Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Uh, this ought to be fun. I wonder how everybody would answer this. Legitimately now.
00:04Okay.
00:05Because our crack staff, we all put a tremendous amount of brain activity went into this, and
00:12this is what we came up with for Dubnation as we all get engaged here. And not that kind
00:19of engaged, except for maybe that kind of engaged. I just got engaged a handful of months
00:24ago. Maybe you will too. Let's get engaged on this. Before every game, you can vote in
00:29our engaging Dubnation poll on the 95.7 The Game Twitter page brought to you by Shane
00:35Co, your friend and jeweler. Well, you'll find the Bay Area's best selection of unique
00:41engagement rings and their unmatched free lifetime warranty. Visit shaneco.com today.
00:47So with that, and in honor of Steph and LeBron and yet another matchup in their amazing careers,
00:55if you were entering the NBA as a rookie and somebody magically like one of those genies
01:01in a bottle came flying out and offered you the careers of LeBron James and Steph Curry,
01:12and we'll give you a little summary of both. Both of them are four time champions, even
01:16though one of LeBron's only counts as like 0.4 of a championship.
01:200.14159 as we decided earlier. But LeBron is the all time scoring champ, has four rings,
01:27has four MVP awards. Steph Curry, obviously greatest shooter of all time. Most three pointers
01:34made in history. Also four time champ, two time MVP and many have and would argue is
01:41revolutionized the sport. Change the game, change the game. So if a genie in a bottle
01:48as an NBA rookie offered you these two careers, but you had to pick one, which career would
01:56you choose? You go to our 95 seven, the game poll on Twitter right now, and then we will
02:04track the results as they flow through the show and give those out near the end of the
02:10show as we're getting close to tip off. If you were offered these two careers, which
02:14one would you take? You take LeBron and I just say that as a diehard warrior fan, I've
02:21been a warrior fan longer than most people who are listening have been alive, but I can
02:25look at it objectively and think about being an NBA rookie. And if you have a chance to
02:32win four titles and I know it's whatever three and change based on the pandemic, we can do
02:36whatever we want with the fractionality of that. You could be the greatest shooter ever
02:43or maybe the greatest player ever. And I do think when you balance the two, it's LeBron.
02:49LeBron's career has been better than Steph's career. Hold on. You kind of just flippantly
02:54threw out there that you get to be the greatest player ever. I still think most people do not
03:00give either of these players that label. No, but if you did a Mount Rushmore and if you want to
03:04go outside this market and do a Mount Rushmore of all time NBA players, LeBron's on there and
03:11Steph is probably not. Yeah, he might be for some, not others, but okay. Majority of people
03:17would say it's, you know, Michael Jordan, it's LeBron. And depending on how old you are,
03:22it's either Wilt, Kareem, Magic, or it's Kobe. It depends on generationality. I don't think that
03:30most people would say, Oh yeah, it's Steph. Like if you didn't know,
03:35Shaq is trying right now. Yeah, he's doing great, but Shaq's not on there either.
03:40But if you did the all-time greatest shooter, well, yeah, it's Steph, it's Reggie Miller,
03:46it's Ray Allen, it's Steph. No, but if you did the Rushmore, if you wanted to do four people.
03:50No, I would just make Steph's face bigger. All four of them. Steph, Dell, Seth, and maybe Sonya.
03:56No, just Steph. Yeah. And then like bigger cheeks for Steph and then a right cheek for Steph and
04:01then a chin for Steph. That's my Mount Rushmore of shooters. Yeah, and that's disrespectful to
04:06those who came before. Why? Because without Reggie Miller and Ray Allen, and even Dell Curry,
04:11there'd be no Steph. I'd argue the other way around too. The trailblazers who made the three
04:16a thing. Nobody would talk about those guys nearly as much now if it weren't for Steph.
04:22That's a fair point, but I disagree with that. Okay, that's fine. They're great players. I'm
04:27not being disrespectful to them. Yeah, great players who had great moments. I'm just saying
04:30that this guy has lapped them. Probably three, four, five times. Well, and I wonder if there
04:36will be a player someday who laps Steph Curry. Well, who knows? It's hard to imagine in this
04:42moment, but then again, through history, stuff like that does come along and you do have now
04:48obviously players and kids coming up who learn the game in a different way. And so we'd be crazy
04:54to think that there won't be people now who can shoot the three pointer at a higher clip because
04:59they're picking the ball up and firing that thing when they're six years old now.
