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Johnny Manziel Faces Skip On Undisputed

2024/4/11
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The Skip Bayless Show

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Skip Bayless 深入探讨了高尔夫球运动,特别是大师赛的魅力,认为其远比人们想象的更具挑战性和戏剧性。他高度赞扬了老虎伍兹的成就,但也批评了他职业生涯中因自我毁灭行为而造成的损失,认为伍兹本应获得更多成就。他还谈到了 Johnny Manziel 的电视节目出场,对 Manziel 的转变表示欣慰,并分享了他对 Manziel 的长期观察和支持。此外,Bayless 还描述了他作为电视节目主持人的工作强度,并回应了 Cam Newton 关于工作竞争的言论。最后,他比较了勒布朗·詹姆斯和迈克尔·乔丹的成就,并对两人进行了深入分析,表达了他对两人职业生涯的看法。

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Skip Bayless passionately discusses his love for golf and the Masters, describing it as the hardest sport and the most beautiful place in the world.

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And tell Skip to go f*** himself. I'm relentless. Can you

Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 108. This, as always, is the un-undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the two and a half hour debate show that is undisputed.

Today, I will tell you why, in honor of the Masters, it pains me to watch Tiger Woods in pain and to think about what could and should have been with Tiger Woods. Today, I will take you way behind the scenes of Johnny Manziel's in-studio appearance on Wednesday's Undisputed, a shocker to me. Today, I will respond one final time to Cam Newton,

And today I will tell you why my wife, Ernestine, thinks I am a certifiable nutcase goofball in relation to our communication about the eclipse. I will discuss the eclipse and eclipse the eclipse. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. It is time once again.

For my favorite sports event of the year, my favorite sports day of the year, my favorite right of spring of the year, it's time for the Masters. Yeah, it's a golf tournament. I get it. And maybe before I even get started here, you're yawning, you're clicking off because maybe you think that men's golf is boring, stupid, way too white.

a quote unquote sport played mostly by white guys, almost completely by white guys, some of them fat white guys, and watched mostly by white people. Maybe you just dismiss golf as the bland leading the bland. There's much truth to that. Forgive me, I can't help myself. I am obsessed with

obsessed with golf. I'm addicted to golf because I attempt on a weekly basis to play golf, which is by far the hardest sport to play in the world times 10. Trust me, the ball is just too little to control consistently. I'm talking about

If you miss hit that little tiny white golf ball by one one hundredth of an inch, you will miss your target by 10 yards. I'm talking about how the holes on a golf course are so little and the slopes and contours and the subtle banks of the greens are so tricky that a two foot side hill putt can be utterly missable.

Trust me on this. I've missed many of them. My soul aches over how many of those I've missed in my life and will continue to miss. Golf is the loneliest sport with by far the highest chocability factor because the ball does not move until you do. In tennis, at least you react to the ball coming back across the net from your opponent.

Excuse me, in golf, not the case. It's all you in golf, all the time. As I've often said and said on this podcast years back, Masters Sunday is my favorite day of the sports calendar because it's played on a golf course that is simply the most beautiful place in all the world. And I have been all over this world. Trust me on this. As Ben Crenshaw said,

a contemporary great golfer of mine, once told me for a magazine article I was writing on the Masters. He said that golf course, especially down around Amen Corner, where the pine trees tower into the sky like Jack's beanstalks, Ben said it's a mystical cathedral, and it is. The pressure builds on Sunday around Amen Corner on holes 10, 11, and 12.

creating the greatest drama in all of sports. The rises and the falls, the collapses, are Shakespearean on Sunday at the Masters. Always legendarily and unpredictably astonishing if you care even remotely about golf. I know you're probably yawning again if you're still with me, but I'll bet you this. I will bet you if you hear this Sunday,

that Tiger Woods is leading the Masters. If you just happen to notice it on your phone, I'm betting you'll run to the nearest TV and tune in to CBS from the start when Tiger Woods knocked down the gates of Augusta National Golf Club, destroyed the field, made Augusta's members bow down to and look up to him. Tiger Woods transcended golf.

Tiger was beating white America at its own game and white America was loving. It was fascinated with it because tiger woods was so much more fun to watch than any golfer ever. Any Nicholas, any Palmer, there was just so much more thunder and lightning charisma to his golf game. And I was an Arnie fan. I wasn't a member of Arnie's army, but he had a certain, uh,

panache to him. He could swash your buckle, but he wasn't Tiger Woods. The temper tantrums that Tiger would throw on the golf course, the cursing on live TV, the epic clutch shots, clutch putts, Lord have mercy. Tiger Woods made golf, golf, must see TV.

