Hof Bill
2003
Hof Bill
Hof Bill
Michael Wilbon
Burnsville, Minn.: I don’t think fans are angry that LeBron switched teams, but that he appeared to go on the path of least resistance. If he had said on his tv special, “I’m going to take my talents to the Chicago Bulls/NY Knicks and I’m going to beat Dwayne and Chris’s Heat in the playoffs”, I think fans would have thought much better of him. As it stands now, he just looks like he’s ring chasing, and doesn’t have the competitive fire that we expect our great stars to have.
Michael Wilbon: Hi Everybody…Coming live to you from Los Angeles where the ESPYs are taking place Wednesday…I’ll be part of the “pre game” show Wednesday night with Jon Barry as we do some things that might look familiar to PTI viewers…We’ll spend most of this time today on the free agency drama, most of it pertaining to LeBron James, of course…Yes, I agree with your perception of the reaction to LeBron. And a great, great many former players, close to and away from the game, agree with you passionately. I know Hall of Fame players whose immediate reaction was “Wow, I’m glad the league isn’t full of superstars who chose not to compete with the best, but simply join the best.” That’s a raging sentiment out there right now; I’ve had that communicated to me by any number of people…”If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” is not a sentiment great players share…They believe if you can’t beat ‘em, try again to beat ‘em.” And I get that. I’m of an era where I nod in agreement when I hear that. I wonder how, if at all, it’s going to affect LeBron, or even if that sentiment reaches him and resonates on any level…
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NYC: Why did no one on “the decision” special bother to ask LeBron why he chose to do the special rather than release a statement to the same effect? Or Lebron, what did you hope to gain from dragging this decision out on television. He came off as an oblivious child.
Michael Wilbon: I didn’t ask him, no. And I didn’t feel like I wanted to come off a second-guessing my bosses on live television…just as I don’t use this space or the newspaper column to go through a major second-guessing of my editors of The Washington Post. I can’t speak to why others might not have, but now you have my reasoning. I’m paid by ESPN to ask questions of people like LeBron, so that’s what I did…What you’re asking is a TOTALLY legit question. I don’t ask an athlete who has a great relationship with a Washington Post reporter “why did you choose to talk to The Washington Post” on this particular manner. I get the interest; but it’s for somebody else to criticize (totally legit) or ask LeBron…not the people airing his decision…By the way, I don’t have any problem with LeBron doing this on TV, just as I have zero problem with Kevin Durant simply stating his intentions to re-up with Ok City…I don’t need everybody to do the same thing, or do it as I would have done it…I had a future HOF major leaguer call and say to me the other night he disliked the way LeBron did it and wouldn’t have done that, and I totally respect that, but we agreed that “different strokes for different folks” should apply.
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Boston: Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, and Charles Barkley were all drafted the same year, but it is absolutely inconceivable that they would have had a “free agancy summit” and decide to all play together. Their competitve natures told them they wanted to beat their rivals, not join them. The NBA as I knew it is dead.
Michael Wilbon: Ummmm, yes on all counts. AND, don’t think those three players haven’t expressed that sentiment, EXACTLY as you just did.
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Washington, DC: I’ve come to the realization that the World Cup championship match is the least interesting of all the 64 matches. Even before the deluge of yellows, these teams were so cautious against each other, the game doesn’t open up. This event is so huge that the fear of losing often overwhelms the desire to win.
However, the third place games always seem to be far more exciting with higher scores than the final. They’re pissed off for missing the final and have nothing to lose. So the game is wide open. In four years I won’t watch the final – we all already know Brazil will win it anyway. But I’m looking forward to the third place game.
Michael Wilbon: Wow, you expressed my view to a t…I feel exactly the same way you do. The first couple of rounds I found so incredibly exciting. But the pressure to win makes coaches and their teams go into these conservative shells which produces what I think is just a boring product with no sense of daring and risk-taking. Guys are afraid, it seems to me, to make a mistake in so many cases probably because they’ll suffer national ridicule and maybe even humiliation…Maybe I’m overstating the severity of the pressure…but the championship game yesterday (I watched the replay in its entirety or whatever percentage was shown last night on ESPN when I landed in Los Angeles) didn’t measure up to some of the exciting games in the earlier rounds…Ummm, sounds like the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl a great many years…Or the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four some years…
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Washington, D.C.: The Cavs had the best record last season so I don’t want to hear how they didn’t do enough to help LeBron, who could have easily chosen to take less money and stay in Cleveland while helping to bring in free agents. Instead, his last contract was only for three years, meaning he knew he was going to leave long ago.
