pounds, knowing
he needs to play lighter and more agile, at this

(15:08):
point in his career, he's gone through this before he's
done the offseason. You know Jenny Craig program for basketball
players where he's gonna trim down and slim down, But
at the end of the day. He's thirty five years old.
His contemporaries, the guys he came into the NBA with,
are mostly retired. Sure, Carmelo is still posting videos one

(15:30):
on none dominating in a New York City health club,
But between the toxicity of having him on your team
or just his inability to play the other end of
the floor, he's not in the NBA currently. Dwayne Wade
has retired kind of Chris Bosh has retired. Granted that
was because of blood clots, but at this point in
his career he probably would have been working his way

(15:51):
towards retirement. That doesn't mean that Lebron needs to retire.
It just means that a reasonable person can say he's
on the downside of the peak of his career. Kawhi
Leonard is at the peak of his powers. It's a
two time finals MVP. He is, by my estimation, the
best player in the game. Because Kevin Durant's out with injury,
we don't know what he'll look like when he gets

(16:12):
back age wise, style wise, skill wise, confidence wise, Kawiler
is the best player in the game. And if we're
willing to concede that, we have not yet seen the
best of Anthony Davis. One because of some injuries, two
because of some age and some evolution in three because
the players around him. What if I told you that
if Kawhi Leonard choose the Lakers, Lebron's actually the third

(16:36):
best player in his own team. And look, we can
all say, well, that's perfect for Lebron because he's always
liked to get everybody else involved. He's even said, and
I love this statement, that he celebrates more when others
have success on his team than when he has success.
But ask yourself, when was the last time Lebron James

(16:59):
wasn't the best player on his own team? When was that?
When was that moment? Wasn't high school? Wasn't au? I
could make the case that a couple times on Team USA,
Kevin Durant was actually the better player, the better scorer.
But if Lebron was not one A, he was a

(17:22):
one B outside of that, From the moment he arrived
in Cleveland, the second he stepped out in the court
in Cleveland, he was the best player to Miami, where
he joined Dwayne Wade, and let it be known he
was the best player. When he came back to Cleveland,
he was the best player. When he went to LA,

(17:44):
he was the best player. So a guy who's had
the lead in every play he's ever been in, somehow
now we expect him to take a secondary or even
a tertiary roll. What happens in movies, scene stealer, what

(18:07):
happens in television shows or radio? What happens in radio
shows when you have a driver and a reactor and
the guy who's always been the driver's reactor. People fight
over the mic, people try and make grandiose points. And
what happens in sports is Lebron may want Kawhi or
Anthony Davis if it all comes together to succeed, but

(18:30):
he wants to be the guy that made it happen.
And maybe this is unique to basketball, maybe it's not.
I think it kind of is the idea that Kawhi
Leonard may take and make the big shots, but would
do so off the hands of a pass of Lebron
James that goes counter to every reality that we've ever seen. Like,

(18:52):
we gotta stop and think about ramifications of this. If
Kawai goes to the Lakers Lebron James, based upon where
he is age wise in his career, you could argue
with me all you want about he's the greatest ever,
the second greatest ever, whatever, the third greatest of four.
We can argue all that different stuff. I'm not arguing

(19:13):
where he has been at the peak of his career,
the longevity of how long that peak has lasted, not
arguing that with you. I'm not doing the Jordan versus
Lebron thing. I'm not doing any of that. What I
am saying, and this is really important, is he has
never been in a place where he was not the
best player, and he ain't the best player, he can

(19:39):
still be great. He can still be a top five,
a top ten guy. He ain't is good as Kawhi Leonard,
and most people in the NBA think that Anthony Davis
is right there, and Anthony Davis is going to get
better playing with better players around him and being in
the coming into the prime of his career. That's not
where Lebron is. So the idea that we know anything

(20:02):
about how he would handle it, how they would handle it,
how Frank Vogel, who was not close to the first choice,
will handle it, could be the most fascinating element of
what maybe the biggest team in the biggest story of
the upcoming NBA season. I'll ask Christmas Sar where Lebron

(20:26):
would rank on this potential Big three. Next, but first
let's get to Vetran newsman John Gulet. No, no, this
is the herd Line news. So Doug. One free agent
that's actually so available that's any good is Danny Greene.
He spent the last eight seasons as a teammate with
Kawai seven in San Antonio one in Toronto. He said

(20:49):
on his podcast, says to where Kawai's going, quote, it
would be great to know. His decision seems to be
dependent on Kawhi. It sounds like if he goes to Toronto,
he'll go back to Toronto. If he goes to the Clippers,
I don't know. And if he goes to the Lakers,
maybe Danny joins him, takes the mid level, gets five million.
How long can he realistically wait to figure out where

(21:11):
Kawai is going to go? Because there's a financial ease.
If he goes to the Lakers, Danny green to follow
him has to lose money. He'll get more than five
million somewhere else. I think he'll be okay. I mean,
I'm not saying he's gonna go Hungary. I'm just right.
I think he'll be. Like, listen, Danny, after that pass
that was a turnover at the end of game six,

(21:32):
that nearly gave away a championship. That was a here,
please take the championship trophy away. That's how bad they
have the lead. He's a good free throw shooter. He
has the basketball and he panic passes, a panic passes
the ball and it ends up going out of bounds
where Steph Curry misses an open three point shot would
have been the game winner. Like, dude, listen, you just

(21:54):
sit there laying the cut and wait. We'll let you
know when you know, right, I mean, so, I'm I'm
I'm a little sympathetic. It's only June fifth. It's not
like we're going on August twenty fifth, are we. Like
Lebron's original decision was assume more July fifth. Lebron's original
decision was July eighth. So just pipe down over there.

(22:17):
We'll get to you when we need you. You will
come to you when we come to you. Shoot a
three point shot, dance and pregame warm ups, defend your position.
So there is a big game tonight in Vegas. Zion
Williamson will make his NBA Summer League debut. What makes
it even more fun is the Pelicans are playing the Knick,
so he will play his college teammate at Duke, RJ. Barrett.

(22:39):
Here was Zion talking about facing Barrett in Summer League. Obviously,
I is going to be excited to play against my brother,
but you know, I really can't go into the game
thinking of it like that because we're two different positions,
so it will be matched up. It is a switch
or something, But I think we're both excited. What are
your expectations for what we're going to see out of

(23:00):
Zion tonight in his debut will be on national TV,
it will be in the ESPN. Yeah, what do you
think we're gonna see? I mean, you look some spectacular dunks.
I think you'll see some flaws in his shooting from
that sort of range as a guy who's learning to
be a better shooter, I think you'll see. I think
r J will play really really well. One, they have
a better roster, they have more NBA guys on the roster. Two.

(23:23):
I think his game does his current game does fit
the NBA as this rosters is comprised like he's going
to be the guy. They're gonna give him the ball. Like,
if you want to lock in on something, RJ. Barrett
is more likely to win Rookie of the Year because
of the volume of possessions. He will have the basketball
with the port spread out signs. Give me a little
bit smaller than you expect. Like, I don't think people

(23:45):
understand he's only about five and a half six six yet,
I mean he's he's thick now, like he looks like
a football player. He will look different, but I mean
kind of the usual Zion Williams and stuff. Right, There'll
be a spectacular dunk, a spectacular block shot, he'll post up,
He'll do a little bit of everything. I'm not sure
how much he'll actually play though, Like he may want

(24:05):
to play, but this is it is kind of adding
insult to injury to the Knicks. You know, they didn't
get kd they didn't get Kyrie, they didn't get Kawai.
They chose not taking meeting with Kawai. And now like
the NBA's gonna dangle Zion Williams said, oh yeah, by
the way, you didn't win the latter. They are favored
to win the Summer League, so he be a big

(24:27):
summer for the next Summer League champions and Summer League
Sacramento Kings when Summer League a couple of times. That's
like the Indianapolis Colts when they got to the DAFC
playoffs and they put a Banner FFC Finalististuh. Some more
bad news for New York Potentially, Eli Manning wants to
play for as long as he can. An interview with

(24:47):
NOLA dot Com, he said to quote, I'm not rushing
into retirement, and Peyton's not telling me to rush into it.
I still love being around the guys and the teammates
and playing this game. I'm going to play it for
as long as I think I can hang with these guys.
That's a bummer. If you're a Giants fan, if why
would you want to continue? I understand he gets paid
a lot of money to play a game, but why

(25:08):
would you want to continue to play at a at
a bat at a low level on a team that
likely does not make the playoffs. I don't think he
sees it that way. Like again, we're having a reasonable
rational conversation, sure, but we're also not a two time
Super Bowl champion in the greatest football family in the
history of the sport. Definitely not. So it's it's hard
to are What is rational to us is not rational

(25:32):
to Eli Manning. I think what Dave geentleman hopes is
that he plays well early and then organically it takes
care of itself, you know. I mean, or he either
gets he gets hit and dinged and he's got to
put the kid in, or it just gets so bad
that it becomes obvious to Eli into everybody because they're
all gunshy of it. They all saw what happened to

(25:52):
the previous regime. They all signed off on sitting. The
problem was they sat in for Gino Smith that they
sent him for anybody else on earth probably never gets
his job back, but for Geno Smith because it was
New York and everybody hated him and then it didn't work.
But like he was, he was washed up a year ago,
year and a half ago. So I but again, this

(26:13):
is a rational conversation, and I don't think you have
to be rational when you come from that background. You've
had that level of success. Ye, that's John Golay with
the news. Well that's the news, and thanks for stopping
by third line, all right, let's bring in Chris Bruce
Sard Fox Sports one NBA analysts. You can also hear
his outstanding radio show with The Odd Couple with Crazy

(26:35):
Uncle Rob Parker on Fox Sports Radio weeknights seven to
ten Eastern time, four to seven Pacific. We have all
kinds of percentages. You have said going to Lakers, and
then you said he had what great meeting yesterday with
toward two years two days ago with Toronto, he had
a strong meeting with the Raptors Drake. I don't know
if it was all one meeting or if he met

(26:57):
with Massiahu Jerry and his half and then later met
with Drake. Obviously it was connected, but Drake, you know,
made a big presentation. I think that may have even
been a big part of why he did go back
to Toronto, just to respect Drake, obviously respect the franchise.
But right now, the last numbers I was given by

(27:19):
somebody in the know after the meeting with the Raptors
were fifty fifty Raptors and the Lakers. I think no. Look,
the Lakers started with an advantage of Kauai wanting to
play there. I tweeted a week or so ago that
the Lake he had told the Lakers that they're his
to lose. He wanted to go there, so they had

(27:39):
an advantage. I think now it's about I would say
fifty five sixty percent Lakers, forty five percent Raptors. What
does he want? Well, that's the thing, and I've heard
you obviously talk about he shouldn't go to the Lakers.
I felt the same way when I was told right
before the Anthony Davis trade, maybe a day or two

(28:00):
before that, someone told me if the Lakers get Anthony
Davis Kawhi, there's a strong chance Kawhi is going there.
And I was like, what, Like all year, I thought
he's going to the Clippers. Maybe he'll stay in Toronto
if they win, but I know he doesn't want to
be in that city. He wants to be in southern California.

(28:20):
I thought it was always the Clippers. But then beginning
to talk to people around this situation, and you look
at the things he wants. I think he will go
to the Lakers and think he should consider what he wants.
Number One, he does want to be in southern California.
And I'm not saying in this order, but being in
southern California, so you got the Lakers and the Clippers.