For white people and black people and any other color people, it didn't matter what color you were. You wanted to watch Tiger play that silly game of golf. He was even bigger than the biggest NFL and NBA stars. And he played that silly old game of golf. Never seen anything like it. He soon owned golf. And I'll tell you for a fact, he became just as big a diva

As any football or basketball star ever thought about being back in my column writing days, my newspaper days covered many of the majors involving Tiger Woods early on in his career. If I wrote the most innocent, little, completely objective, but inbounds observation about Tiger, you could trust I would get a note left from his agent or his team saying,

At my place in the media center, which would be waiting for me the next day, how dare you say that about him? Okay. And then there was one fateful time I was on a show called Cold Pizza, ESPN2, New York City. Our Dana Jacobson was scheduled to interview Tiger. It was a media availability where each blessed member of the media got five minutes with Tiger as he sat in the back of a

a tour bus, I believe it was. So Dana was surprised to find that Tiger did know cold pizza. My debate partner at the time was the great Woody Page. So Tiger immediately says to Dana, as she introduces herself, tell Woody I said hi and tell Skip to go f*** himself. Pardon my language. That's what Dana said Tiger said, and I believe it.

I got a big laugh out of that. I was far from a Tiger critic or cynic. I was the opposite. But Tiger wanted to control everything in his life, including every last member of the media. He thought he was completely and utterly above even a shred of criticism. And he thought he was bulletproof. So he thought. So yesterday at the Masters, Tiger Woods told the media, and I quote, I hurt every day.

I hurt every day. Tiger Woods is now 48 years of age, and he's unsure at this point in his life if he can make it through the four days required to play a golf tournament of simply walking a very hilly golf course, which Augusta National is very hilly. It does not translate on television how hilly it is. Trust me, very hilly. Tiger isn't sure he can walk Augusta

for 18 holes a day for the four rounds required to complete the golf tournament. That's if, of course, he keeps his making the cut streak alive at 23 straight. And I don't doubt that he will. Tiger Woods is a battered 48 years of age. But here's the point. Most of the battering was self-inflicted. Now, when I look at Tiger, I can't help thinking what might have been, what should have been

What goatness he squandered. He should have 25 majors by now, but he's stuck on 15. That's three behind Jack Nicklaus, the all-time leader. But Tiger Woods did himself in. Too many self-inflicted wounds. As his former coach, former friend of mine, Hank Haney, wrote in Hank's book called The Big Miss about Tiger Woods.

At the peak of his powers in the early 2000s, Tiger wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. His father was a career military man, served in Vietnam. Tiger wanted to become a Navy SEAL. At the peak of his golf powers, he wanted to be a SEAL. He was obviously so big, so famous, so powerful that he could pull those strings. The SEALs took him in.

He began to train with the Seals in his golf off seasons. He went on real live maneuvers with the Seals. And on one of those maneuvers, he tore his ACL, an injury that plagued him for years to come, required a second surgery. And while running distance, I'm talking about running miles, running three, four, five miles at a time,

in combat boots, not in running shoes, in combat boots. He weakened and finally tore his Achilles tendon and he stress fractured his leg, the same stress fractures upon which he won that US Open at Torrey Pines. Parachute landings with the seals messed up his back. And trust me on this, the golf swing is a bad back's worst enemy ever.

Tiger eventually needed back fusion surgery. And of course, all of this led to in 2020, while out here in Los Angeles the day after his namesake tournament at Riviera, driving a courtesy car from Genesis while on pain medications that impaired his driving ability.

Tiger Woods left the road at 80 plus miles an hour, probably closer to 90 miles an hour, and never touched the brake before impact, never touched the brake before impact, miraculously lived to tell about it. I still can't believe he barely walked away from that or limped away, I should say, because he suffered compound fractures of his right leg. That means bone through skin.

And he shattered his right ankle beyond recognition, eventually requiring fusion surgery on his ankle. He's still, as we speak, learning to walk again on that ankle in a sport that requires a five-mile hike for four straight days to complete a golf tournament. Again, he did all of the above to himself. He turned...

Golf into football. Yet, I'm here to tell you, I know many ex-NFL stars, many ex-NFL stars whose bodies are in far better shape than Tiger's is. 25 majors, 30 majors by now. If he'd been relatively unscathed the way most golfers are, they all have some hand issues sometimes, elbow issue, back issue. But nobody, nobody,

has been through what Tiger Woods has been through in his golf career, thanks to his off-course self-destruction. Just think about what Tiger Woods left on the table or on the operating table. He has at least as much killer will as Jack Nicklaus did. He had a little more ball-striking talent and just a touch more putting touch than the great Nicklaus did. He had them.

Now he mostly has to survive on just that killer will, which remains. He said yesterday, did Tiger, he still has one more major in him, and I sure hope he's right. Tiger Woods could turn the best sports day of the year into the best sports day of the century if he could win another Masters title.

But I do believe as Tiger turns 50 years of age in a couple of years, or let's say 60 years of age, or God willing, 70 years of age, I believe there'll come a moment when Tiger Woods will look back at some point and say to himself, what were you thinking? Now, allow me a quick aside to take you inside an appearance on Wednesday's Undisputed featuring

Johnny Manziel, let me gush. Let me emote. Let me open up my heart to you about him. So a couple of days back, my producer, Tyler Korn, informed me that Johnny Manziel is available to come in on Wednesday. Really? Out of the blue. It was only two days before. I thought, that's strange. I asked Tyler, what's the occasion? Tyler said, I don't know.

