Chris Mannix: LeBron James Wants To Have His Cake And Eat It Too

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0:39Rich Eisen:DeWalt. Guaranteed tough. Available at the Home Depot. How doers get more done. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. This is the Rich Eisen Show. My favorite. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

1:22Rich Eisen:And amongst the large fouls, the big heart of his wife, Ellen, beats a little faster. Strike three pounds! Strikeout number 3 ,000 for Clayton Kershaw! If there's any human being that deserves that sort of moment, it's him. Earlier on the show, Saints quarterback, Spencer Rattler. NFL Network insider, Tom Pellicero. Coming up, senior writer for Sports Illustrated, Chris Mannix. And now... it's rich eyes our number three of the rich eyes and show is on the air uh fun show already tom pellicero of nfl network spencer rattler of the new orleans saints if you missed it we re-air on the rich eyes and show roku sports channel i should mention this as well because we had a caller call before adobe in minneapolis saying she got roku for this show which you know touches us for sure um and she's saying hey is your show going to stay on on the rich eyes and show fast channel later on uh in the fall um and the answer is we're hoping to um but the bottom line is uh when we move our show to um the disney uh walt disney company we don't talk about it that much uh on the program uh it happens in september disney plus is available right here on the roku so if you have roku we're not going anywhere exactly okay because the roku portal has everything everything okay and that's part of the reason why we love being on roku so you got everything and it includes us so we're not leaving the roku portal uh 844-204 rich is the number to dial on the program look who's here to kick off our number three our friend from sports illustrated and disown uh wearing a balboa versus creed by any bicentennial super fight t-shirt nice manix is in full effect well maybe uh though like in at the nfl network we don't refer to the off season we refer to it as the non-playing season ah no i'm gonna go with off season well i want to be off for a period of time i know what you want yes but you know the news keeps on churning right now in the nba i think the way the nba set it up though is that in the next couple of days it's going to taper off considerably well of course they want to get into summer league which starts on the 10th yes uh but we are getting to the tail end of of the busy season and the nba off season well the the big names if you will like Durant um he got traded and Giannis there were trades involving his team but not him and I want to get to those in a second and the Knicks hired Mike Brown so there's a lot of uh empty boxes that have been checked over the last few days that is for sure but the the week essentially began uh with the news on Monday um from Rich Paul LeBron's agent and the clutch sports ceo i'm wondering how what your interpretation of the statement of lebron wants to compete for a championship he knows the lakers are building for the future he understands that but values a realistic chance of winning it all we are very appreciative of the partnership that we've had for eight years with genie bus rob palenka and consider the lakers as a critical part of his career i was saying on monday that if you had handed me that statement without information as to whether LeBron had opted in or out.

4:44Rich Eisen:I would have said, after reading that statement, he's opted out. But he has, in fact, with conjunction with that statement, opted in. What's your two cents on all of this? Well, my first reaction was, it struck me that LeBron wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to collect the$53 million, which he's entitled to, which, by the way, he's worth three times that to the NBA and the Lakers organization. and he wants the Lakers to do right by him if he decides he wants to play somewhere else. Look, LeBron could have opted out and made$15 million per year anywhere. Could have made more in some situations.

5:2215? 15, 1-5, anywhere, right? A lot of teams don't have the financial flexibility of like a Brooklyn or a Detroit at one point. Some teams might have only been able to offer that kind of high exception that's available. So he could have done that, but he wants to get paid and he wants to collect the full amount of his contract. So I read that as him saying or as his team saying, all right, yeah, we're going to opt in. We're a Laker right now. But in the weeks and months ahead, if this team doesn't look like it's going to compete for a championship, we are certainly hoping that Jeannie Buss and Rob Palenka are collaborative with us and try to find a destination that LeBron would want to be at.

6:02Rich Eisen:okay so this is a i i'm entitled to 50 some odd million this is the only spot where i can get it that has a chance to win a championship you know right now um but improve the team otherwise i will then walk in your direction and say i want out and hopefully you will collaborate that's your read of that statement that was my read of that statement yes okay so is deandre ayton in your underestimation being dropped out of the sky by the Portland Trailblazers buyout gods. Is that something that you think is a step in that direction? I think it's a step in that direction. I think it's a small step in that direction.

6:51The Lakers to me right now are an incomplete on their offseason because I do think there's more to come with the Lakers. They've got some expiring contracts on their roster that they can deal. They've got some draft capital that they can still deal. Remember, they rescinded that deal for Dalton Connect at the trade deadline last year. They still have the assets that were part of that trade. And they've got Austin Reeves. And Austin Reeves, I think, has the potential to be an all-star. But there is some overlap in the skill set of Austin Reeves and Luka Doncic. So I think there's still more to come with the Lakers.