(28:42):
He also know look at his health situation. Now there
are reports that he may take a short deal with
the Raptors, and maybe that's true, but I've been told
that is and this was after the meeting with the Raptors,
that he's looking at a long a four year deal
with the Lakers or five years with the Raptors, because
he looks at his injury history. In eight years, he's

(29:05):
only played more than sixty six games twice. Last year
had twenty two games off for rest and still was
banged up in the playoffs. So he's smart to go
get the long term money. And you know this, Doug,
it's kind of it's a big disadvantage for Toronto. But
in four years, we talk about the fifty million dollars
he can make with the Raptors, that's pretty much all

(29:28):
in that fifth year, which if he stays healthy, that
fifth year would just be the first year of a
new max deal. You understand that. So that take that
away because of the taxes in Toronto, and because he
lives in California as his residence, he would make more
money over the next four years by actually playing for
the Lakers. Eleven million dollars more. Who again, I understand

(29:53):
it's like a pistical fifty percent tax rate, and I
don't know what it is when you're a foreigner living there,
but i'd assume because you're an employee, don't you get
paid the taxes based upon where the game is played.
He would only get taxed in Canada for the games
and you know, work days, practice days, whatever, So they
wouldn't be the full season, but it would be enough.

(30:15):
And this is according to an article that was in
Forbes magazine that he would make eleven million dollars more
over the next four years if he plays for the
Lakers or the Clippers. You know. So, look, he wants
to win. That's all he's known. In San Antonio, he won,
In Toronto he won, But he wants to win long term.

(30:35):
And as you said, he's not He understands as well.
Golden State was more than banged up. Okay, they were
decimated by injuries. They barely got out of the East.
It took him seven against Philadelphia, which who I think
has gotten better, and certainly Joel Mbi probably will be better.
The best chance for him to keep winning long term

(30:58):
is the Lakers obviously with a D and Lebron and
also arguably the best place for him to stay healthy
long term is the Lakers because you don't have the
burden of carrying the team night in night out. That's
one that was the knock against the Clippers. That guy
I understand, But there was no real second guy in

(31:18):
Toronto this year, right, And they still had the second
best record in the NBA. So if he went to
the Clippers and he took his twenty games off, he'd
still have a really good record. You still have different
it is, I guess the question is like, are you
sacrificing enjoying the experience and being the guy and playing

(31:42):
the way that he has evolved into playing because you
and I know we both played basketball, Like, I don't
care what anybody say. It's totally different when you had
to play with or without the ball, no question, Like
you guys guys used to playing with the ball. They
just they did don't know what to do with themselves, right,
Like you're rickey, Bobby, what do I do with my hands?
What do I do with my hands? Like you have
no idea? What inevitably happens is they end up just

(32:05):
standing around and not nearly as effective. Right, they don't
move without the ball, lay screens. But you know this,
Kawhi and San Antonio knew how to play without the ball. Sure,
it's only recently before he went to Toronto, but the
last couple years in San Antonio that he started handling
it more, being at least to some degree, a point
forward at times, you know, handling the ball, making plays.

(32:28):
Lebron has told him he met with Lebron solo, he
met with Lebron and a D. Together, they all mapped
this out. Lebron has said, not I'm going to be
the point forward like I've always been. I'm going to
be the point guard, which I like. I think I
heard you talking about who's the best player at this point,
you would say Kauhi is the best player. I would
put Lebron ahead of Anthony Davis. But I love Lebron

(32:53):
at point, and if he's at point, Kawhi and a
D should be the first two scoring options because Lebron
is one of the rare players that can dominate or
control a game without scoring a ton of points or
trying to. Again, like, if I work it out in
my mind, it's Lebron working into a magic Johnson's short
of role right, easier said than done it. That's that's

(33:15):
the whole thing, right in theory, Like I liked the
theory last year of Lebron James is gonna you know,
he's played without the ball. I'm gonna move the ball around.
But there was a point mid season last year when
Lebron was like, look, you know, second quarter, fourth quarter.
You know, he basically did the you know who I am,
I'm Kevin Durant. He did it in the middle of

(33:35):
the season. Here's the thing, and you're absolutely right. Like
the notion that he was going to play off the ball,
I liked it too, because I thought that's what he
needed to do, but he couldn't. His instincts to have
the ball. He's a lot closer though, instinctively, to just
play in the point. I mean, he plays the point.
He's sixty right. So now one of Lebron's challenges has

(33:59):
all with why he's never wanted to play off the ball.
This trust any other players, you know? So I think
he'll trust that if I just play point. These two
are good enough offensively that he's gonna get his twenty
points just by being out there. But these two were
gonna be able to carry to low scoring wives offensively.
So look, you're right, he's never done it, but I
think he can. We're getting some post mortem on Kevin Durant,

(34:23):
why he left, where he wanted to go, and how
he ended up in Brooklyn. I want to discuss KD
as we all wait for Kawhi, Christopershard's gonna hang around.
That's up coming next time. Doug Gottlieb, This is the Herd.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noon Easter nine am Pacific. Doug Gottlieb and for
Columus The Herd on Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports one,

(34:43):
the iHeart Radio app. Chris Broussard continues with us in
studio Odd Couple with Rob Parker every evening on Fox
Sports Radio seven to ten pm Eastern Time. Of course,
you see him on all of our shows. You're on
Fox Sports One. So now there's starting to be some
post mortem the Kevin Durant era in Golden State. One

(35:03):
report says that the argument with Draymond Greene is the
reason that he left. There's other reports to say he
didn't love playing for Steve Kerr. There's other reports to
say he couldn't break through because you know, Steph Curry
was always Steph Curry, and Steph Curry's married and he's single,
and they just didn't have any sort of off the

(35:24):
court relationship. What do you make of all the post
mortem stories as to why he left. Well, look, the
Kurr situation, I'm not sure. I don't know anything about
whether or not he disliked Steve Kerr. What I do
know about is that Kerr's offense was heavy in the
moving the ball, in passing, and Durant could fit that
to a degree. But there was also a part of

(35:46):
Durant that wanted to go I saw a lot, and
we saw that last year in the Houston series, so
that we know there was some friction there. I don't
know about any of the other stuff. How you could
not like Steve Kerr is hard to imagine, you know,
knowing him, people are you know, he's one of the
nicest guys in the league. He's a player's coach for sure.
As far as the Draymond thing, what I'm told is

(36:09):
they got passed it to a degree, but they were
they were close before that, hanging out and stuff. They
never got back to that level. They were cool. We
seen you know, pictures of them talking cross cross that
imaginary line that you just can't can't, you can't get
back there. And here's the thing, beyond the face value
of it, the face value of why that you know,

(36:30):
just taking it with as as face value. Obviously it
was bad. He's calling him to be word and all
that stuff. But here's the deal. What I do know
is that Durant felt that when he went to Golden State.
Now there was nothing the Warrior said or did you
know they made little jokes like Bob Myers that added
to this, but there was a feeling Durant god of

(36:53):
that the organization felt like we saved you. You know,
wasn't said like that, but that, hey, we saved you.
You needed championships. You got him here, and I'm sure
he felt like he saved them, Yeah, which I actually
think is accurate. Well, he certainly felt that way. We
don't know whether or not it's accurate. And obviously the

(37:14):
Warriors canna say it's not accurate. We won without you.
They think they would have won that second year if
Draymond's not in, you know, suspended. But yeah, that so
there's this sense of that, right, Nobody comes out and
says it, but there's a sense you're getting, as Kevin
Durant when you're there, that they feel like they saved me,
like they they they they showed me, they got me,

(37:37):
made me a winner, got me a championship. And then
Bob Myer's jokes about it, and then Draymond flat out
says it. That's why that cuts so hard with Durant,
in addition to just what it was on face value.
He strikes me and and like, look, as you know,
I'm the one who said I thought it's been the
best player in the league for last last couple of years, right, Right,

(37:59):
It wasn't just like when people say, how did you
feel when he went there? Were you among those that
killed him? No? I got it. I understood because I
watched him play one on two or one on three
against the Warriors at the end of that series, and
I'm like, I understood, h No, But when he got
if you go back and watch when they're up three
games to one, the Warriors basically started not guarding Steven

(38:21):
Adams and Andre robertson right, and they had so Steven Adams,
So I mean so you mean, so whoever they're guards,
so Draymond Green in addition, Andre Goodala's guarding him and
then Raymond Green's right at the elbow in their offense
was so unimaginative. I mean, there's not much you can do.
I remember being getting an arguments with people on radio
in Oklahoma City. Why don't that ball movement like, okay,

(38:42):
move the ball to Stephen Adams, see what happens. Move
the ball to Andre Robertson, see what happens. So I
I understood, like his in his mind he was like, look,
if I just get the space and I get Lebron
on an island, I'm better than he is. And so
that's why he went there. He just strikes me, though,
as a guy who his defense for the social media
is stuff is that's how I like to roll. I

(39:03):
like to come back and people right. He strikes me
as the guy that can dish it but can't take it.
And when they're busting his busting his chops or is
lower intestines if you will, the busting schops that were like, yeah, dude,
you know, like you're not a splash brother. He can't
take it. It really bothers him and he's he's he's
in his feelings about it. Yeah, and you're right, like,

(39:23):
and that's the thing because we did something on our show,
Rod Park and I I said, look, because Durant that
is his defense. Look, I grew up with social media.
I'm on social media. People talk about me. I'm gonna
go at him, you know. That's why. That's why I
tech stephen A or DM whatever it was. When he's
on air, he's DM me. When I'm on the air,
he's like, you put my name in your mouth, I'm

(39:44):
going at you. There's an element of that's that's gangster. Yeah.
So I'm like, Okay, it's Kevin Durant sensitive or he's
he gangster. The problem is the burner accounts the burner
that's not gangster. Yes, and that shows your overly sense.
And they're responding to every little thing, every little It
might be a twelve year old in his mom's basement
instagramming or something and you respond. So that shows the sensitivity.

(40:08):
But Durant. Let me say this about Durant and Kauhi
because this is one reason I did not kill Durant.
I was on TV with stephen A. Smith when Durant
announced he's going to Golden State. Stephen A was killing him.
I didn't because I said, look in two years, when
Durant has two championships and at least one finals MVP,

(40:29):
he ended up with two. Nobody's gonna be criticizing him.
In fact, they may be praising him as the best
player in the world and low and behold you and
others think he's the best player in the world. So
for those that would safe for Kauai, if you go
to the Lakers, oh you'll get lost, you won't get credit. No,

(40:49):
I mean we started with Durant. Durant went to a
more table set situation, if you will, and ended up
coming out of it looking like the best player in
the world. Kawai could do the same. It's interesting because
I've I've had guys tweet at me that I said
a long time ago, like the only thing missing from
Lebron's legacy was multiple championships and to be the greatest

(41:09):
player ever. And the reason that I don't believe he's
the greatest player of us because I've watched all of
these championships and they're not all the same. And you know,
like again, like the thing about KD wasn't that he
won the championships, wasn't that they won. It was that
he was the best player in the court, and that
he was better in the second half and guarding Lebron
and being guarded by Lebron. It was the context that

(41:31):
actually mattered to me. And I would say the same
thing about Kauai. I'm not gonna make a statement about
what it looked like until I actually see it. And
Durant and you notice obviously haven't played at a high level.
I agree with you, Durant was the best player in
those finals. However, you know it's easier to be that
great when you got Steph and Clay and Draymond. You
know the attention that they draw from you. You're going

(41:52):
with You're gonna go to the stat argument. I'm just
saying it was easier for he had an easier role
than Lebron in those finals. Okay, okay, we forget the
first year Lebron had his full slate of players. We'll
go inside the mind of Kevin Durant. Next in The
Herd One More Herd. The Herd streams twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week within the iHeart Radio
app search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever

(42:14):
you like. What up. Welcome in. This is the Herd,
wherever you may be and however you may be, making
this part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug
Gotlin filling in for Colin Calhard. If you're listening on
Fox Sports Radio, you're watching on Fox Sports One, or
of course listen to us anywhere in the world the

(42:35):
iHeart Radio app. Thank you so much for making us
part of your day. Colin's exclusive podcast is tomorrow, right
and I believe he had a conversation with Tom Verducci
from MLB on Fox and really really interesting. I'll i''m

(42:59):
gonna play for you upcoming in about fifteen minutes. But
it does, you know, like if you're paying attention to
all the baseball Dodgers are thirty one games over five hundred,
thirty one game, you're like checking the thirty one games
over five hundred. Now, look, some of this water will
find its level. They had five consecutive games that were

(43:22):
won by the Dodgers and walkoffs, and if you know
anything about baseball, generally, one run games have a tendency
to even out by the end of the year and
we're more than halfway through the season. Next week you
have the All Star Game from Cleveland, which of course
is on Fox. But like, do the math, You're like,
they could end up sixty games above five hundred. That's

(43:45):
it's it's craziness, but there's there's something interesting to how
they're building it. And I'll give you a team in
the NBA that may actually be able to do the
exact same thing that upcoming. With all the talk of
Kawhi Leonard, as we wait, we wait, and we wait,
it should be pointed out that I will grant you

(44:07):
Kawhi Leonard now the best player in the NBA. But
that's the only because we don't know what Kevin Durant's
going to be like when he returns. Kevin Durant has
led the league in scoring what four times over, He's
been a two time finals MVP. I would think, and
maybe I'm being presumptuous, I would think the Warriors would
have won a third championship this year had he played

(44:30):
and he was playing at his absolute peak level. It's
really interesting, Like our memories get very very short, and
they're playing the Clippers and he's not killing the Clippers.
Early on and the media starts asking him about playing
the Clippers and why he's not just scoring every time,

(44:51):
and apparently most in the media, and look, most people
that you don't watch regular season, end of season Golden
State Warriors games. But he was basically telling the truth. Hey,
last month the Sea and he really tried to buy
into the system moving the basketball's playing fewer minutes, averaging
only twenty six points a game. Hey, I'm just gonna
be one of the guys. I'm like, well, why don't
you just go and score forty? Like, okay, I'm Kevin Durant.