None that we're aware of. Usually people want to come in to be interviewed so that they can use your platform to promote their product or their event or whatever they might be involved in. Nope, none of that going on. So I prepared some questions for Johnny. We decided I would interview Johnny solo, just the two of us for one long segment.

Then my man Keyshawn Johnson would join us and we would talk some football with Johnny Football, some Caleb, some Jaden, some JJ. Wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew from the moment in the break that Johnny walked into the studio and looked at me and approached me that something was very different. The moment he sat down across from me during the commercial break and began to talk about

I realized he had come in basically between the lines to thank me for my support over the years, my patience with him over the years, my undying belief in him over the years, and maybe in a way to apologize to me, to everyone else out there in the audience, maybe even in the end to his family about what he had often put all of us through on his behalf. He wanted to show me

And I do think he looks up to me in sort of a big brother, maybe even almost a fatherly way. Johnny wanted to show me that he had finally found his true self. He had finally come to peace with everything he was and everything he was not. We sat there in the commercial break and he looked away toward the monitor and

And we were playing in the commercial break some of Johnny's greatest college football highlights. When he was the essence of Johnny football, he was the money signal, celebrating his achievements at Texas A&M, winning a Heisman Trophy as a freshman, a redshirt freshman, but the first ever freshman to do just that. When he went to Saban and beat Saban at Saban as a freshman,

in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He did that. Johnny watched those highlights and said to me across the table, that was pretty good. I said, it was pretty great. He said, I'm just now to the point where I can accept. And that was pretty good. I did that. And I can take that into my future, but leave it in my past. Johnny's smart. Johnny's got a good heart. Johnny was a very, very special person.

college football playmaker, the likes of which I had never seen. I'm not talking about Lamar Jackson's speed. Johnny timed four or five in the 40, which is fast, but not Lamar fast. But he was Caleb before Caleb, as in Williams. You want to talk about an all-time escape artist? They could not get Johnny on the ground. He was as unscripted

as you can get on a football field. Caleb before Caleb, but without Caleb's arm, or probably Caleb's stature. Although it surprised me when Johnny walked in the studio, I thought, God, he's tall. He did measure a full six feet. I think he was six feet and a quarter, maybe at the combine, right in that neighborhood, 200 pounds, but taller than you think. Played small because he's among the land of the Giants,

But he could make himself small when he turned into as quick and elusive an escape artist as I've ever seen in college football. He dominated college football as a freshman. Cliff Kingsbury, now of course in Washington, was his coordinator that year, Texas A&M, when he won the Heisman. Cliff told me a story about Johnny completely broke down, broke loose of whatever the play was that was called.

all-time broken play, broke loose through a touchdown pass, came to the sideline to Cliff and said, I apologize. And Cliff said, I told him, you never have to apologize to me for a touchdown pass. It was as off script as you can get because Johnny's life was off script. Everything about him was off script. He partied harder than he played.

Off script, Johnny football celebrity, the stature of it just overwhelmed him immediately. And he couldn't live with it because he couldn't quite live up to it. It did not make him happy. So I asked him first question out of the box on live TV on Undisputed. What what was the happiest moment of your Johnny football life? Happiest moment? Well, the irony was I'd already mentioned Johnny.

on Undisputed, a game in which he tortured me and annihilated the team I grew up loving, the Oklahoma Sooners. This was in the Cotton Bowl, early January of 2013 at Jerry World in Dallas, out in Arlington, Texas. I just mentioned it and he said, that was my happiest moment, walking off that field. And I said, why? And he said, because I can't play any better than that. That day,

He went 22 of 34 for 287 yards and two touchdowns. But more important and more stunning to me, he ran it 17 times for 229 yards. I'm going to repeat that, 229 yards against my Oklahoma Sooners, who I thought were pretty good. Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, the defensive coordinator, his brother, Landry Jones, Kenny Stills.

Damian Williams, who took over the fourth quarter of that first Kansas City victory with Mahomes in the Super Bowl. I don't know. We had a lot of talent. Johnny said the year before in his true redshirt year when he did not play, he traveled with the team up to Norman, Oklahoma, where the Aggies got annihilated by Landry Jones in the Sooners. So it gave him

Great satisfaction to get even. Final score in this Cotton Bowl was 41-13 Texas A&M. 41-13. By the way, Mike Evans that day caught seven balls for 83 yards. Mike Evans. Took me a while to realize just how much Mike Evans at 6'5'' did for Johnny Manziel when they were together at Texas A&M. Same thing he was doing for Baker Mayfield last year. And for that matter,

for that guy named Brady in the years before that in Tampa. I was smitten with Johnny Manziel. We had him on first take when I was there at ESPN numbers of times, NBA finals in San Antonio and Miami numbers of times. Got to know him, communicated with him regularly, started to push for him ahead of the draft to go number one to the Houston Texans, number one overall.