Michael Wilbon: Wade’s contract was for three years, as well, and he didn’t leave? Your reasoning? Dirk’s was for three years and he didn’t leave! LeBron couldn’t recruit free agents to play for the Cavs because the Cavs didn’t have any money. They were over the salary cap because Danny Ferry tried to win last year and the year before and the year before and spent to do so…He had to. It was the smart play. It just didn’t work. I wonder if LeBron stays if they’d gotten to the Finals this season…
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Washington, D.C.: Mr, Wilbon,
Bill Simmons made the observation that “The Decision” was the ultimate insult to Cleveland (though he worded it a bit more colorfully). For me, that is what rubs me the wrong way the most about this whole thing; it just speaks, especially when coupled with that horrendous introduction in Miami, of arrogance beyond what I have ever seen in sports.
Perhaps I am an old fuddy duddy, but the whole things makes me not like him. I guess sports is indeed theater, but this seems way too over the top for someone who has won exactly nothing in his career.
Michael Wilbon: You express a very, very common sentient. I sensed it even coming into the “Decision” and asked LeBron about it…I don’t think rich and famous people in any professional feel that sentiment when it’s out there–and boy is it out there–because they’re surrounded by so many layers of people who simply tell them what they want to hear. I think now that he’s in Miami where everything is hunky dory that LeBron won’t hear much at all of what you’re expressing. But I think his brand will take a hit for it, at least temporarily. Some guys don’t care about being liked; I think LeBron has cared about that…at least until now.
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Alexandria, Va.: Dont you think for LeBron to have maximum impact on the “Miami 3″ that he is going to have to learn to move without the ball and use his size/strength to post up once in a while and work inside some when he gets a mismatch?
Michael Wilbon: LeBron knows how to do pretty much everything there is on a basketball court. A great many people think he looked foolish off the court the other night, or for the last month or so. But whatever adjustment LeBron needs to make as a basketball player the bet here is he will. In fact, I think he’ll go back to being the grand facilitator he was before everybody convinced him he had to take the last shot all the time and “take over the game” when it was on the line. LeBron, instinctively, is more Magic than Michael/Kobe. LeBron knows exactly what play to make and when, and did at an early age…Then he got talked out of that a few years ago and started scoring dramatically…Now, he won’t be tempted to do that because Miami will obviously have plenty of scoring…
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Wiz fan: : Did you get a chance to look at John Wall’s first pro game? If so, what did you think?
Michael Wilbon: I know where you’re going with this…but John Wall won’t play his first pro game until November…No, I didn’t watch. Summer league basketball, to me, is like off-season workouts and training camp in football; it’s largely a waste of time if you’re trying to form opinion…It’s great for the players, but bad for my life. I’m now onto baseball, golf and tennis until the NFL begins in earnest, and checking out of basketball until Halloween…
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Boston, Mass: Mike – is it your feeling that Pat Riley will take over the coaching reins of the Heat(a la Shaq’s arrival in ’06), or will he give Erik Spoelstra a year (or at least until they lose three in a row)??
Michael Wilbon: I felt this way…until I heard Wade and LeBron, on multiple occasions, say that E.S. is their coach, and not Pat Riley…Still, there are SOOOOO many people in pro basketball circles who believe if the Heat doesn’t get to the Finals this year, Spoelstra will be Van Gundied and Riley will be back on the bench in 2012…
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Fairfax, Va.: Jesse Jackson recently chimed in on the over the top ridiculous letter from Dan Gilbert. Isn’t he missing something. Are we not judging Lebron James on the content of his character and not on the color of his skin?
Michael Wilbon: You’re missing the important point…For those who feel Gilbert’s reaction was indeed like that of a master being ticked off he’d lost a slave, LeBron isn’t being judged, GILBERT is being judged. LeBron’s status is that of a millionaire many times over. I know he’s not a slave. Gilbert reacted like he owned LeBron, like LeBron was his to what he wanted to do in perpetuity. And Rev. Jackson ain’t the only black person who feels this way. I felt that way when I heard it and joked about it, though I did not write it. Perhaps I should have…And I’ve traded dozens of e-mails and text messages with black people, mostly black men, who feel the same way…that Gilbert’s reaction told a ton about who HE is. Look, the criticism of LeBron, most of it, is totally legit. You can come at LeBron from a number of angles and express disappointment, just on the face of his actions. But we’re not talking about LeBron’s actions, we’re talking about GILBERT’s…If LeBron is a bad a person as Gilbert says, why was Gilbert trying to desperately to retain him and pay him $120 million? LeBron’s actions were okay, as long as he was Gilbert’s boy…but the moment he went somewhere else, LeBron was poison…Rev. Jackson was giving voice to something most people–most white people–don’t have access to, which is to say the daily thoughts of black people in America when they’re not famous and don’t have shoe deals. I haven’t talked to a black man yet, not one, who didn’t feel in some way shape or form that Gilbert’s reactions gave us a view into who he is. I don’t expect everybody to agree with that. We all have different points of view, as should be the case in America. But that damn sure is mine, and that of a ton of people I know. Jason Whitlock, my boy and a damn good columnist, has a piece posted on this now, and he and I totally disagree. I haven’t talked to Jason but he has made this about what Rev. Jackson thinks and not what the rest of us think…Jason and I will talk later, but people should read his piece for yet another point of view…
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DC: One of the most amzing sports documentaries I watched was the Magic/Bird HBO special. It was incredible to hear them talk so openly how they hated each other and the team each other played for, then over time grew to admire and like each other. They still think of some of those losses they suffered on the court. Sad to think we’ll never witness that kind of competitiveness again.