(45:14):
And then he did, and it was like charging. He
was like charging. Remember the Death Star got charged up right,
It's gonna take a second and then all of a
sudden just starts obliterating planets and races of people. That's
what he was doing. It was amazing what he was doing.
In the NBA playoffs. A matter of fact, before he
got hurt against Houston, he was the one guy who

(45:36):
they could count on to get a bucket. And there
was this discussion about whether or not they're better without him,
you know, because they swept Portland. Forgetting that Portland they
were gonna be they're gonna sweep Portland whether or not
they had him or didn't have him, and they had
to come from seventeen down twice in eighteen down to
beat Portland in the last three games. So look, I

(45:59):
think Kevin as the best player, but now he's torn
as killis tendon, and if you know what he's gonna
look like, I this is a expect the worst hope
for the best sort of scenario. I think because of
his body type, because he's seven feet tall, because he's
not one that puts on weight. He's explosive for a

(46:20):
seven footer, but it's not like he's, you know, a
tiny guard who's a jet who relies solely on explosiveness.
My guests, or maybe my hope would be that he
has as good a chance as anybody to return to
near or maybe even better for him than before. While
that sounds like blasphemy, Kevin Durant's ability to get off

(46:40):
his jump shot at any possible angle because of his
size and his strength. If you come off of this
type of injury, you may lose a bit in explosiveness,
but there's a My working theory is you should be
a better shooter because for a good portion of your recovery.
All you can do is shoot a basketball. You can't
do the explosive movements. But but I start to hear

(47:09):
this stuff and read this. Kendrick Perkins says that Draymond
Green spat led to Kevin Durant leaving the Warriors. There's
been rumors that now it wasn't didn't love playing for
Steve Kerr. Maybe what Bob Meyers said bothered him. Maybe
it was that he really yearned for those college type

(47:29):
atmosphere days like with the Thunder, Like when you remember
the Thunder, if you remember the stories and they were true.
They'd practice, then they'd work out for hours together. Then
they go back to something to his house, which was
at a golf course called Gallardia, and they his mom
would cook and they'd all sit around and play video
games and talk trash and go outside and shoot hoops

(47:49):
and sometimes roll back to the gym and do it
again and then go play games. That's what they did.
And now he gets to Golden State and they're grown ups.
Steph's got a family, kids, Clay Gus does his own thing,
and he and Draymond are close, but there's not the
sweat equity of having come up together like there is

(48:11):
with the Splash brothers and the rest of the guys
are all grown up with kids, wives, adults, adult type
of things, and they're in a big city where you
may one may live in San Francisco, the other may
live over the hill, you know, in Lafayette or Rinda.
Like that's not those aren't close to each other. They
may look close on a map, but it's not like
Oklahoma City, where you can live fifteen minutes away and
get there in fifteen minutes. So I think some of

(48:34):
this move is because he misses the camaraderie of everybody
being kind of about the same thing, and it's a
yearning for that. I don't know if he gets that,
and maybe this year off will help him. There's a book,
and I know Colin I think was one of the
first people to turn me on to Malcolm Gladwell a

(48:54):
long time ago, and among Malcolm Glodwell's bestsellers is called
The Tipping Point, and it's it's basically a study of
when something became an in thing, right, When did a
certain type of shoes like have you guys seen these
golden goose shoes? Goole are a familiar with Golden Goose shoes. Okay,

(49:20):
I do yourself a favor and google Golden Goose shoes.
You will feel a lot better about however expensive your
last sneaker purchase is when you look at these sneakers
and you realize they're like fake worn in fake converse
looking PROKD looking shoes that Hollywood types. And the guy
who sits in this chair, I saw him wearing some

(49:41):
of the other night when they that they went out
there to night and meet him Clay Travis and Todd Furman,
and I was like, dude wearing golden Goose shoes. He
has gone Hollywood. But I want to like, how did
the Golden Goose shoe thing become a thing? Was it
one person and then everybody was on Instagram? And then
everybody was it a Kardashian thing? Is that how it started?

(50:05):
The thing? Was Kevin Durant leaving And though there is
supposedly a tipping point, and maybe it is Draymond Greene
calling KD the B word and saying we won without you,
we can win if you leave. But the easy guests
and the easy guess is he brought in some baggage

(50:26):
because of where he played, how he grew up, what
he liked, what he didn't like, how he thought it
should be when he got there. There were some points
that were better than he ever thought on the court,
it was easier than it had ever been, and there
were times when it was harder than it had ever
been and uncomfortable. And did he love Steve Kerr and

(50:47):
the way he coached him? Probably not, Probably because Steve
Kirk challenged him to do things differently than he had
done it before. Rick Barnes didn't really challenge him. Scott
Brooks didn't really challenge him. Billy Donovan didn't really didn't
really challenge him, didn't didn't have the time to challenge him,
didn't have the equity to challenge him. Yet Kevin Rant
was a superstar. It's really hard. Scott Brooks a former

(51:10):
player and you know he was a former assistant who
assumed the job and they kind of grew up together.
Like it's just different than going to Steve Kerr, who's
played for Phil Jackson, who's played for Greg Popovich, who's
been a GM in the league. And though Steve Kerr
comes across as man Hi, I love that guy. I'm
guessing that Steve Kerr probably can say some things and

(51:33):
challenge you to do things that we're a little uncomfortable
to him. Do I think he loved every moment of
playing for Steve Kerr, No matter of fact, most great coaches,
you don't love every moment of it at the time,
you yearn for it when you leave. Do I think
that he loved the fact that Steph had a family
and Steph was kind of the golden boy when he

(51:54):
got there. No, but it probably helped KD find himself
a little bit and discover that he did, in fact
like things outside of basketball. He didn't have to hang
around his teammates all the time. He may think he
wants it back to the way it used to be,
But dude, once you're in your thirties, like sitting around
eating cheetos and playing video games when you're not hooping,
that's a that's a really small class of people you're

(52:16):
gonna do that with. He may think that he's chasing
New York City because if you've ever one of the
stories that Jay Williams put out was man, he loved
the energy of playing at Rucker Park or this other
kind of made up all star game when a game
at Rucker was canceled. Anybody who's ever visited New York's like, God,

(52:37):
I love the energy of the city. It's an amazing place.
And they do have a greater passion for basketball on
a daily basis than they do in Oakland or in
LA I mean, look, Clay Thompson was honest when he
said that the fans kind of became entitled and showed
up late. That's that's a reasonable. If you're in if

(52:58):
you can afford ORR tickets and you can afford to
live in San Francisco, then you can afford to show
up late to a game. It's just different. But just
because you want it doesn't mean you know what you're getting.
My guess is kind of like the tipping point. It's
all these things. It's not one thing. Draymond didn't chase Muway.

(53:18):
Steph Curry's family and not being really tight with him
off the court didn't chase Muway. Steve Kerr and his
relationship were lack thereof of the way, coach didn't chase
him away. Warriors fans loving the Splash Brothers and have
them having more equity than Chase Muway. Kadi's social media
misfires didn't chase him away Draymond Greens, but all of

(53:40):
it together and Draymond's thing was the tipping point. And
that's essentially how we got to where we are. And
while I'm fascinated and hopeful that he can return to
form and he's going to a place in Brooklyn that
everyone in sport in the NBA, you ask people who

(54:01):
has the best culture. They may not be mentioned first,
but they will be mentioned the Brooklyn Nets. But you
have two guys who have struggled to fit into other cultures,
right like Kyrie struggled with Boston's culture that was supposedly
solid before him and when he wasn't playing, Kde struggled

(54:24):
even though they're winning a couple of championships with the
Warriors culture. Now they're going to go into a culture
of overachievers, underrated guys. The Spencer Dinwitties who got hurt
in college and then made it for themselves in the NBA,
a franchise that was left in complete disarray by the
previous regime. Without first round picks and cap hell, they

(54:46):
had to take on bad contracts just to somehow stay
above water. That was the Brooklyn Nets to now where
they're the picture of how you rebuild after a basketball
cherinoble like trade like they had with the Celtics, and
those two guys are going to fix it and make

(55:06):
it better. I don't believe Draymond was personally responsible for
Katie leaving. I do believe that if you mirror it
to the Tipping Point, which is a book from Malcolm Gladwell,
it may have been the point that a tip, but
there are a lot of other factors which pushed it
to that direction. All right, coming up next, we have

(55:27):
reached that time of year where we look forward to
a Summer League game. It might be the most anticipated
Summer League game, well in recent memory, in this year's memory.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
in noon Eastern not a Empacific, on Fox Sports Radio

(55:50):
FS one and the iHeartRadio app Sunday. Their quest for
a record fourth World Cup has all come down to this.
Megan Rapino, Alex Morgan, the US women put their legacy
on the line against the Netherlands. The FIFA Women's World
Cup Final coverage begins Sunday at ten am Eastern on
Fox and the Fox Sports App and don't miss the

(56:17):
exclusive trailer debut of Disney's new movie Mulan Sunday on Fox.
It's now time for Empowered to Win, sponsored by Disney's
Mulan in theaters this March. All right, So I'm looking
at the New York Knicks and I don't agree with

(56:40):
what we're hearing out of New York in terms of
why they canceled their visit with Kawhi Leonard. I don't
know if you guys read this. Story came out about
a day ago, and it was that the New York
Knicks said, Hey, if we make the trip and it's
four and a half hours from Vegas to LA or
they just hop on a flight from Vegas to LA,

(57:02):
they had a chance to meet with Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi
would have conducted the interview with his sit down with
the Lakers, whether it's Lebron and Anthony Davis and Magic Johnson,
whoever he met with. Then he met with the Clippers
and their presentation, and then Knicks had an opportunity that

(57:23):
they passed on. And what they've said is, look, we
didn't think we were going to get him, and so
we passed on it because that would have prohibited us
from signing free agents, much the way it's prohibited the
Lakers from signing some other free agents. I mean, look,
I don't know Wayne Ellington or Kawhi Leonard. Like Wayne

(57:44):
Ellington couldn't have waited a day. Of course he could
have to me, I would always do, I would always
do the sit down, always, always, always. It's a big
reason that I'm not a proponent of people, even the
anti trumpers who won't go and go to the White
House for a celebration when they win a championship. If
you have a chance to have even if it's a

(58:06):
slight chance to have a one on one, even if
you don't think you're gonna change their mind, you're never
gonna get that audience again. And if you're the Knicks,
you're never gonna get that audience again. Sit down, kick
the tires, see how it goes. He could make him
tell you know, pretty woman at the bar, no ring

(58:27):
on her finger, you're not you're not married, engaged or
with a woman like go up and take a shot.
Never know, you never know what is? What is the
Michael Jordan line? You miss one hundred perhot, one hundred
percent of the shots you don't take. But we're gonna
see the Knicks tonight and you're going to see more

(58:51):
Knicks NBA players than you will Pelicans NBA players. RJ. Barrett,
Mitchell Robinson of course felt like a steal they got
last year Kevin Knox. Like I think in the ways
to build, I'm not sure New York isn't in a

(59:13):
better spot then they would be had had they gone
out and gotten free agents. Maybe if they got Kevin Durant,
maybe because he would have sat a year and they
would have been bad, and these same players would have
had a chance to kind of make a name for
themselves and grow in terms of confidence. But I actually
understand if you're the New York Knicks, I get it.