John Gruden backed me up on that on first take. Yep, you got to take him. He's just too special as a playmaker. Why not? Houston, Texas, just down the road from Texas A&M, Texas boy, you got it all. It's a perfect fit. They went with Clowney and they were right. Jerry Jones reportedly had to be talked out of Johnny Manziel. Steven Jones was right. They took this guy and

First round that year, named Zach Martin out of Notre Dame. Pretty sure he's going to the Hall of Fame as a right guard. They were right. Cleveland was sitting there at 22 in the first round. Johnny texted their quarterback coach, a guy named Dow Loggins, now the offensive coordinator at South Carolina. Johnny texted him, let's wreck the league together.

Dowlog and showed the text, Jimmy Haslam, the owner of the Cleveland Browns, who was sitting in their draft war room. Jimmy Haslam was smitten and they plunged and took Johnny who had plunged all the way down to 22nd in the first round. And silly me, I was so carried away with all of the above that I said that Johnny Manziel would be bigger than LeBron James in Cleveland, Ohio. My logic, which was very logical,

I thought Johnny was going to do great things. And when you do great things in Cleveland for the Browns, you have to understand football is king in Ohio and in Cleveland. It's everything. Baseball is second. Basketball is third. If Johnny had done what I thought Johnny was capable of doing, he would have been bigger than LeBron in Cleveland, Ohio. When I mentioned that on air Wednesday on Undisputed,

Johnny looked across the table at me and shook his head and said, did I think I'd become bigger than LeBron? Hell yeah, he said. Hell yeah. But here was the shocker to me. This is what I did not know at the time, or I certainly would have backed off. Johnny Manziel just didn't love playing football enough. He didn't have the burning desire required.

to succeed at the highest level. He did not want to make those sacrifices to succeed at the highest level. He had more fun being Johnny Football. He had more fun partying. He did not like the expectation that I had helped fuel. And by the way, I did on live TV apologize to Johnny for creating such false expectations for him. It ate him up. It burned him out quickly.

He sometimes had to resort to recreational drugs and alcohol to soothe his pain, to anesthetize himself, to medicate himself against the pain and the shame of failing at the highest level. LeBron loved him. Drake loved him. He signed with Clutch Sports. Rich Paul loved him. Maverick loved him until they couldn't anymore. In those years, Johnny preferred to be a party boy.

He preferred to win the party more than he wanted to win the game. Johnny Manziel made a trip south to hell. And yet when I saw him on Wednesday, he was back from hell. He knows what hell feels like. And the Johnny sitting across from me at the debate desk, I looked into those eyes and I saw a man at 31 years of age. No more boy.

I don't know. I guess he can still be a party boy. I'm not sure about what he does off the field. I don't really care anymore. I just know that the eyes I looked into were eyes of a 31-year-old man who likes himself for the first time in his life, who loves what he achieved back at Texas A&M. He said he still goes back to four or five games a year. And when he has time to watch football, it's mostly college football, not pro football.

Because he cherishes what he accomplished in college football, what he gave to college football, what he did for his university. That is the house that Johnny built, that Taj Mahal of a stadium of theirs, the house that Johnny built. And on live TV, I looked across the desk at the end of our discussion, and I told Johnny how proud I am of him and all he has accomplished.

on and now off the field, how much he's grown. And I meant every word I said. Let's get to your questions. This is Danny from Florida who asks, what do you, excuse me, what do you do during commercial breaks of Undisputed? Okay, so maybe weirdly, this question reminds me of the latest shot fired at me by one Cam Newton.

who said on his YouTube show that if he does beat me in a three-point shooting contest, then he gets my job. His reward, said Cam, will be my job. He gets my job. But the point is he doesn't really get my job, as in understand my job, because I don't think anybody does. And by the way, I preface all this with saying,

I'm not looking for any pity or any sympathy. I'm just here to tell you my job is hard. At least it's hard for me. I know most people think, oh, you get to roll out of bed every morning and go sit for two and a half hours and just talk sports. Just say whatever's on your mind. I can't tell you how far that is from the truth. It's hard to relay to you. It's hard to drive home to you what a

relentless, voracious beast Undisputed is. What goes into every night and every very early morning preparing for and then executing two and a half hours of Undisputed five days a week, 50 weeks a year. Relentless, voracious, unquenchable beast. Cam, the night before every show,

You have to watch everything that's being played in sports because if you don't, you'll get eaten up on the air. You'll get exposed on the air the way I have occasionally exposed my opponents. I watch everything. I don't miss anything. I'm reading. I'm prepping. I'm building my arguments. And on the new Undisputed, I have the extra duty of being the moderator. So every night for...

at least an hour, usually an hour and a half, I have to write all the leads to all the topics that we might do. I'm guessing on some because we're not sure until 4 a.m. exactly which ones will go in the show. But because time's going to be short in the morning for me to prep, I have to write those leads the night before.