Michael Wilbon: I think I said at the time that HBO special is “MUST SEE” TV…do whatever you have to do to sit quietly and watch it. It’s brilliant television, storytelling at its best. And if you want longer form, read Jackie McMullen’s book on the topic…MUST READ…especially as we all sit here discussion whether people should simply join greatness or try to create it.
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20165: When Jim Gray asked LeBron what sharing the spotlight would be like, he said – at a Boys and Girls Club Gym no less- that it’s not about sharing. Good message for the kids, right? Not about sharing. Really?
Dwyane Wade is a genius, because he is without question infinitely more intelligent than James and Bosh, and got both those dudes to join HIM. Kudos to Wade.
Michael Wilbon: Thanks for that observation.
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Herndon, Va.: LeBron’s decision has been great for the NBA, even though he should have stayed in Cleveland.
When was the last time you saw this level of excitement around one player?
Does it go all the way back to Kobe’s rookie year?
Michael Wilbon: Kobe was of zero consequence his rookie year. He was of no impact. It was his third season when we saw the possibilities…No, you have to go back to Michael Jordan to find this kind of excitement around one player. Question is, can LeBron come anywhere close to reaching that standard?
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Is LeBron the new A-Rod?: Has LeBron made himself into A-Rod overnight? Let’s see: most talented player, lack of championships, joins a team captained by a popular player who isnt as talented and now seen as out of touch. Did I miss anything? Hopefully, it doesnt turn out that way because until the other night, LeBron seemed like a likable guy.
Michael Wilbon: Great and fair question you’ve raised. Is LeBron to A-Rod as D-Wade is to Jeter (or something close)? Could be. Time will tell…I do like LeBron. In every other instance I know as somebody whose job it is to ask him questions, he’s forthcoming and expansive, always thoughtful, comes off well…I’ve had five years of experience with him, so I’m not going to let this determine what I think of LeBron…but I know others will have a totally different opinion…Okay gotta run and prepare for PTI…And I’ll post answers to another dozen questions or so from this session late tonight/early Tuesday morning…
This is going to be our last chat for awhile, until the end of summer actually. I’m going to be taking some time off…I don’t really take any off from Labor Day through the NBA Finals, so I’ve got some time coming to hang out with my family, specifically my son Matthew, whose most clearly spoken sentence these days is, “Daddy, can you stay here with me?” So, not only am I going to stay, but everything except my PTI appearances and a few columns will be pushed away until late August…You guys are great to jump in and make these chats fun to do…Have a great summer and we’ll see you when football is about to start in earnest…Thanks again, mike
About the Author
Michael Wilbon game blog
Cowboy Bill Watts and Bruno Sammartino?
Watts is going to be inducted into WWE HOF this year. he has made it clear over the years the great respect and debt he owes to Bruno Sammartino for helping him early in his career, a career that was successful as a wrestler and more successful as a controversial promoter.
Question: Should Watts express gratitude to Bruno during his acceptance speech?
Question: If you were Watts, would you tell Don Vinnie your intentions?
Question: Whatever Watts intentions, is it too late for the Don to do anything about it?
If you know anything about Bill Watts, you know he says what’s on his mind, regardless of who may be upset by it.
The “acceptance” speeches for these types of awards are all about thanking the people who helped you make it. He should, by all means, publicly thank Bruno for his help.
If I were Watts, and Vince told me not to mention Bruno, I would tell Vince, “you got it”, then go ahead and say what I was going to say anyway. What’s Vince going to do, take the Hall Of Fame spot away AFTER he’s been inducted? That would make Vince look very small and very petty.
Watts will say what he wants to say. Vince can edit Watts’ speech for broadcast, but he won’t be able to stop the live audience from hearing it.
NASCAR HOF: Bill France Sr.
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