(59:36):
I go back in look at their last twenty years
of history and from Amri Stademeyer to Eddie Curry who
had the heart problem, they couldn't ensure either those contracts.
And that's one of the things that gave the Knicks
the hebgbs is you couldn't insure a Kevin Durant contract.
Do people know how that works? Like when you have
a guaranteed contract, if you get hurt, the team doesn't

(59:58):
pay one hundred percent of the bill. Insurance pays the
bill unless he can't be insured. Eddie Curries couldn't be insured,
Marie Stodemeyers because his knee couldn't be insured. Mean, you
go back and look, remember they just sang Joe Kim
Noah a couple of years ago. Joe Kim Noah could
not play basketball anymore. He was washed up. He was

(01:00:20):
not the same. And that doesn't mean I think Kevin
Durant will be Joe Kim Noah when he returns. But
there's a there's a possibility, maybe even a likelihood, that
he is never what he was being a year older
into his thirties, multiple foot injuries, torn akilles tendon, there's

(01:00:42):
a distinct possibility he does not return to all pro
or all pro level status, maybe even all Star level
status possibility. So look, Stefan Marbury couldn't get along with anybody.
You couldn't win with him in the NBA. Carmelo Anthony,
you know, he got nervous over the CBA expiring. They

(01:01:03):
trade away all of their young players to get Carmelo.
That didn't work. The Alan Houston contract didn't work. Eddie
Curry obviously because of health issues, and Mari Stodhomar and
Joe Kim Noah like, if I'm there, I understand, I
actually understand being hesitant to sign KD to a max
contract deal, and so you build organically with draft picks.

(01:01:27):
This is how the Warriors were in fact built. Idiots
like me thought, I don't know about Steph Curry, and
some of the same idiots are saying, I don't know.
I like ary J. Barrett, but little stiff in the
hips not a good enough shooter to be kind of
a James Harden, Like, if he was such a winner,

(01:01:48):
why didn't he win when he had the ball in
his hands in college. This is the way you build.
This is the way you build for a long time.
You got guys under rookie troll rookie contracts, and we'll
see what this next wave of Nicks looked like tonight.
And I actually think you're gonna be more impressed than
you would have thought, because coming into the year, r J.

(01:02:12):
Barrett was the dude and everybody else was a secondary thought.
And he'll get to walk into a situation where he'll
be the guy. My fear for r J. Barrett was
if he was playing with it Kevin Durant. He wouldn't
get to be the guy, and that's not bringing out
the best in r J. Now. I don't know if
he can be good enough when he's the guy. But
we'll see. You get a chance to improve and he'll

(01:02:34):
get a chance to learn under fire on the fly
starting to night against the Pelicans and Zion Williamson. Let's
get to Rick Pooker is going to join us in
a second but first year's veteran news man John Goulet, No, no,
this is the herd Line news. So Andrew Iguadala, throughout
his career has been asked to guard a lot of
the best players in the league. He even won an

(01:02:57):
NBA Finals MVP for defending Lebron on and holding Lebron
to thirty six points a game in that series. On CNBC,
Iguadala talked about who was the toughest player to defend.
He said, quote, Lebron's able to make all his teammates
take them to another level in terms of their play.
He enhances all teammates like no other player I've seen.
Lebron's able to do that and get thirty points, which

(01:03:19):
kind of makes you scared to help, So it's kind
of like you're on an island with him. But overall,
Kobe Bryant is the hardest I had to guard. I'm
sure Kobe agrees with that. I know You've talked to
Kobe before a couple of times. Yes, do you do
you agree with it? I know you didn't guard these guys.
Do you think Kobe was the toughest? Or he may
be buttering up the fan base of the team he

(01:03:41):
might potentially join. Do you know? Do you know who
Andrea Gudala's agent was before his current agent? He is
currently the GM of the Lakers, Rob Polinka right right,
And like most people in the sport, expect Andrea Dalai
get bought out by the Memphis Grizzlies yep, and then
end up with the Lakers yea, who are run by

(01:04:02):
Rob Polinka. And Rob Polinka's the guy he calls on
most for basketball knowledge Kobe Bryant, and the guy who
he employs or basketball skill is Lebron James. Do I
think that? Does that mean that Andre Goodall is not
telling the truth from his perspective? No, No, who would
know better than him? Who would know better than him?

(01:04:23):
So I'm not gonna question him. I would say, Kevin
Durant's got to be a harder matchup. He's not the
passer of Lebron, but he's kind of impossible to guard
because remember what Iguadala was able to do, same thing
that Kawhi and the Spurs were able to do, is
make Lebron James take pull up jump shots and make
him think about it. And sometimes that works because his

(01:04:45):
confidence had gone. I think he's a better shooter now.
I'm more confident now, but his contract, the confidence used
to wax and Wayne. I remember hearing an interview with
Kobe where he said Durant was the toughest cover for
him because early on he was fine, but by the
end of Kobe's career, he wasn't the same defender, and
Durand become unstoppable. Right, You can't be as physical as
you used to be either, and you used to be

(01:05:05):
able to be physical with Durant. You still can't summon
the playoffs, and you know, the question on him was
strength and then they abile to shoot to three his health,
there is no defend again. That's the thing. He's seven
foot tall. Yes, yeah, I mean, here's this hesitation pull up,
like what are you gonna what? Do you just hope
he misses, But a lot of those guys you kind
of hope he misses. The thing about Kobe that was
out was always impressive you really watched him, was he

(01:05:28):
very rarely got an open shot, like everything was off
up shot, fake, fade away, like there was no just
clean catch and shoot, Oh he's open, it's in. And
it's interesting. I had a friend with the Celtics who
told me that if you watch Kyrie Irving workout, he
never takes an on balance shot when he's doing his

(01:05:48):
own private workouts. And he asked him why, and he's like, well,
I know I can make wide open ones. I just
never get any wide open ones. So I practice the
ones that I might get in the game, and that's
why I can make them from all angles. It's kind
of the Kobe Bryant believe But I have no reason
to believe Andrew Goodell as a liar. But he may
be over inflating and overvaluing those two Laker connections for

(01:06:10):
a reason. So, as you know, speaking of the Lakers,
they're going to have a tough time putting together a
deep roster now that all the top free agents and
role players have already signed with the team. Because of this,
some players we all thought were done with the NBA
have emerged as potential Lakers. According to ESPN's Jordan Schultz,
mante Ellis and Amari Stodemeyer are attempting NBA comebacks and

(01:06:34):
have their eyes on the Lakers. The answer to your
next question is Amari last played in fifteen sixteen and
Monte Alis last played in sixteen seventeen. I don't know
that those two are the answer to the Lakers depth problems.
But are they going to be able to find out
enough guys that can play? Yeah? They had, well let's

(01:06:55):
say they look. I like Jared Dudley, everybody loves I know,
he's on the show the other day. I think Jared
Dudley's a great culture and character guy, san Diego dude,
But like, I don't know how much he can play
basketball anymore. And that's about at the limit in terms
of like once you're when you're done. Yeah, hard, But
Jared Dudley, we talked Iguadalla. Maybe Korver Jr. Smith will

(01:07:19):
probably be bought out. Like you're starting to see, um,
you know you're you're Alex Caruso. I think they really
want back. He's a restricted free agency sumner, retired guy.
Go maybe. Oh, I think Lebron can talk to d
Wade into play half a season. Do you wait? Still
had a little left? And you know their sons are
gonna play together at Sierra Canyon. He'll be out here anyway. Hey, listen,

(01:07:39):
you're in town. What do you? What do you? What?
Do you think? You want to want to come play tonight?
Like you it's like a men's league thing. They'd be
like a group text, like who's in for tonight? Like,
ah my back, I gotta recital. I can't make it.
It would be funny if like Carmelo moved out the
Duane Wade, you got the Banana boat crew kind of
half half, sort of together again. Somehow. I think they'll

(01:08:00):
blet together. The issue is going to be older dudes
get hurt more often. They just do. And injuries derailed
that season as much as anything else last year. So
I don't know how healthy they'll be, But I do
know from the people. I know what the Lakers. If
Lebron okay, it wants you, it's because he thinks you

(01:08:22):
can help them. Win the playoffs, He's not as concerned
with the regular season. And finally, the two thousand and
eight Celtics, who want to title against the Lakers, got
together for a reunion dinner this week. Kendrick Perkins was there.
He put out the picture on social media, and there
was Damn Cassell and Paul Pierce and Jean Rondo and
Kevin Garnett and noticeably absent the third member of the

(01:08:42):
Big Three, ray Allen. Rondo, was always held a grudge
that he left the Celtics for the Heat. Kevin Garnett
deleted his number from his phone. He was so upset
that he did that. We're now eleven years passed their
last title and what was it, I mean, eight nine
years since he left them. Holding a grudge a little
too long. Maybe most players get over stuff like that.

(01:09:05):
I don't think most players actually do get over stuff
like that. To not talk to him, Yeah, I don't
think they. I don't think they really do. Like Steve
Young and Joe Montana are not boys, but they weren't
boys to start. I understand, okay, I mean, Joe Montana
is not over the fact that he was sent to
Kansas City. He's still mad at the forty because he's like,
that was my fifth super Bowl, that Steve Young one.

(01:09:27):
So he's still so no. I like, look, we want
these people. What made Kevin Garnett great is what makes
him plod right. I mean, he was penchilant, he was petty.
You know, played angry, he played angry, played angry, and
you know he's taking it out his anger on Ray Allen.

(01:09:48):
Um so, and by the way, Ray Allen was smart
to do we did. I'll say this about got another title.
A lot of it we're gonna talk about. And he
hit arguably the biggest shot, that's arguably the biggest shot
in the last twenty five years in the NBA, Like
it's Jordan shot, but even Jordan shot that would have
gone to a game seven, like they were done, they
were dead in the water, and he hits a three

(01:10:08):
and they come back and win. They win the game
and then win in Game seven. Um but I would
argue that that big three, when it came together, was
the best fit, best fit of inside, outside, shooting, one
on one and all around. I mean, Garnett was an

(01:10:28):
unbelievable all around weapon at both ends of the floor.
That might be the best fit of any of the
Big three. Not the best talent, sure, right, but the
best fit yeah, um, the most talented. Mike We'll get
to this a little bit later, said, it's an interesting list.
Let's John Gulay with the news. Well, that's the news,
and thanks for stopping by. The third line news. We're

(01:10:51):
waiting on Rick Buker. I don't I don't see Rick Buker.
Is Rick Buker writing another article or recording another podcast?
All right, there's now here he is. He's a Fox
Sports one analyst, and um, we're waiting on him, much
like the rest of the world is waiting on Kawhi Leonard.
As a well traveled many, do you have news to break?

(01:11:12):
Unless you have news to break, you don't have news
to cover. We don't. Huh, Well, I don't know if
this counts is news? Okay, been corresponding with a member
of the Lakers organization who thinks he's going to Toronto.
So I don't know whether whether they're clued in. I

(01:11:32):
don't know whether it's known throughout the organization. But there's
let's put it this way, there's not a consensus within
the Lakers as far as confidence is concerned. That Kawhi
Leonard's going to wind up in a purple and gold uniform.
It is fascinating, and this is like, look, it doesn't
work this way anymore in college basketball, but they used to.