And it gets tricky and it gets a little irritating at times because you're guessing, are we going to do this topic or not? Sometimes I have to rewrite the leads in the light of day in the early morning because I've learned more overnight and I'm watching late NBA games. I'm sleeping for maybe four hours. I'm up at 2 a.m. I'm reading some more. I'm stretching. I'm getting on the treadmill so I can watch the highlight shows for an hour and read my phone.

As I watch, prepping, thinking, preparing, I'm nearby the Fox studios, the lot upon which I sit right now, so I can get in in three or four minutes. I'm in just after 4 a.m. We start our meeting at 4.15. We anguish, tug a war over which topic should be in the show.

Back and forth we go until we finally are satisfied with the order of the nine topics that we fit into two and a half hours. And then I'm cramming for the one hour I have left, redoing some of the leads, looking this up, that up, reflecting, almost cramming like I used to do at Vanderbilt for a midterm exam. And then when it's over,

I go home and I sleep for maybe an hour and a half. If I can stay asleep for an hour and a half, that's my nap. That gets me through the night. And then it starts over again and again and again. Cam, you could have seen it up close and personal. We invited you a couple of years back during the football season to come and sit with us on Undisputed, participate, commentate, debate, talk.

I think you have a great personality. I think you have a great gift to gab. I think you could be great doing what we do. But what you do is so different than what I do because on your YouTube show, your moderator is a yes man. Your moderator is a softball pitcher lobbing up gimme's to you.

And then laugh tracking for you by laughing at everything you say. And obviously agreeing with all of the above. Never happens on Undisputed. You will get challenged and you will get eaten alive if you're not prepared. If you don't know. If you haven't done your homework. If you did not watch the game. So you're welcome to come anytime. We'd love to have you in studio if you'd like to sit in. But...

There won't be a yes man. No softballs will be lobbed. It would be enlightening for you. I don't know. Maybe you'd like it. Maybe you'd love it. Maybe you wouldn't. To me, I'd rather instead of betting jobs when we have our three point shooting contest, let's just bet money. I'll donate my proceeds to charity. But you name the figure. You say you've got money. I've got a little money. Let's just bet money.

Yours versus mine. I'll donate mine to charity. You can do with your winnings, whatever you so choose. I just want you to know I'm still ready.

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This is Michael from Dallas who asks, during Undisputed, are you getting people reaching out to you to argue what you're saying? So he's asking during the show.

That's an interesting question, Michael. I just mentioned that in the new Undisputed, I moderate. Completely changed my life during the show because in the good old days, back with Shannon Sharp, back with Stephen A, early Undisputed, back in the first take days, I got up every commercial break and stretched my legs. I run in the mornings before the show, and if I come and sit...

especially on Undisputed, which is a half hour longer than first take, obviously. If I sit for two and a half hours, I can barely get up at the end of two and a half hours. But as the moderator, I can't get up. I used to get up and walk over to a little desk I had off to the side and I'd look at my phone. And invariably, inevitably, I would have a text from Lil Wayne, maybe Nelly,

Maybe my best friend growing up, the radio legend in Oklahoma City, Craig Humphreys. Maybe one of those three would have texted me. How could you say that? Blah, blah, blah. And I'd barely have enough time to fire back because of X, Y and especially Z. And that would close my case.

So now I don't even have time to check my phone. So when I see their blasts at me, it's always post-topic. It's always after the show. First thing I do is look at my phone when we hit 9 a.m. out here, noon Eastern time, to see what havoc I have wrought, to see who reached out or lashed out. But my life has changed. I don't have time to lash back during the show.

School is back and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in store or online at Dick's.com. This is Noah from Henderson, Nevada. Could you do an episode of Undisputed without writing down notes ahead of time? Another very good question. Insightful question, Noah. Like it.

because I don't love using my notes. My point of my notes is, if you can see my chicken scratch, if you happen to watch this as opposed to just listening to it, I scratch out these sheets in hieroglyphics nobody but me could read.

for the purpose of flash memory, period, end of story. If I jot it before the show, I'll memorize it and it will be emblazoned in my psyche, which on cue I can reach for when challenged unpredictably in the heat of debate on live national television. So my notes serve me better before the show than during the show. I take them in

just in case I need a fact or a stat that I didn't emblazon in my memory. I take them in just in case as the moderator that, especially during football season when we might have

Michael Irvin and Keyshawn going at it and going at it that I lose track of what the original question was in the first place. And I have to glance down to remember, oh, yeah, I have to glance down to say, oh, I know what I was going to say. I was going to say this. And then I have to finally interrupt them to say timeout.

I'm going to repeat the original question, and now I'm going to answer it and force you guys to respond to me off my notes. And finally, Noah, if you want to know the truth, and please don't tell my opponents this, but I think my stack of notes are intimidating. I take them to the debate desk in part because

just to spread them out and intimidate the other two or three people across from me at the debate desk. But please don't tell them that. This is Michael from Terre Haute, deep in basketball country in the state of Indiana. Are you a better three-point shooter or free-throw shooter, speaking of a potential competition with Cam Newton? So, Michael, the truth is I'm a good three-point shooter, but I'm a better free-throw shooter.