7:23But thus far, the offseason, I think, has been underwhelming. You know, you're basically flipping Dorian Finney-Smith for Jake Laravia. With all respect to Jake Laravia, that is a step back. Jake Laravia is a backup type of player. Dorian Finney-Smith has proven he is a starting caliber player. You bring in DeAndre Aydin. I would agree with people that would say that DeAndre Aydin was the most talented of the crop of free agent centers that was out there. That doesn't mean he's the best fit. like DeAndre Ayton has been a lob threat sort of in Phoenix when he played with Chris Paul, but DeAndre Ayton is primarily a post score.

8:02Like he wants the ball in his hands. That was kind of what caused some of the friction with him and the former Phoenix Suns coaching staff there. So you're bringing in a low post score to play with LeBron and with Luca, who are guys that are ball dominant players. I don't think it's a round peg round hole type of fit. I've seen some of the Lakers now have the number one and number three pick in the 2018 draft. I love that. I do love that. But to me it's going to be an interesting fit with a guy that plays a way that I don't think compliments LeBron and Luka in the same way a Clint Capella would compliment them, more of a rim running type of guy brooke lopez a three-point shooter who's used to being the third or fourth banana on a winning team like those two players to me would have been uh better natural fits okay so um but lopez signed with the clippers weird man like you got like basically a one-year deal with the clippers you're letting i i don't like that that felt like the one that got away for the lakers like you know They seemed focused on getting the replacement for Finney Smith and LaRavia.

9:15I feel like LaRavia would have been out there or available if you can offer him that type of money. I thought a center should have been a priority, and Lopez, to me, just makes a lot of sense.

9:26Rich Eisen:But he's shooting threes, though, right? I mean, don't you need, if you're the Lakers, you need somebody who's stationed down low, certainly. You think? I don't know. You tell me. No, I mean, I think you want as much floor spacing as you can get. When you have two guys that operate in space as well as any two players in the NBA, getting more shooting, getting more floor spacing has got to be a priority. The Lakers, look, they emphasized this last season under J.J. Redick, getting their three-point attempts up, providing LeBron at that point with more shooters. Brooke Lopez can do that. Like he's a depreciating player.

10:06He's in his late 30s right now. But I like the fit of Brooke Lopez in L.A. more than I like the fit right now of DeAndre Aiden.

10:13Rich Eisen:All right. Chris Mannix here in the Rich Eisen Show. Let's move to the Bucs now. What happened in Milwaukee in the last 72 hours? Look, I give the Bucs credit for getting creative here and not being afraid to be bold. And that has kind of defined the John Horst era. Like he's been willing to make bold moves, like trading for Drew Holiday, giving up all those assets, trading for Damian Lillard. Like he's not been afraid to to roll the dice. This is another kind of example of dice roll. And look, the way you have to look at it is that Damian Lillard was not playing next year. So you are getting a player that can play in exchange for a player that cannot.

10:51Now, the jury is out on how good Miles Turner is. I have seen a lot of Miles Turner slander out there, Rich. A lot of people have had a lot of people calling 29 year old Miles Turner, who shot 40 percent from three last season, who helped this team get to the finals like kind of a slightly better version than Brooke Lopez. Like, I'm not seeing that. I think Miles Turner is a better version of Brooke Lopez. I think he's got more of a runway to get even better. People point to the finals numbers and they weren't good. And the conference finals numbers weren't great either. But that team, Miles Turner was a necessary ingredient to beat in Cleveland in the second round.

11:26Like he has been a big part of that team's success or was a big part of that team's success last year. Getting him at 29 years old on a reasonable contract, like four years, 100 ish million dollars is not a big number in today's NBA. Getting him on that deal and paying Lillard the most money ever to not play for your team, wave and stretch. That is a good basketball decision for the Milwaukee Bucks. is it enough to make Giannis wake up you know in a few weeks once he's you know kind of got his mind wrapped around say I want to be in Milwaukee Buck I don't know we'll see but I think that was a a move that strengthened the team for next year you think there there's still um some

12:09Rich Eisen:equivocation with Giannis you think he's still assessing or or he's just like you know what I'm a loyal guy I'm gonna try and make it work in Milwaukee and he'll never ask out like that's the general sense of like if he hasn't asked out over a couple of things he's still not he's never gonna ask out he hasn't asked out because the Bucks have made the moves required of them like would he have asked out if they didn't acquire Drew Holiday and subsequently win a championship in 2021 would he have asked out if they didn't make the bold move and getting Lillard when Lillard was that was a big deal back then like Lillard wanted to go to Miami they swoop in the 11th hour and they get Damian Lillard like every time the Bucks have even thought he was thinking of asking out they have made a pretty bold move at the same time he has also given a lot of interviews where he has said I'm not going to be a one championship guy like I'm not going to be happy and I'm just paraphrasing here, but being Dirk Nowitzki.