(01:11:54):
There's a reason that they always try to get you
to commit on campus. Yeah, because the second you go,
every visit you have is going to be better than
the next you go. You're like, I love this place. Yeah,
you know. I mean I remember when I when I
visited Notre Dame. I had never I wasn't a Notre
Dame fan growing up. I'd never been to South and
Indiana and I only went because they're playing Michigan in
football and I and I walk. I never forget. Like

(01:12:17):
flying in Chicago, we all get on a plane, a
little private plane that has the Golden Dome on the
on the tail, and we we go over the lake
and we go around South Bend. They show you the stadium.
You land, you go right to the President's office. At
the time, Monk Malloy was the president and he was
a big basketball guy. He knew everybody's name, shook your hand,
looked you in the eye, talked to you about basketball.

(01:12:38):
And then you go to the pep rally and before
the Notre Dame Michigan football pep rally, Lou holtzwalks and
he goes Doug Gottlieb Touching high School. You pay for
Andy grad. You're a great young point We need a
point guard here. We join the biggest conference. If you
want a chance to play for Don McCloud, coach, this
is an unbelievable applica. I gotta go out there. We're
just hopeful we can line up on your center. Make

(01:12:59):
sure that quarterback he's behind the center, not behind the guard.
But I expect you to sign a university, Notre Dame.
It's the greatest university on earth. And I was like
those my name, where do I sign? Right? So the
I know that some of you guys. When I say
you guys, I'm lumping you in with there's like five
six guys that we all trust. Right. Insider says you

(01:13:22):
said he was going to the Lakers. It might be
a little longer, but love a list. But okay, um
with ten ten people men and women, right, But there's
a very good chance list is shorter. My bad. Then
there's a couple of people you trust and they and
maybe it did feel like the Lakers. After the Lakers visit. Yes,
but then he goes to Toronto and he only wants

(01:13:43):
to do I want to do right. I want to
look him in the eye. They traded for me with
no promises. We want a championship, right. Could it be
the old recruiting thing where the last visit is the
most important visit With almost anybody else, I would say yes,
but Kawhi really is about his own mind. The fact
that it is taking as long as it is now

(01:14:05):
suggests and people around the league have taken as an
indicator that he's staying. Because if it was a matter
of I need to hear everybody's pitch and then make
a decision, it really would be I'm going back to Toronto.
They didn't need to make a tremendous pitch. He's been
there for a year, He's won a championship, he knows
everything he needs to know about that organization. It would

(01:14:29):
have been more I'm flying back. I'm going to give
them the opportunity to give the last say because I
said I would, But I know it's waiting for me
in La. So this is really a matter of hearing
their pitch and then saying, Hey, you know what, I've
made up my mind. This is what I'm doing. The
fact that he has extended it beyond this is an

(01:14:49):
indicator to people in the league that he is staying
in Toronto. The questions, there's still a host of questions
with the Lakers. People are folk on Anthony Davis and
Lebron James, but Frank Vogel and the coaching staff not
involved in any of these meetings. How is the rest
of the roster going to be filled out? I will

(01:15:13):
figure it out. Judy Cito comes in. She's worked on Kobe.
Kobe has had both Alex mckeckney and Judy work on him,
so he gets a little bit of a sense of
what the health thing is. But again he's got firsthand
knowledge with Alex mckeckney, and I keep bringing that name up.
He's the director of sports science for the Raptors, assistant coach,

(01:15:34):
but basically he is the personal thought edition he's the
body guy for Kauhi and I've seen the two of
them work together. I've known Alex for years. The trust
that I see between those two and for knowing what
is important to quite at this point, which is I
don't want to go through another season where I only
play nine games. I want to play. All right, we're

(01:15:55):
gonna continue with this discussion. Plus I want to get
into the Knicks if they actually made the right decision
to not offer KD the max, what the nets will?
Will that next thing work? I think that's fascinating. Will
the next thing work? And if the Lakers don't get
Kawhill it will? Will the Anthony Davis thing. Let's get

(01:16:17):
to all that next. Rick Buker Doug gotlieb Let's text,
This is the Herd. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Herd weekdays and noon Easter not a Empacific.
Doug gottlieb Been for column This is the Herd on
Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports one, the iHeartRadio app. My
steam colleague from half Moon Bay, California. Rick Buker, Rick
not lately been an LA guy? Have been? Have been

(01:16:39):
an LA guy. I gotta get you down to do
a heeny, get you on the board. Um okay, Buke.
So let's let's get to the Lakers because it is
fascinating on how we've kind of glossed over that you
know you're you're reading and again I take your word
for it, like you're reading all of these reports, and

(01:16:59):
here they are again not including Frank Vogel or Rob
Polinka in the discussions with a potential star player, and
their handcuff, not being able to put a team around
Lebron and Anthony Davis because they're waiting on Kawhi Leonard. Right,
what's the sense of what's going on with the Lakers
outside of their pursuit of Kawhi Leonard. It's all about

(01:17:19):
Kawhi Leonard. I mean, that's that's the heart of it.
And so there and as Kawhi looks at this, I'm
sure Uncle Dennis and Kauai are doing their due diligence.
There are a lot of questions there in terms of
who's running it. I said this from the very beginning.
How is it that you can have a guy like
Magic Johnson who accuses Rob Polinka the GM of stabbing

(01:17:43):
him in the back, does so publicly, but then Magic
is going to come out and say, hey, you should
go work with these guys. I get that. It's he's
a Laker for life and he's you know, beholden to
the organization. But still you're asking a guy to go
work with someone that you said was a backstammer. You

(01:18:04):
know what, it reminds me. It reminds me of um
again and these this reference now becomes dated. Caddyshack. Yeah,
when Roddy Dangerfield walks into the the pro shop and says, oh,
look at this this hat. This is the worst looking
at I've ever seen. When do you get a free
bullet soup in this hat? And he turns around and
he sees the you know, the sails. Oh but it

(01:18:25):
looks good on you. Yeah, it's like, this is the
worst fanchise I've ever seen. Oh but Kawhi, it looks
good on you. Like, do we this Kauh? I think
he's the dumbest human being on earth? Like yeah, okay,
So they don't get Kauhi, what does their team look like?
That's where it really gets difficult, because I think there
are a lot of guys DeAndre Iguadala types who if

(01:18:47):
Kauai gets there, they suddenly look at the opportunity, Well,
let's go get another ring. If Kauai is not there,
then that doesn't have the same appeal. And I think
you're gonna see those type of veterans disperse and you'll
have a good team. You could have a competitive team.
You now maybe have to up your offer to a

(01:19:09):
Rajon Rondo who's been offered a minimum to come back
and hasn't hasn't agreed to that yet. You're gonna have
to spend some of that money to get guys that
you had otherwise hope would come there on the good
will of winning a ring. You said, just sit down
this five seven minutes ago. You said, somebody within the
Lakers organization you would just talk to you thinks he's

(01:19:30):
going to Toronto. You just ask you though, in your
basketball opinion, yes, what do you think the best place
for him is right now? I would say Toronto simply
because he's familiar with them. They have young players like
Pascoe Siakam and Fred Van Vliet who I would expect
are going to get better. He has a familiarity with
Nick Nurse and vice versa. He's worked things out with

(01:19:52):
Kyle Lowry, and just in terms of what he's allowed
to do, I mean, San Antonio, he had to do
what we would expect he'd have to do if he
goes to the Lakers, which is not everything's run for you.
Sometimes you're gonna have to play off the ball and
do you are you really comfortable with that at this point?
You know this, Doug once, once you get a taste

(01:20:12):
of you get to make decisions of personal freedom, you
get to play. And I get where Lebron has said
that he will defer, But the reality is you have
Frank Vogel and I keep mentioning his name. No offense
to Frank, but I don't see Frank being able to
ride heard on on Lebron and and A D and Kauhi,

(01:20:33):
it's gonna it's gonna end up being the Lebron show
as it always is. Do you what do you think
of the decision that Nicks made? And look, some of
this is trying to craft away in which they're like,
well we didn't know about his his Achilles tendant. But
I I personally I kind of buy it like they've
they've bought in a bad bail of goods for lack
of a better term, they bought the Brooklyn Bridge before right, Sure,

(01:20:55):
Amaris stought him. No, I don't worry his knee's fine, No,
it's it's it's not fine, Eddy Curry. Don't worry about
his heart not a problem, it is a problem. Did
the Knicks actually make the right decision potentially. I mean,
there's still a team to be built. There's still the
next step to be taken. But in April May, before

(01:21:16):
the Achilles injury, they were working under the assumption, for
good reason, that Kevin Durant was going to be in
New York Nick and they were comfortable with the idea
of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving coming as a package
because Kyrie Irving wouldn't be the leader of the team,

(01:21:36):
he wouldn't be the lone star on the team. The
Achilles changed everything, and it changed everything in the last
week or two prior to free agency. Think about this,
The Achilles injury changed who the champion was. And because
of who the champion was, it might have changed where
Kawhi Leonard plays next year, and it changes where Kevin

(01:21:57):
Durant likely plays, and it might might have changed where
either Kemba Walker or Kyrie Irving pel Like, that's how
big that injury actually actually was. All Right, a last
thing tonight, We're gonna see RJ. Barrett, Zion Williamson. The
Nicks have an NBA roster, the Pelicans don't. This is
the thing that gets me is that we're it's being

(01:22:19):
presented as RJ versus Zion, right, it's really gonna be
Mitchell Robinson versus Zion potentially. And this is what I
It's always amazing to me to watch guys who have
played in the NBA, even if they haven't played, even
though they're just spent a year in the NBA, completely
different days, and they come back to Summer League and

(01:22:41):
they dominate, right right. It's like when you played at college,
you go back to high school. Yeah, we go to
high school party and you're like, man, this is a
little bit too easy. Rick Buker from Fox Sports One
all of our shows and Fox Sports Radium Bleach Report.
Thanks so much, Puke. I'll tell you why the Lakers
should be the third choice for Kawhi Leonard. Next. Herd
one More Heard. The Herd streams twenty four hours a day,

(01:23:03):
seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app. Search Herd
to listen live or on demand whenever you like. What up?
Welcome in. This is the Herd, wherever you may be
and however you may be making as part of your day.
Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlieb filling in for Colin Calherd.

(01:23:25):
Uncle Colin will be back on Monday. What calling God right?
What calling God wrong? And we'll see where Kawhi Leonard goes.
We'll dig in to that in one moment. Listening on
the iHeartRadio app on Fox Sports Tradio Fox Sports One.
Thanks so much for making us part of your day.
You can hit me up on Twitter at Gottleib Show.
My show runs usually following this show on most Fox

(01:23:47):
Sports Tradio affiliates from three to six Eastern Time, The
Doug Gottleib Show, Don't be Afraid to download the All
Ball Podcast. Had a great talk with Dan Wiki from
the La Times regarding Kawhi Leonard and with Pat Are,
assistant GM of the Pistons, some really interesting stuff. One
bite I'll play you hopefully later on this hour about
where the NBA has gone and if it will ever

(01:24:10):
go back. That upcoming. But we're waiting, unlike Godot, where
Goodot never came, We're waiting on Kauai. Kawai will in fact,
at some point make a decision. And while it feels
like forever, let's just be honest, he's on his own schedule,
and you know, if he announced today, it kind of

(01:24:32):
would make a little bit of sense because it's the
news dump Friday, right holiday weekend. On a Friday in
the afternoon, go about your business. You know, you feel
like you couldn't leave Canada on July first, on Canada
to Day, and you couldn't leave the United States on
the fourth of July, our day of independence, and so
you kind of remove yourself and you look back. Historically,

(01:24:54):
a lot of these decisions have been made a little
bit later on in July while we're rushing Kauai. It
may seem that way, but the reality is other people
rushed to make a quick decision. I'm a native. If
I said my hometowns, I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

(01:25:15):
I consider Stillwater, Oklahoma, like an adopted hometown. But the
better part of my childhood in the age of six
to eighteen, was spent in the city of Orange in
Orange County, California. I know southern California sports, especially know
southern California hoop scene, and I understand the idea of

(01:25:38):
Kawhi Leonard coming back as conquering hero. I get it.
He was at MLKA High School in Riverside, California. He
was an unsigned Seniors Gatorade Player of the Year, and
yet he wasn't a McDonald's All American. He wasn't offered
a scholarship by USC, UCLA, or cal the three biggest

(01:25:59):
Pack twelve school, and Stanford obviously either as well. It
doesn't diminish what he was able to do at Santa
Use State, and for a time Sandy U State was
probably the best basketball program in the state of California.
But to not be offered a scholarship by the Pac
ten which became the Pac twelve, and then to come
back in riding in on a white horse with two

(01:26:20):
finals MVPs, an entire city begging you to play for
either one of their pro teams. It's a pretty powerful statement,
right to have an overlooked part of Southern California, overlooked
player who got better and better and better and better,
and now I would make the argument, is the best
player in the NBA to come back home as conquering hero.