I never leave the gym without making at least 10 straight free throws. And I might get stuck there if I'm in a hurry and I'm distracted and I miss the ninth or the 10th. And I say, where's my head? I got to start over and I got to make 10 in a row. I impress upon you. These are 10 straight where I'm rebounding my own basketball. I'm by myself in the gym.

There's a huge difference in making straight free throws, consecutive free throws, if you have to rebound your own basketball. If somebody is rebounding for you and bounce passing right back to you where you can keep your feet set, sky is the limit because you go robotic and you go motion, motion, motion, and you can get lost in your same set motion game.

And you have a much better shot at making X straight. I think my record here in LA at the little gym that I shot my three-point shots in that Ernstine videotaped and that we posted a couple of weeks back, in that little gym, my record is 27 straight free throws, rebounding my own by myself.

This brings up my pet peeve in life, which is I still don't know how LeBron James could fix his three-point shooting and be at 41% this late in an entire season, which I'm sure he wants to protect now down the stretch and certainly use to fuel his phony goat case. But I don't understand how you could fix your three-point shot, but you still can't fix your free throw motion.

LeBron still stuck at 74%. He's just so much better than that. I mean, Jordan for his career was 84%. KD's a 90% or Bird's a 90% or Magic's up there at 89-ish. 74%? Do you realize the math on that? I won't bore you with the numbers, but do you realize if he had shot 10% better like Jordan did at 84% over his career, how much faster he would have gotten to Kareem?

and pass Kareem? Do you realize they're called free throws? How much more you could have helped your team's cause if you'd made 10% more of the free throws you attempted? I just don't. How could you go in the lab and fix your three-point shot, but you can't fix your free throw shot? Hey, if LeBron ever wanted to have a free throw shooting contest with me, I'd do that. Cam, three-point contest. LeBron, free throw shooting contest. I would do that.

I'll see you at the free throw line, LeBron. This is Derek from Naperville, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Oh, speaking of Jordan, this is a good question. Does Jordan beat the six teams LeBron lost to in the finals? Very interesting. Okay, so let's take them quickly one at a time. My answer might surprise you here. I am a San Antonio Spurs fan from way back, from the Iceman-Girvan days into the Tim Duncan era.

Spurs were at their apex 2007 with Tim, Tony, and Manu. And of course, they rolled into the NBA Finals against LeBron James, baby LeBron, and those Cavaliers. And LeBron didn't come close to winning a single game. Got swept. Tony was the MVP. I guess it reminded me a bit of Michael Jordan, baby Jordan,

In 1986, in his first playoff appearance in the first round against the Boston Celtics. Remember this? Game one at Boston Garden. Overtime. Double overtime, if memory serves. Yep, they lost. The Bulls did. Yep, they eventually got swept by an all-time great Celtics team. There would have been a great match for my Spurs in 07.

But what did Larry Bird say after game one, after they survived game one? That was God disguised as Michael Jordan. Larry knew what was coming. Hell hath no fury like a Michael Jordan scorned in the first round of the playoffs. Larry knew what was about to happen to the NBA. That Bulls team, it had some other players, Orlando Woolridge,

In fact, speaking of Iceman Girvin, he was in his final year of his career on that team, didn't play much or contribute much. Sidney Green was on that team. Gene Banks of NCAA Final Four Championship Game fame was on that team. Charles Oakley was actually a rookie on that team. But that was the equivalent of LeBron's Cavalier team that got to the Spurs in the finals. So here's my point about it. I don't think Michael...

with that 86 team, could have beaten the 07 Spurs in a seven-game series. But you know what I do believe? Michael would have won at least two games, at least two games, if not three. But I'll say two. I'll be conservative. I'll try to be completely objective here and say Michael would have won two games while LeBron won none. Then, of course, the debacle that was LeBron-

First year in Miami against Dallas, the 2011 finals, up two games to one. LeBron went back to his hotel in Dallas, Texas, started a list of people I will say I told you so too. And I was told by my friend Stephen A. Smith that I topped the list. I was the first name on that list.

And LeBron proceeded to meltdown in a way we've never seen a superstar meltdown on that biggest stage. In games four, five, and six, LeBron James averaged a grand total of 15 points a game. He shot two of 12 from three in those three games, four, five, and six, all losses by the Heat. He averaged five turnovers a game for three games.

He was four of 10 from the free throw line, four of 10 in those three games and was a combined plus minus in those three losses of a minus 41. Chosen one became the frozen one. My point there is if you gave Michael Jeffrey Jordan a two games to one lead on that Mavericks team, I don't care who his teammates were, but if you gave him his...

his heatles kind of teammates, if you gave him Pippen and Kukoc, Ron Harper, they cakewalk. They obliterate and annihilate. They win that series easily going away. They win it in five games. Once Jordan smelled blood, you were in big trouble. Then, of course, Spurs, 2014, they beat LeBron and company by a record finals margin in five games.