05:02Exactly. And we all shoot the three so much more. And I wonder about like unbreakable records. And
05:07I think about like, for example, Cy Young and the all-time wins record. Okay. That will never
05:13be broken unless they change the way wins are calculated. The home run record. Well, maybe
05:19the hit record people don't do base hits anymore. Joe DiMaggio and the 56 game hit streak. Well,
05:26we don't go for base hits anymore. So I think about those records being more, those are more
05:31unbreakable. Like we'll Chamberlain a hundred point game. You could see someone going for more
05:36than a hundred. Let me, let me throw some things at you. Devil's advocate here. Let me see if I can,
05:41if I can put up a fair argument because you kind of, you said some words there when you picked
05:48LeBron. I'm not, I don't think you're crazy for picking LeBron. And again, the question is
05:52if you were offered these two careers at the beginning of your NBA career, which one would
05:57you take? And thank you for opening a drink for the first time in the history of this show. I love
06:02the sound. It just makes me happy. It works with Thursday. Happy national burrito day. Anyway,
06:08point is you kind of flippantly were like, Hey man, I'm going to stay. I'm going to keep it real
06:14over here. And the answer is LeBron. And you're kind of a Homer. If you don't see it that way,
06:19the guys in the goat conversation will hold on, hold on. What if we take the conversation to a
06:25little bit more depth? Is it not worth some points to you that one of them has worn one jersey and
06:31the other one's worn three slash four. If you consider two different trips to Cleveland,
06:37is that not worth anything to you? That's worth a lot to me. It's worth something. Yes. But it
06:42also is worth something to me that LeBron James ushered into the NBA, the ability to,
06:49you know, move about the country as it go boom, boom, back to Southwest. And so good. Well,
06:54what Steph has done for the three ball is maybe equal in terms of, you know, what Steph Curry
07:00has done to the game. The way the game is played now, Steph has played a big role in that.
07:05Let me also like, let's slow down the words that I'm using. We didn't ask who's had a better
07:12career. Which career would you choose? So in other words, I think it's completely fair to
07:20bring into the argument a not only the idea of wearing one jersey, and maybe for some of you,
07:25that's a plus on the other side. Maybe if you want to ding, ding, move around the country.
07:30I don't know. Maybe, maybe you want to have multiple cities where you're up on the wall
07:36or your jerseys up in the rafters. Maybe, maybe you like that. But I think there's some points
07:44for me, for Steph on that one, because he's worn one jersey and to whatever level this matters to
07:51you. I don't know if this is the perfect way to say it, but I'll try. He's, he's better liked.
07:57He's more revered by fans. Steph Curry is, you know what I mean? In other words, like there's a
08:04relationship there that, that gets built between a player in the media and a player in the fans
08:10and the player and organizations. You know, LeBron James has had owners publish letters,
08:16ripping him a new one. Pat Riley told him to stop eating cookies and, and, and, and the Lakers,
08:23that fan base was like ticked off that LeBron came in and had some sort of Kobe vibe. People
08:30were erasing murals in LA because they're like, you're not, you're not one of us. You're not one
08:36of ours. And so you're winning championships like Cleveland. This is for you. Sure. But on the other
08:41ones, you're a hired gun. Like all of those things are LeBron. And, and, and if I were an NBA rookie
08:49and someone was like, no, not who's had a better career, but which life do you want? Oh yeah. I
08:55would say Steph. Oh, no way. Why not? Because sometimes it's good to be the black hat. You
09:00don't have, well, that's just a matter of perspective. Not everybody wants to be milk
09:05and cookies. I'm not answering it for anyone else. I'm answering it for me. And I'm answering it for
09:09me. Damn right you are. Yeah. And you know what? Sometimes it's fun to be the bad guy. It's, it's
09:14fun to be the villain. Like yesterday we talked about the refs and oh, poor Steph. He doesn't get
09:20any calls. Well, you know what? Stand up and agitate, stand up and make your voice be heard.
09:26That's what I'm talking about. I don't prefer when you do that voice. Every time you do that voice,
09:32whenever somebody wants to say it's inauthentic. No, I don't think it's inauthentic. I do. It's
09:37funny because you're like, you like to, Oh, don't be disrespectful. Like, Oh Steph. Nobody said that.
09:45Don't be disrespect. Nobody was crying. Nobody's whining. Nobody's soft. Nobody's any of those
09:54things. I disagree with that because you see is soft. No, no. You said nobody look at fans,
10:00listen to broadcasters advocating and begging for calls. You said nobody. No, I'm talking about,
10:08we're talking about Steph. We're talking about yesterday's conversation was about
10:13Steph's behavior and his approach toward ref, right? And I, he's not, but his approach,
10:20whatever he does is not working. And so if you want to ask me whose career I'd rather have,
10:26I'd rather have LeBron's career. And yes, you get a heaps of criticism, but you also get heaps
10:32of praise. And you are one of only four players to win titles in three different cities. And you're
10:37a guy who has done it as the, the alpha you're the all time leading scorer and you're either
10:43the best or the second best player ever in the association. For me, I'd rather have that. Okay.
10:49I like, this is where it's going to sound like I'm whacking the guy at the legs and I'm not
10:54because I actually, and you know this, I am not a LeBron hater. I really am not. I find somebody
11:01who has that much hype coming into his NBA career. And then this has been the output where he didn't
11:08just meet the hype. He surpassed the hype and he's never even right. There's also no sort of
11:15dark side to the whole story either. Like the worst thing we've got on the guy is like, Oh,
11:20you're annoying and come off like a narcissist sometimes. And he did a one hour special to
11:24announce his new destination. Seriously. That's the worst thing that you got on this guy who lives
11:29in the smallest of fish bowls. You don't have much. He loves his wife too much. And he spends
11:35too much time with his kids. Well, it's funny that you say that though, because actually those
11:39characteristics get hung around Steph even more than LeBron. Right. But both of them have been
11:44with their, their partner for the better part of 15 or 20, which I'm not going to act like we know
11:49anything about that because we don't, I don't know what the hell's going on. They're big time
11:52athletes and who knows? We're both still married. Yes. They're both still married. Although one of
11:57them, one of them has not had an opportunity to see what he would do if his son was on the
12:06outskirts of being a professional athlete. And then the other one has handled his son this year,
12:12the way he handled it, which by the way, let me be very upfront. I have no problem with it.