(01:26:42):
It's a pretty cool statement. But by my estimation, the
Lakers should probably be the third option. You can come
back to Southern California and be a Clipper, And why
that doesn't seem cool to those of us who grew
up in the area. You're like, who chooses the Clippers
over the Lakers. It's about fit more than anything, their culture,

(01:27:05):
their style, even the fact that the Clippers are kind
of under the radar, right there's no banners. The Clippers
have no banners in their own arena because there's no
banners that you can't hang second round playoff appearance banners.
There's no retired numbers, there's no markings of history because

(01:27:25):
there's no good history really to mark. Oh hey, remember
when we drafted Danny Fairier Danny Manning and there was
the Clipper curse? Remember that? Remember we were one of
the best teams in the NBA, but Chris Paul got
hurt or Blake Griffin got hurt. Remember that? Like, you
don't have that, but that shouldn't matter. The team is
coached by Doc Rivers, who's one of the few coaches

(01:27:48):
in the NBA that has a championship ring. It's it's
you know, run or consulted with by Jerry West. The
owner is beloved because hell, he overpaid by a billion
dollars for the team. You know, I got twelve, here's
two and a half, even though it's only worth one
and a half. Sure, by right, I mean the GM's

(01:28:12):
done a great job. The scouting departments done a tremendous job.
And by the way, they've had guys like Trent reddon
have a chance to leave the Clippers and go be
a part of others and they haven't left. Why because
everyone's all in on this thing. Patrick Beverley comes back,
Shay Guilt's Alexander's going to be a star, like they
got all these things. I understand it's not the Lakers,

(01:28:33):
but it's a better fit. Like, look, if you sold
me on, can you come back home to be a
part of the Lakers. Normally most guys would say hell yeah.
And then you say you can play with Lebron. Oh yeah,
then you can play with Anthony Davis. Sign me up.
But then you start to like open the hood and
you look inside, like woo smoke coming out from under

(01:29:00):
that hood. You know. Magic resigned without telling anybody before
their last game so they couldn't have exit interviews. Magic
goes on TV twice saying that the current president is
a backstabber, that president is not involved in any of
the discussions with Kawhi. Leonard, the new head coach, was

(01:29:21):
like the third choice, and though he's a good dude
and a good coach, no one has any idea how
that will actually work with Lebron James since they've never
worked together and it wasn't Lebron James's first, maybe even
second choice. They're the only team without an assistant GM,

(01:29:42):
and yet they have to find a roster. They have
to creatively find a roster around these guys. They only
have five players under contract. Whoever's played with Lebron James
has received the brunt of the brunt of the blame
when things don't go well, and a limitum out of
praise when they do go well, and Lebron is selling

(01:30:03):
you on hey, don't worry, I'll let you take over
the team, when that's never actually happened ever in Lebron
James's life. I'm not talking about taxes or traffic or
anything of that nature. But you got an organization which
has had in fighting, You have a player that's only
played one way. You have a limited ability to go

(01:30:27):
and fill out the rest of the roster. And if
the question is can I win, the answer in Toronto,
and I will grant you Toronto's not as good as
I'm like they wouldn't be the NBA champions if they
were in the West, or if Golden State gotn't got hurt.
But they are. So can you win? Yeah, of course
you can't. You can do it again. You can run

(01:30:49):
it back, and you'll be in the conversation when you
do it again. I don't know. Can it take time off?
And while you've had people try and convince me that, well,
with the Lakers you can take more time off because
they got more star players. There's no other star player
with the Raptors, no other star player, And yet he
took twenty two games off. They finished in second with

(01:31:10):
the second best record in the league, and they had
home court advantage in the NBA Finals and they didn't
need it to beat the Bucks. Can you win yes?
Can you get along with your coach? Yes? Is the
organization solid yes? Do you know where you're going to
work and what the team's gonna look like and how
you're gonna play yes. Is it a style that benefits

(01:31:31):
your style? Yes? Are you important yes? As basketball important? Yes.
If you're going to make a decision based upon the
weather outside, okay, a life changing decision based upon the
fact that it's going to be cold in the winter
when you spend your time working indoors, if you stay

(01:31:54):
forty one nights out of the year in the best
hotels in the States, possible, Okay, Like, if that's the
basis of your decision, I can't argue with it. Can
if you're gonna argue taxes where the taxes are more so,
even though I can sign for one more year and
I'll actually make less money, like okay, But if the

(01:32:15):
question is about can I win? Can I be me?
Do I fit? And oh yeah, by the way, isn't
this kind of what the sport has always been about?
My team and my guys are better than your team
and your guys. I wasn't bothered or ticked off when
Kevin Durant left, but I did understand what it looked like,

(01:32:39):
arguably the best player in the league joining arguably the
best team in the league, making kind of superpowers unite,
and it made them almost impossible, barring injury, impossible to
beat in a seven game series. But that doesn't mean
that's what the sport or any sport should be about,

(01:32:59):
and that's shouldn't be what Kawhi Leonard is looking for.
By my estimation, He's already proven he can do it
on his own. Why does he have to join somebody else?
Why does he have to join a culture that is
not established? And if he wants to be in southern California,
there's a team that plays in the same arena that
is perfectly built for him in his style of play

(01:33:22):
and lifestyle. I could be wrong, but I look at
it and I say Lakers aren't a terrible option, but
they're not the best option. They're not the second best option.
If winning is what it's about, and knowing what you're
going to get and knowing how you have to play,
and knowing you have to have the basketball is what

(01:33:42):
it's about. Toronto's the best option if you want to
combine all those things, and where you live is more
important than the Clippers of the second best option. And
if you think his brand has been hurt based upon
playing in San Antonio, playing in Toronto, the only thing
that hurts Kawhi Leonard brand is the fact that Kawhi

(01:34:06):
Leonard doesn't speak to anybody. No one knows him. He
doesn't want people to, which is fine, but that's a
hard sale. On Madison Avenue, Kawhi Leonard isn't the signature
spokesperson for New Balance for any other reason, then nobody

(01:34:26):
knows anything about his personality. If Nike wanted him, they
would have kept him, but they've probably felt like it
was a hard sale. No matter how ridiculously talented at
both ends of the floor he is. He's the best
player in the NBA. He has the freedom and ability
to choose any city he wants to play it. He

(01:34:47):
can't come back home. I'm not gonna sit here and
kill him for whatever he decides, but I will stay
from a basketball perspective, what more could you want them?
What either Toronto or the Clippers have provided you? And
if you go to the Lakers, dude, you've been recruited.
It's been snake oil sales because the same guy who's

(01:35:10):
recruiting you and Magic Johnson is the same guy who
just crushed the organization from being dysfunctional, being insular, and
being run by a guy that he doesn't personally trust
and he called a backstabber. Like, wait, Magic, you're selling
me on a thing that you just quit and left,
and on a guy who I'm not meeting with but

(01:35:30):
you said you didn't trust. And look, I think Plinka
is being made out to be the bad guy, which
he has not. Magic didn't want to work at a
job that is, in fact a job you have to
show up at. I'm not saying that Magic is the
good guy. Magic is trying to use this for a
personal win. If Kawhi doesn't go there, Magic will be like, look,

(01:35:51):
I set it up, I gave you the meeting. I
did all I could, but they couldn't close. He ends
up winning either way. But man, that that shiny car.
You look under the hood and it's got two guys
and Kuzma, who I like. But that doesn't feel like
a championship team or championship culture. When you're when you're

(01:36:12):
making the pitch of the team and style you're gonna play,
and the team you're gonna build, strike anybody else at
is odd that the head coach and the president of
basketball operations are not included in those meetings. Hey, all right,
Coming up next, Jim Jackson will stop by. I'll ask

(01:36:35):
him how Kawhi's legacy plays a factor in his decision.
That's upcoming next. Be sure to catch live editions of
The Herd weekdays and noon Easter nine am Pacific Doug
Gotlieban for Colin. This is the herd Fox Sports Radio,
Fox Sports One, iHeartRadio app. He is the ageless one.
He is a league college basketball analyst, an NBA analyst

(01:36:56):
on all things Fox Sports. He's the one and only
Jim Jackson. He joins, he covers the Big Three, he
covers the NCA term, he does, He does it all.
What do you think, Like We're sitting here and we
were just waiting, waiting, waiting. What you think? I think
he stays. But let's back up. How about this from

(01:37:16):
a perspective, if that I don't know if Kawai's camp
looked at it in this way, but if Kawhi makes
a decision Sunday or Monday, he falls into the same
pile with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and then
get a lot of press. But since this thing has
been stretched out all across the media outlets, is all

(01:37:38):
about Kauai. So from a marketing perspective, you couldn't have
it better because everything leading up to this is all
about the quais, the summer Kawhai. Now where before it
was all about where's Durant going? You know? So I
don't know if his camp kind of played that out
or said this is how we're going to do it.
They had to do the interviews. But strategically, I think
it's awesome because all we're talking about, as Kauai, what

(01:38:01):
would you do? Well, I want you to put that. Yeah,
I don't want you to carry his burdens or his bag.
You're you personally. You played him with two different teams.
All right, So you're in Toronto, you win a championship,
you have la Is Home, you have Clippers, you got Lakers,
you got Raptors. What would you do the person I am.
I'm a real loyal person, okay, to a fault at times.

(01:38:24):
And if I'm in Toronto and we've won, They've given
me everything I've asked for. They proved to me that
we can win a championship. The management has proved that
they'll do whatever it takes to win. We have a
great staff, a great team. I would stay. I'm in
the East. I got a chance to run it again. Yes,
teams have gotten better, but so can we. That's me personally. Now.
Kauai talked about, as you know, a desire to play

(01:38:48):
for the Lakers when he was at San Antonio and
so that has some value in regards to what he
wants to do. But for me, sometimes the grass is
not always greener on the on the other side, and
plus Toronto can pay me more. So unless there's a
sign and trade opportunity to go to another team, what
if he goes to the Lakers, would it work? Like

(01:39:09):
I think they'd win. But like you know, how is
in basketball when you're used to having the ball in
your hands and like Lebron can say like, hey man,
you know eventually it's gonna be your team and I'll
be the point guard, Like yeah, but that means Lebron
sets everybody up. You know, he doesn't mind you taking
the big shot, but he wants to pass you to
take the big shot, whereas that's not how kind of

(01:39:30):
what Kawhi has evolved into. Does that actually work together?
You know, I'm not for sure because even though Lebron
has gotten older, you think about the year he still had.
You know, this year some career highs and a lot
of this categories Cisco categories okay, And it's extremely difficult
when you're a ball handler creator like Kawahi is because
one of the big questions you know, we asked, and

(01:39:52):
I asked myself, could Kauai put a team on his back?
We didn't really see it in San Antonio because he
didn't have to, and he answered that question that he could.
So now you're talking about taking that away to some
degree if you go to the Lakers, because Lebron is
effective with the ball in his hand at the end
of the day. Okay, that's you know, that's that's the difference.