There is no way Jordan would have allowed that to happen. And again, if you take the 98 Bulls with Pippen and Kukoc and Ron Harper and Steve Kerr and, of course, Dennis Rodman doing the dirty work, manning the backboards from below the rim, if you took that team coached by Phil Jackson, they could have beaten the 2014 Spurs. That team, not the 86 Bulls, but the 98 Bulls, they would have beaten the Spurs in 2014. They just would have.

Michael was at his apex, at his most powerful, his most omnipotent, just on sheer killer basketball will. He would have broken that Spurs team that beat LeBron by a record finals margin. And that brings me to the Warriors. Before they were really the Warriors, 2015 finals, LeBron played the greatest three games I've ever seen him play. Back to back to back. Boom, boom, boom.

Numbers off the charts. I think he averaged 45 a game. They're up two games to one in his house. Game four was in his house. If you put Jordan in that circumstance, it's lights out for the Warriors. They did not have Kevin Durant yet. They weren't sure who they were just yet. They had to insert Iguodala into the starting lineup to flip the game on its head because he guarded LeBron and he scored on LeBron.

And that was the end of that. Jordan wins that series. Then, of course, KD joins forces with Steph Draymond Clay after they flew as a group all the way to the tip of Long Island on July the 3rd to get down on bended knee and beg Kevin Durant to come save them. He went. He saved them. If you give me the 98 Bulls, they win that series that LeBron could not win.

And definitely, if you gave me the 98 Bulls against Kevin Durant the second year, 2018, game one, remember that? LeBron had the shooting night of his life. He scored 48 points. The clock ticked down. He had the ball in his hands, got the switch on defense, had Steph Curry guarding him. 6-9 versus 6-3. All he had to do is just take one hard dribble and go straight up.

from just beyond the free throw line and drain the jumper to win the game. Down one at that point. Just take the shot, LeBron. But no, he passed it. And you remember what happened. And you remember the overtime, how LeBron pouted, sort of quit on his team until it was too late in the overtime. You give Michael Jordan that situation, it's over. I'm telling you, it's over. And if Michael Jordan wins game one in Oakland...

Look out game two and then look out below Golden State. He wins that series. Again, give me the 98 Bulls with a reasonable team around them. No top 50 players, even though Pippen did make it, he didn't deserve it. Look what happened to Pippen once he went to Houston, then Portland. Go look at what happened. He got exposed, but alongside Jordan, he was pretty good. Kukoc, the Michael Jordan of Europe, was pretty good. Rodman was pretty good.

alongside Jordan, but he hadn't been pretty good in San Antonio to stop before. So five of those six, Michael Jordan wins the series. The first one against the 07 Spurs, he wins at least two games while LeBron won zero. This is Oliver from Austin, Texas. Interesting. Who's on your Mount Rushmore of women's basketball players? Okay. I'll buy it.

I will start with a woman I got to know very well in Dallas, Texas, late 70s, early 80s, Nancy Lieberman out of Old Dominion. Never seen anything quite like her. First pick in the draft playing for the Dallas Diamonds in the old WBL. They called her Lady Magic because she was the female Magic Johnson. She put women's basketball on the map for the first time in my lifetime.

And I was able to watch many of her games up close and personal from the front row. And I will tell you, I played my share of one-on-one basketball and two-on-two and three-on-three in summers with and against Nancy Lieberman. I know what she was. And she belongs on Mount Rushmore because she had the guts to smash through the glass ceiling. She had the guts, even as a high school student in far Rockaway,

out on Long Island, to take the train into the city, uptown to Harlem, to walk on those courts with the black kids and say, can I play? Sure, you think you can. Give it a shot. Black kids let her play, and could she ever play? Did she ever improve dramatically playing against young black players, young black men, not black women?

Nancy Lieberman. She's first up on my Mount Rushmore. Second is Maya Moore out of UConn. Greatest mid-range jump shooter I ever saw in women's basketball, college or pro. She won two national championships at UConn. She won four championships in the WNBA. She was an MVP in 2014. She won two gold medals. She belongs on Rushmore.

as does Brianna Stewart, four-time champ at UConn with four most outstanding players. That's extraordinary. Three-time player of the year nationally at UConn, two-time WNBA champ, two-time finals MVP, two-time MVP of the league, and she's still going. She's on my Rushmore, which brings me to the final spot, which I have to give to Kaitlyn Clark already, just off her

college achievement, all you need to know is that her women's national championship game outrated the men's national championship game for the first time ever, thanks in largest part to her and to Dawn Staley and to undefeated South Carolina. Ratings records all along the trail to the championship game. Thanks to Angel Reese. Thanks to Kim Mulkey. Thanks to Paige Beckers. Thanks to Gina at UConn.

thanks to all of them. But as Dawn Staley said, as she accepted the trophy, thanks to Caitlin Clark, she put women's basketball on the international map. She did things we'd never seen a female basketball player do. She shot logo threes as a jump shooter, not feet on the floor, not set shots.