12:20The only problem I have, which is sort of like in the area code of it, I have no problem with
12:26what LeBron did. I have a problem with how sensitive he is about how, what he did. That's
12:31my issue with LeBron on the Bronnie James thing. Dude, you're LeBron James. I do the same damn
12:38thing for my son. If I could, if I could grab an organization by the, you know, what's and be like,
12:45by the way, let me tell you who you're hiring tomorrow. You're taking my kid and you're going
12:49to give him seven figures and a uniform and everything. You're going to do it. Cause I
12:55said, you're going to do it. So you're going to do it. And then usher that son into a professional
13:01life. Would I do that guilty? I would totally do that. But then I would not start screaming
13:07at people in the media who were like, dude, you did that. Dude, you, you so clearly obviously did
13:14that. And now you've been on a year and a half campaign to let everybody know that you didn't do
13:19that. And apparently you doing that also does not mean we're like, we're not allowed to have an
13:25opinion about it. We're there. There's one player in the history of the NBA. We're not allowed to
13:30have an opinion about cause he's a human being, right? He's a human being. We're not allowed to
13:36dude, you gave him a Laker Jersey. We're allowed to, we're allowed to say what we're saying.
13:39Right. And he's allowed to clap back at a talking head who, you know, comes in and tries to question
13:45his, his life as a dad. He's questioning what he does as a father. Did not question his life as a
13:51dad. He questioned the fact that he gave a Laker Jersey to someone who's not good enough to be a
13:57Laker. He judged LeBron for what he did as a dad by making that move. And so we can get into
14:02semantics. It's not, I'm not going to sit here and defend LeBron for that. I do. I do see it
14:08differently. The way he clapped back at Steven, a Smith, a guy who just goes off on whatever he
14:12wants. And then he got checked by LeBron. And then he was, Oh boy, I'm up in my feelings. And now I
14:17have to double down and say more about LeBron. That's fine. And you can, you can want Steph's
14:22career. It's a wonderful career. That's odd that you say that you texted guru a week ago and said,
14:27Steven, a was a genius for all of this genius. He was, he's a genius because that's his bit.
14:32It's not up in his feelings at all. His whatever his feelings are is completely strategic is
14:38exactly media landscape for both of them. Right. And LeBron went right back at him. And so I don't
14:45begrudge LeBron for going back at him. No, I don't, I don't begrudge it. I can tell you that
14:49I wouldn't choose it. I would choose what I see Steph Curry to be. And again, I want to put out
14:55there. We don't know what the appearances are just that their appearances. I don't know these
15:00people. I don't know what's happening behind closed doors, but I would much rather have the
15:06relationship that Steph Curry seems to have with his public world, as opposed to the one that
15:11LeBron has. And if you were going to ask me this question that way, that's how I'd answer it.
15:17I wouldn't just simply go to the resume on the court, which I actually think is arguable. It's
15:23pretty close and you can value whatever you want with the same number of rings and all of that.
15:29But yes, LeBron's got 13,000 more points. Great. Whatever. I mean, both of them will tell you it's
15:34all about the rings and I, and one of them did it in one city and the other one has had to hop
15:39around the country for me. He didn't have to. No, but he did. He chose to. I'll take the one city.
15:46I'll take the one city and I'll take what to me is the most sparkling relationship with his public
15:52that I've ever seen an athlete have in my life in any sport. Yeah. And I'll take that. I will take
15:57the resume of a guy who might be the greatest of all time and you can debate whether he is or he
16:02isn't, but you can't, you can't put an NBA Mount Rushmore together without LeBron being on there.
16:08I don't think you get past number four and think, well, LeBron's probably fifth or sixth all time
16:14as an NBA player. You wouldn't. I don't really care about the whole Rushmore thing. I think
16:18the Rushmore thing gets really tired whenever we do it. We're basically doing that. You're saying,
16:23whose career would you rather have? And I'm looking at LeBron's career. I'm not looking
16:26at it as Rushmore. I'm not either. I'm looking at it, whose career you'd rather have. And if you,
16:32would I rather be the all time leading scorer in the league and be able to play at 40 and be
16:37able to create a path for my son and win titles in three, in three different cities or Steph,
16:44which is yeah, singularly one of the best one franchise athletes of all time.
16:49You'd be hard pressed to find another one. Yeah. Bill Russell, 11 titles. Fine. That was 65 years
16:55ago. Tim Duncan won five. His fifth was as a bench player. So could you put him up against that?
17:01Absolutely. I still objectively, even as a warrior fan for careers, I'd take LeBron's.