(01:40:13):
And I don't know. I'm not saying it couldn't work.
That three would have to figure things out because Anthony
Davis has to have a ball. Would you get the
same Kawhi Leonard that we saw in Toronto? I don't
think we would. I think we'll see it in Spurts. Yeah.
I also kind of worry Anthony Davis stands to lose
the most right if he because Anthony Davis runs the
risk of becoming Chris Boss standing the corner will come

(01:40:35):
to you when we need you, don't he he. I
think he's a little bit more dynamic. Oh, I think
he's a lot more Yeah. I think he's a better
player than Chris. Yes, he is. And you keep in
mind Chris was a twenty ten guy in Toronto, no question,
I mean getting buckets and getting nothing right. But but
but he was also the best player and a bad team,
whereas Anthony Davis and like, you cover the NBA for Turner,
so you know way better than I do. But I

(01:40:56):
operated on the like he's an MVP candidate. He is
top five player in the game, which Bosh was never
really in that in that in that realm, yeah he wasn't.
And you know, things change depending on what the system
that Frank Vogel wants to run. I think it is
very important too on how and where Anthony Davis gets
those touches. Okay, how you spread the floor. It's going

(01:41:16):
to be important how you full out the rest of
your roster to be able to get perimeter shooting. It's
going to be very important to Anthony Davis to give
him the space that he needs to go to work.
So all these things are still in the flux because
what Kawai did by you know, kind of delaying his
decision is now you've taken the ability for the Lakers
to build out the roster with shooters that were on

(01:41:38):
the market earlier. They couldn't offer from contracts without knowing
what they were going to do with that max salary
that they had by waiting for Kauai. So it's still
some pieces to the postles we all know the Lakers
still have to make. What do you make of some
of this post mortem stuff on Kevin Durant that I
didn't love playing for Steve Kerr is one story that
he and Draymond when they got into it, that was

(01:42:00):
the straw that broke the camel's back. There's the you know,
it wasn't that he and staff didn't get along, but
you know, Steph's kind of the golden child there. Plus
he's married, they weren't. There wasn't much of an off
the court relationship. Like now that he's gone, are these
the seeds that has sprouted the tree that pushed him out?
I think it was a combination of a lot of
stuff from what I'm hearing, not that he didn't get

(01:42:22):
along with his teammates. Again, you gotta have flare ups,
okay in regards to either coach or a player. That's
gonna happen when you're in the locker room. And plus
you get understand that when I was talking to Steve
Kerr before, he said this has been the hardest year
they've had just because of the expectations, just because of
the drain, the mental drain of getting back to a finals,
getting through the regular season. So you put that into

(01:42:44):
the bowl of stress that you have to deal with,
the high expectations not just from Golden State or from Oakland,
but from the NBA by itself. And then you have
an individual who's still trying to prove that he's still
he's the best player, but you have all these shots
being fired at them in regards to well, you're on
the best team, you have this and are you really so?

(01:43:07):
I'm not I'm not surprised in regards to Kevin Durant
leaving because the signs to me, were already there if
you just paid attention to it, you know, and it
could be a combination of all those things you talked about.
Does it work with him and Kyrie in Brooklyn? I
hope it does. I really do, because you know, we
were talking on and speak for yourself a few days ago,

(01:43:27):
and I talked about the value of those who being
really great friends, and I've heard they've been talking about
this for a while. And then you know, Marcellis and
Jason Marcellis wasn't there, but Jason said, you know, you
shouldn't do business with friends. I said, I get it,
but it's been some guys that have been great friends
that are great business partners. Okay, so it does work.
And I think those two hopefully, you know, when Kevin

(01:43:49):
Durant gets back and those young guys you know with
the nets continue to improve, that they can have a
lethal combination and they can get along. Now, it has
to be a lot of growing up and growth in Kyrie, correct,
And that's I think that to me is the key. Yeah,
And I think Ad has to grow up as well,
and maybe this year helps him, you know, absorb some
of the culture. You see the game differently. I do

(01:44:12):
think it's funny when people say you shouldn't do business
with friends that people say you shouldn't do business with family. Right.
On the other hand, you want to do business people
you trust and like. All right, so he gonna do
business with somebody you don't know at all exactly, you know,
sometimes knowing someone too intimately it's held against you at time, right,
And I get it, yes, but the respect level, Like
I did business with friends and it worked out perfectly.

(01:44:33):
I did business with perfect strangers that I trusted and
it didn't. So it just depends on the individual and
hopefully the culture within the net system with Kenny Atkinson
and also Sean Marks who I played with in Miami,
that system molds these players. But more importantly, it holds
him accountable. That's the it's it's an interesting part. You

(01:44:54):
point about the culture, and I can and look, I've
been crushing Kyrie a little bit because the culture of
Boston is really good and then it was not good
that the chemistry is not good this year, and I
don't think he should have all the blame. Like I think,
you know, Jason Tatum got gassed up by people in
the media tell him he was better than he was. Brown.
I think Jaylen Brown, I think you know er you

(01:45:15):
know thinks he's the dude because he played pretty well
in some home playoff games. Um, but I do think
that he's a big On the other hand, just because
you didn't fit into one culture doesn't mean if you're
a bright guy, and we would all agree Kyrie is
a bright guy. You can't learn from your own mistakes.
You know, nobody's perfect, and Kyrie thought maybe that he

(01:45:36):
learned something from his tenure in Cleveland that he could
take the Bosston. It was a little bit different, especially
now what happens if Kyrie doesn't get hurt and he
plays okay? Okay, when Terry Rosier kind of took off
and Jason Tatum had what happens if Gordon Hayward doesn't
break his leg? A lot of that, A lot of
that fed into Yes, the culture of the locker room okay,

(01:46:00):
and Kyrie being the elder statesman probably caught a lot
of that hearing Okay, well do we really need Kyrie? Okay?
Is he really integral? Yeah? You need Kyrie. He's a closer.
But you got to look at all of those factors
on why and then to boot. This was a test
dress test for Brad Stevens, the first time he really
had to deal with the ego part of the NBA

(01:46:23):
and how to manage that, which is extremely difficult. It's
it's it's probably the point that's made the least. You've
just made the best way possible, which is I consider
Brad a friend and know other guy's an organization, and
I do think one of the things missing on that bench,
you know, they just hired three assistants. Is a guy
who has been a player who can't you know, they

(01:46:43):
used to have Walter McCarty who's now the head coach
at Evansville. But a guy who has has been through this,
who can be a go between between Brad who is
brilliant okay and just he shows up to work to
do work every day, and a guy who can you
know what he means is which you need to do.
Is somebody who's been there, the Sam Cassell types. I
think Jason Kidd can be integral for the I think

(01:47:04):
everybody thinks that's that Jason Kidd's just gonna stab Frank
Vogel in the back, which may actually happen, But while
he's stabbing in the back, I think it's a big
part of like he's been a superstar and a head
coach in the NBA twice over. Who better to relate
what Frank Vogel wants and what Lebron wants to each other?
Has kind of the go between. What the challenge you
always have with young players and this is what you
love is the bravado, the eagle you want to You

(01:47:26):
have to have ego to be great. Okay, now, if
he gets out of hand. Now it hurts the locker room.
But Brad Stevens came from Butler. So the guys he is,
you know, recruited were three or four star guys. They
grew over four years. The Eagle was out there door.
They had a little bit of ego, but he was
able to manage those young men because they grew and
they understood that they had to outperform, outplay, outwork because

(01:47:47):
we weren't a talented okay, so we had to do
things collectively as a team. You kind of had the
first year, you know, with Brad there, okay, that same
kind of attitude. But then once the Eagles got involved,
Brad couldn't navigate through that pull back a little bit
demand certain things because he was just learning himself. Okay.
So it was a learning year I think for all

(01:48:08):
of that, and it played into why I think Kyrie
pushed back a lot. That's not that doesn't make it right.
Because you're the older guy. You should you should be
able to navigate and get through that and walk these
young guys and have them understand the importance of keeping
it together. But it was a hodgepodge of a lot
of things going on in Boston at cause I think
Kyrie not to be the leader he wanted to be.

(01:48:30):
Let's circle back. I started by asking you where he
should go. Where do you think Kawhi Leonard will go?
I think he stays. I think he does. You know,
it's interesting because I think the meeting with the Latras
is very important from the fact that you had to
figure out what's going on upstairs. Okay with management, because
but he didn't meet with man. He made with Magic.

(01:48:52):
I understand that. But like, I don't know, Like it's
a weird dynamic. Here's my thing. It's a weird dynamic
that you wait this long. I think guys know where
they want to go. They just got to be pushed
over the edge a little bit. Sure, you know what
I mean. I mean the Clippers, you know what they're
gonna do Toronto. What else are they gonna sell you on? Bro?
You just want a championship. They've been in your ear
the whole year about why it's important that you're coming back,

(01:49:15):
the meeting with Magic or the phone call getting the information,
which is weird anyway, because Magic basically, you know, threw
a lot of those under the guys under the bus
in management I don't know if there was confidence in
that perspective about where they're at now, but more importantly
Doug where they're going because post Lebron, you know you
La needs a superstar too. We get it. But from

(01:49:37):
a management perspective, unfamiliarity with Frank Vogel, those questions would
hinder A guy likes Kaua's decision on being comfortable for
not just next year, but for the future. See that,
That's where I would be critical of Lebron. Like, look,
if Lebron met with with Kawhi Leonard and he wants
it to work, he wants to happen. Then he goes

(01:49:59):
and picks up Frank Vogo at his at a hotel
room and says, rob Polinka, you guys are good with me.
It's the it's the old Peewee Reese. You guys remember
the Pee Wee Rees story. So Jackie Robinson they're playing
in Cincinnati one day and the fans are heckling him
and they're they're saying nasty things to him, and Pee
Wee Reese walks over and he puts his arm around
Jackie Robinson. He like he's with me. And at that

(01:50:21):
ended that and if if Lebron would have simply done that.
And I don't know if he comes through, but if
you like, if you have any questions about how things
are rolling, and Lebron James rolls up to your house
or to your your hotel room, and he's got Polinka
with him, and he's got Frank and they don't have
to say a word, but they're with me. I got it.
I'm good. It's whatever thing Lebron's saying, they're all lockstep,

(01:50:43):
and I think that's a mistake in how they're pitching
this thing. Yeah. I mean it's so important because Lebron James. Listen,
no other athlete has been able to control the narrative
like Lebron in sports. Okay, he's changed the way free
agency is, he's changed the way we do training camps.
He's changed the way back to bad games, spreading out season.
I mean all of this, and we know that he

(01:51:03):
has a level of control within the organization. If he
comes to Kauai and says, listen, bro, I know Frank
is new, but don't worry about it. We got ad
this the management. We're going to work that out. I
have full confidence. That's a whole different pit you don't
even need management after that point. You don't think you
need him there. Now I'm talking about in regards to
going to get a pitch from management, I understand, you know,

(01:51:25):
I think if Lebron does that, that's a whole different animal,
because one thing for certain, you may not agree with
everything Lebron has done, but you trust what he's talking
about because he's been there, you know, whether it's been
in Miami and he has some issues there. But management
was great. He was able to control the narrative in Cleveland, Okay.
And with the Lakers, you got to think about it.

(01:51:47):
They need to win. So when Lebron gives you his
approval in regards to where they're going, you know that's
a huge statement. It is Jim Jackson, of course, longtime
NBA stud, two time mister basket. We'll say to Ohio
back in the day, act back in the day, all American, mister,
all American in Ohio state. Thanks so much for stop
brother Semon speak for yourself. First, let's get to vet

(01:52:08):
your newsman, John Gless No, no turn on the news.
This is the herd Line news. So many Machado was
back in Dodger Stadium yesterday and in the middle of
the padres eventual five one loss to the Dodgers, he
was filmed interacting with a fan from the on deck circle.
Take a listen, contract, You've got ten octobers off now come.