She shot jump shots from the logo. She went Steph Curry on women's college basketball. Never seen anything like it. How many times did she go up for a shot and I would think, no, bad idea. Yeah, swish. How many times did she release a jump shot from near the logo that I said, short, swish. How many times did she make a pass that made me say, whoa, that was really good.

I thought Nancy Lieberman was a great passer. In fact, I thought until I saw Kaitlyn that Nancy was the greatest passer I ever saw. And it's very close between the two of them, but Kaitlyn Clark can flat out generationally pass the basketball the way John Stockton did, the way LeBron does. There was just something electrifying about Kaitlyn Clark.

I think she already earned her way onto my Rushmore. And by the way, one random note that dawned on me just last night about Kaitlyn Clark. Maybe I missed it, but what's the easiest three-point shot on the basketball court? Well, the shortest shot is the corner three. I can't remember Kaitlyn Clark taking a corner three, let alone making a corner three. She didn't do that. She...

created her own three-point shots from the wings and from the top. She barely used picks. It was mostly her handle creating enough distance for her to jump and shoot over defenders whose mission in life was to get a hand in her face. She didn't do what Steph does, what Reggie Miller lived by, which is running through a maze of picks to get open wherever you can get open. I don't know, maybe I missed it, but I just never saw Kaitlyn Clark take a corner three

What a Rushmore of a college career she had in impact. This is Joel from New Jersey. Do you think your superstitions this week with the eclipse will be even more prominent? I am superstitious. I admit it is a flaw in my psyche, especially during football season. So Joel, I will tell you this. My wife Ernestine is still laughing at

and telling all of her friends about what happened between us this last Saturday. Saturday afternoon, my wife Ernestine randomly said to me, what should I do on Monday? And I said, about what? And she said, well, we live sort of on the edge of Beverly Hills, area called Century City here in West Los Angeles. She likes to walk around.

to our appointments in Beverly Hills and she had a, I don't know what it was, some doctor appointment on Monday morning. She said, "Well, what about the eclipse? I'm afraid I might accidentally look up at the sun and they say it can blind you." And I said, "What eclipse?" She said, "You don't know about the eclipse?" I said, "I don't know anything about an eclipse. This is Saturday before Monday."

She says, the whole world is talking about the eclipse on Monday. I said, my world is talking about Caitlin Clark. And that was the God's truth because it was Saturday before the Sunday championship game. And the only thing on my mind was Caitlin Clark and Dawn Staley. That's all I cared about at that point. I said, I don't know anything about the eclipse.

She said, how can you not know about the eclipse? I said, I always tell you, I don't watch the news channels. I don't watch the news shows that you live by. I only know sports. And then it occurred to me, I said, do you know about the cicadas? She said, the what? I said, the cicadas. I said, I have read about the cicadas. They're about to come up out of the ground, billions of cicadas. How does it go? It's like,

It's been 200 years since two broods of cicadas have emerged from the ground. I think they come out every like 17 years. This is mind boggling to me. Way beyond an eclipse. The cicadas stay underground eating tree roots.

for 17 years at a time, and then the broods rise up through the soil, and they know genetically that it's time for them to come up into the sunlight and to lay their eggs and die. They lay their eggs and die so that another brood can go underground for 17 more years to live on tree roots in the darkness until they somehow know that

It's like a God thing. How did God create this? They somehow know that it's time to emerge into the sunlight to lay eggs. What? And die? The cicadas? So that cicada sound is going to be in stereo echoing through the middle part of this country, all through the Midwest and parts of the South for about two weeks in the spring. Maybe it's two to four weeks.

where billions of cicadas will be above ground. And I'm telling Ernestine about this and she lost her mind. She said, we're having a total eclipse and you're talking about cicadas. And I said, I find the cicadas far more interesting than I do the eclipse. I said, if you've seen one eclipse, even a picture of it, you've seen them all. I tell her I don't like fireworks displays on the 4th of July, because if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

You sit and say, oh, that's something. I've been there and done that year after year after year. Oh, that one's, that's amazing. That's amazing.

It does nothing for me. I don't care about fireworks displays. It's like I told you about snow skiing or water skiing. You do it and then you say, well, I did that. And then you get up on water skis and you're holding on and you go across the wake a couple of times and then I'm done. I don't know. It does nothing for me. Cicadas do a lot for me because...

That's the mystery of life. I mean, the moon and the sun happens every 20, whatever it is. I don't know. I can't keep up with it. Ernestine thinks I'm a complete kook. So I heard her on the phone the other day in the other room telling her best friend Francesca in New York City, what a nutcase, what a complete wacko I am and what a sitcom of a marriage she's in.

She's a big fan of I Love Lucy, Lucy Ricardo, Ricky Ricardo, if you know the old show. It's a great show. And she thinks she's Lucy and I'm Ricky and that Ricky is a complete nutball. I'm sorry, I'd rather talk about the cicadas. And a few friends of mine are on my side on this one. I'm sorry, Ernestine. I'm telling the truth.

That's it for episode 108. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed every weekday, 930 to noon Eastern, the Skip Bayless Show every week.