(01:52:37):
Mary could have met it all with alady. But did
he say what I think he said? Yes, if you
couldn't hear that, he said, I bet you my contract
will win a World Series before you, guys do That
is a three hundred million dollars contract. You probably could
have bet the guy twenty bucks. Yes, hey, I bet

(01:52:58):
you twenty I bet you one hundred bucks. I bet
you three hundred. Now what I didn't sign anything? So verbal?
Verbal contract is? Verbal contract? Is good enough? Is this
over confidence in his own team or maybe underselling the
Dodgers a little bit? Padres coming in real close to
the Dodgers. They're seventeen games back of the of LA

(01:53:19):
right now in the NLS, it's late in the year.
All it's midyear. Look, I will say this about the Padres.
They do have an unbelievable farm system. Sure, they got
great young players. They have a good plan. Yeah, okay,
but the idea that they're gonna win a World the
Dodger in the last two World Series and they're a favorite.

(01:53:42):
They're a favorite to win this World series. Yes, yeah,
And and they keep coming up with new guys like
I've never heard of that guy, you know. I mean
Cody Bellinger's only his third year in the league, and
I mean he has just exploded after having a down
year last year. Max Munsey no one had ever heard
of for he was unbelievable last year. A Man Turner.
I think at one point we're cut by teams and

(01:54:04):
we're just available to everybody, and the Dodgers end up
it's it's amazing. So they just seem to figure it out.
They're really well run, they're really really well managed, and
um you know, they've they have a superstar as their ace.
And it's not even Clayton Kurt like moved on from
Kershaw who eats up innings now, Like they're unbelievable. So

(01:54:29):
I look, I I like it. I just like, dude, Mike,
bet you my contract really the Padres. But the answer
to will the Padres win a World Series before insert
any team? No, probably not. Will will they win a
World Series during my contract? I guarantee will win a
World Series during my ten years. That's a better one.

(01:54:49):
I just could win a World Series in like three months. Yes,
they do in three months. That's a new league record,
right August, September, October. You're right, you're my mom, bad,
my bad. I forgot a month, Wren. There has reportedly
been little to no interest from teams in center Boogie cousins.
He even switched as agents to try to find a
bigger deal out there somewhere. It's always the agent's fault,

(01:55:11):
like somebody else making the call twenty million, but no
one told the ancient about it right. Spurs guard Damar
de Rosen has reportedly been in contact with Boogie about
joining the Spurs, and now a billboard has popped up
in Texas recruiting Boogie to San Antonio for our radio listeners.
It says Boots scooting Boogie and has a picture of
him in the Spurs jersey. I believe that is a

(01:55:32):
Brooks and done, Yes, yes, yep, done, by the way,
no longer together, just I believe that's that happens frequently
from what I understand, But that they always break up
and get back together, isn't there thing? Uh? No, I
think that's the thing. I think they just don't think
you keep gask for so long that they're just moved
on for the most part. Anyway, uh cousins to the

(01:55:53):
Spurs buying it, it doesn't seem like a cultural fit.
Although I could argue if he went there and behave
like he did with the Warriors, giving that stamp of
approval from Popovich, could be in a lot for him
going forward. That does it work, like I guess, and
the Marcus Aldridge is there moves to power forward some
when the Marcus Aldris is really a center. I mean, look,

(01:56:16):
if he wants to come in a minimum contract, sure, fine,
if you're going to do a minimum though, wouldn't you
just go back to the Warriors if they want him? Yeah,
you know, if they want him. I I mean, I
think that that that the issue is. It's it's over pay,
and it's over the fact that the league he is
he has, it's not it's not okay, he's coming up
still come up the achilles and then he hurt his

(01:56:37):
thigh as well, so he's got the injury thing going
against him. He's got the personality quirks of his days
going back to Sacramento, right, and even some when he
was in New Orleans. Although he's better, and I think
he's he's really helped in terms of how people believe
his character. But the biggest thing is like, look, if
you can't defend ball screens, you can't defend the rim.

(01:56:58):
It's really hard for people to find major minutes for
you in the NBA. And though he's made himself into
a guy who can make a privoter three, that's not
what he does best. Like he's a beast down low
and the league's gone away from that. I told you
in the meeting. I have my po podcast with all
Ball podcasts on the Herd podcast network. Pat Garretty's on there,

(01:57:18):
and I asked Pat, I was like, look, will we
ever get back to the days where big guys posting
up is a big part of an NBA office. He's like, no, No,
those days you're gone. Like the numbers, the math all
tells you that's not smart basketball, and smarter is better.
And finally, one free agent who has just basically tied
himself to Kawhi Leonards Danny Green. So while we're all

(01:57:41):
waiting like, oh, I wonder where Kawhi is going to go,
Danny's waiting wondering the same thing because he doesn't know
where he's going to go. He's probably one of the
best free agents still available. But if Kawhi goes back
to the Raptors, Danny Green probably goes with him. If
he goes to the Lakers, maybe he goes with him
and signs for a little bit less money, or that
he's had interest from the MAVs. I don't think it's

(01:58:03):
a great sign that he won't just sign with the Lakers.
That means they can't get him if Kawhi doesn't come
right because no, Yeah, I think that's part of it.
But I also think that there's it has to in
terms of salary. I think it has to work in
a certain order. But yeah, he look, he wants to
go somewhere where he can win. He likes playing with Kawhi.
He knows who he's gonna get. I do think it's
interesting that Kawhi is not communicating with him. Maybe we

(01:58:25):
should track his planes instead of tracking Kawai's plane, which
may have landed in San Diego earlier today. Maybe that's
what we should. We're tracking the wrong We're tracking the
wrong guy, and that's John Galay with the News well,
that's the news and thanks for stopping by. US women's
national team plays the Netherlands the Dutch in the World

(01:58:46):
Cup final on Saturday. I'll be joined by Fox Soccer analyst. Oh,
that's that's Sunday. I bad Sunday. Sunday Soccer Sunday. I'll
be joined by Fox Soccer analyst stew Holden. Next, This
is the Herd. Be sure to catch live editions of
The Herd weekdays and noon Easter nine am Pacific. Doug
Goliban for Colin. This is the Herd. So Colin's vacation.

(01:59:11):
He'll be back on Monday. And there are very few
things I can guarantee about Colin's vacation if you follow
them on Twitter. Apparently he's fishing right now. Right's fishing
right now, which I want video of that, but you
will there. They will definitely at some point be a
shot of him on Twitter. Following both the men's national
team and the women's national team who will play for

(01:59:35):
a World Cup this Sunday on Fox too. Holden, Fox
soccer analyst, who joins us as the women get ready
to take on the Netherlands. Are the Dutch at our level?
Like it doesn't. I don't know, Like we're the best
in the world of defending champions, are they the rightful
second best team to challenge in the World Cup Final?

(01:59:56):
At this point you have to say yes. I mean
you would have said France, but we faced France in
the quarterfinals and ran them over. And so Netherlands are
the defending European champions. So they come into this tournament
with a lot of confidence. They've played some good stuff.
They also haven't They're not as deep as us. Stuck
so you know, our team, we've been able to change
out an entire team in our game against Chile to

(02:00:18):
still get the results. But yet Netherlands have had to
play their best eleven almost this entire way, and they
go to extra time in their game against Sweden, they
fight through that match. In the semifinal, they come in
one day rests less than the United States, and the
US are big favorites in this game and should win
at this point. The one day less rest. I'm not

(02:00:38):
sure if people understand how much how much that affects
you in any sport. You know, we talk about so
many things like conditioning and how your body feels when
you have when you have twenty four hours, less time
to get off your feet, that you're a completely different athlete.
Megapeo didn't play in the semi final because of a
hamstring pull. Her replacement did actually score the first goal.

(02:00:59):
You think she plays, right, She's got to play. I
mean when I look at this injury, I mean, they
kept this so quiet. She pulled apparently a little bit
of a strain on the hamstring in the game against France.
They came out for warm ups, she was just standing
off to the side. Didn't even participate for the game
the last match against England, and then came out after.
She thinks she'll make it to me if it was

(02:01:20):
an hamstring injury that did not force her out of
the game in France, it's probably a grade one strain
that's seven to ten days. Seven days would give you
right about the finals. So I think they get her
back for the final, and I think they need her.
She she is the heartbeat of this team and she
you know, on and off the field, she she it
takes a lot of that pressure off of all the
other players, all right. She got into it with the
president and then she had that awesome celebration right after

(02:01:44):
scoring one of her goals, and she scored a bunch
of goals, and then Alex Morgan scores the goal and
she does the t Sista, which is, you know, like
an ode to Game of Thrones, which she posted on
social media. But but the the women's that she came
out and said, like, lookas a double standard, right, here's
a double standard thing. If men celebrate, nobody criticizes you.

(02:02:07):
Didn't you call them out for saying it was a
double standard as well when they ran up the score
on the on the tie. It's been interesting, I think
when you clarify what the criticism over it. You know,
when I was critical of this team in the game
against Thailand, it was because it was thirteen zero's team celebrations.
I have no problem with celebrations. I actually think that's
a fantastic part of the game and I love to

(02:02:27):
see I will say one thing overarching about this team.
They have invited pressure, they have invited criticism. They have
become a team that embraces that, and they live in
this pressure zone and every single time you can't fault them,
they stand up, they block it out. I mean, Megan
Rappino gets into it with the president of our country,
she has. They have all this stuff going on or

(02:02:49):
off the field, that they're fighting for equal pay, fights
with the federation, the celebrations. She turns up, she scores
two goals. I mean this team, they back it up
and that's the most important thing. You know. You can
talk to talk, but you gotta walk to walk, and
they've done that. Um. I mentioned Colin because he's a
he's he like has pulisics autograph three minuted conversation in
the hallway policit the other times he's all in on policic. Okay.

(02:03:12):
So they take on Mexico this weekend and this has
become kind of a real rivalry. We used to dominate them.
How do you think the US men's national team has played.
They're playing well. I would say coming into this game
against Mexico, the United States needed the game against Mexico
more than Mexico need the United States because the coach

(02:03:33):
has been saying throughout we're we're trying to restore respect
for the United States globally on a soccer level after
not qualifying for the World Cup. I would say, you
need to get respect back in your own country and
your own region first, and you know how you do
that you beat the best team in the region, which
right now is Mexico and coming into this game, Coming
in this tournament, in fact, I would have said Mexico
were the favorites. I actually was thinking they were going

(02:03:55):
to roll the United States if they played. I have
been pleasantly surprised because my expectations were so low for
this team and what they have done to us over
the past year and a half. And I think they
come into this team this game with confidence. They play
well against Jamaica. Pulisic is playing lights out. He is
the best player. Collins should be all on this train
for a reason. He is the real deal. And you
have other players that are playing well, scoring goals. Michael

(02:04:17):
Bradley's playing well, Josie Altador so coming into the game,
this one's gonna be close. What is reasonable expectations for
the future of our men's national team? Reasonable expectations, Well,
you know, long term, I hope we can get to
a point where we are once again taken seriously in
World Cups and that we could go to quarterfinal, semifinals,
even a final. Right now, that's not realistic. We need

(02:04:40):
more players like Polisic. When you look at other countries
and you look at do we have him in the pipeline.
I mean, the future is bright. We don't have any
politics yet. I can't say I've seen any other players,
but the amount of investment at the youth levels, our
youth national teams are our twenties just had a pretty
good performance at the World Cup. So there's guys that
have to that. I'm saying, Okay, I can see this
guy's gonna be good and they get another level up.

(02:05:02):
That's the question. When you guy have a guy like
Ballistic who goes to Germany from sixteen years old, performs
on a high level, goes now seventy three million dollars
to Chelsea, We're gonna see if he has another gear.
But these other countries have ten pulisics. We have one
right now. So you know, we need to a qualify
for the World Cup. Twenty twenty two is an absolute necessity,
and then you know we'll go from there. Twenty twenty

(02:05:22):
six is where we're hoping this team can really start competing.
Stu Holden. We're planning on like Texas Notre Dame in
twenty twenty six, and of course the US spensh national
team huge weekend for US soccer. Colin is back on Monday.
Maybe we'll have clarity on Kawhi Leonard maybe, or maybe
he just drags us out and makes it the Summer
of Kauai. In the meantime, I think he should stay

(02:05:45):
or go to the Clippers and not chase the Laker
with the Lakers. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is the herd.

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