13:11I don't want to just be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for 20 years just to say I played for one team. He wants to win championships. So I think he's going to look at this Bucks roster and ask two things. One, is it positioned to win a championship next season? Probably not. Even with Miles Turner, their backcourt is pretty weak. Kyle Kuzma didn't show that he was a perfect fit for them last year, but he can go to the front office have a conversation say like all right what's the move for next summer right what are we going to do how do we make this a championship level team i think that i think there is still an assessment going on with yannis about his long-term future with the team and then

13:51Rich Eisen:just long-ranging it here um into next spring is it possible lillard is rehabbed and ready to go like there could be some signing by a team that is on a roll going into the playoffs looking great and he can just hop on board minimum salary ring chase and and we're gonna have a Lillard watch around April in a rare situation I don't think it's gonna be next season I don't think it's next season that injury is usually a full calendar year okay to get right and even if it wasn't even if he was medically cleared to play in early April. The last thing you want to do if you're Damian Lillard is drop yourself into a high-intensity playoff situation because that is a recipe for getting re-injured.

14:43I think for Damian Lillard, the focus is going to be the 26-27 season. There are teams interested in talking deal with Damian Lillard right now. Giving him money to just... He doesn't really need money because he's got the contract, but giving him a deal to rehab with them for the rest of this year and presumably be ready to go in the 26-27 season. Miami has been a longtime destination. Boston has been interested in the past. You just rank the contenders. They're all going to be interested in getting Damian Lillard on a short-term deal. He and Tatum can rehab together. I think Damian, from my understanding, he's going to rehab in Portland.

15:23I did a couple stories on Damian last year and the year before when he got to Milwaukee. And look, he was engaged as you possibly could be with the team, but it was hard for him to be away from his kids, be away from his family who stayed in the Portland area. I think you're going to see him mostly in Portland, may even see him around the Blazers facility, not going to sign with the Blazers, but may even see him around the Blazers facility. And then come the spring, we start talking about where Lillard is the best fit for the 26-27 season.

15:54Rich Eisen:Yeah, we were just talking the other day about how these Achilles injuries to Tatum and Tyrese Halliburton and Dame Lillard have provided some of the biggest fireworks of the last two weeks based on the way that the teams are looking at their salary cap and their aprons and things of that nature and their abilities to win next year and what they're going to do. Do you think if Halliburton had not popped his Achilles, forget about Game 7, that's a complete speculation, but do you think the Pacers would have re-signed Myles Turner? I do. The Pacers are among a handful of teams that historically have been pretty loathed to go deep into luxury tax territory, don't like paying those tax penalties.

16:39But if Halliburton had come out of that game seven unscathed and if they'd been able to bring back guys like Aaron Neesmith, Benedict Matherin, some of the guys that were either going to be free agents or extension eligible, I don't think they would have blinked at the kind of contract Miles Turner eventually got with. Look, they were willing to pay Miles Turner. I think it was from what I heard, it was like 20 to 22 million dollars per year. He wound up getting 25, 26, I think, whatever the final number is. I think if Halliburton had been healthy, they would have paid that money, brought him back and see if they could make another run with that group.

17:11Rich Eisen:And then you see what the Celtics have done, right? I mean, what do you think? They held on to Brown. Was that ever a possibility that they were going to trade him to? The way that the Celtics, when I talk to teams about the Celtics' mindset on Jalen Brown and Dirk White, it's like, you better come with something big. Like, if you don't come with something that's going to blow us away, where we're going to say, you know, it's impossible not to do a deal like this, they're not interested. They still look, like, everything for them right now is on 26-27. Tatum's not going to come back next year for the same reasons I articulated with Damian Lillard.

17:45And right now, the Celtics, with the way their roster looks like, why would they even consider it? But 26-27, having Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown in their late 20s, having Derek White as the third option in his early 30s, and then having the ability, because of some of the flexibility that you started to create, by getting right now under the second apron. I wouldn't be surprised, Rich, to see Boston get all the way under the luxury tax threshold before the start of the season. We could see Anferty Simons be relocated. We could see George Niang be relocated, Sam Hauser be relocated to try to get them all the way under that tax threshold to give them more flexibility in the summer of 2026 when they can start wheeling and dealing like they have their own draft pick in 2026.

18:29So if they stink out the joint and wind up in the lottery, that's not the worst thing in the world in terms of adding talent or using that pick to get something else. Everything Boston is doing, everything they've done, everything they'll continue to do is based on the 26-27 season. Next year is the ultimate gap year for the Celtics. Okay.

18:48Rich Eisen:Is there anything more Ainge-like than going and getting Ace Bailey anyway? I loved it. Loved it. Right? I mean, and I said this before, like when Jazz got in the fifth pick, they had to get up. I thought they'd have to move up to get Ace Bailey. I thought they had to. We knew Cooper and Dylan Harper were going 1-2. I thought the Jazz had to get to number three to get to Ace Bailey because he's the only one in that group of players that I thought had franchise player potential. Like he's got kind of a Tatum vibe to him. And I thought they had to move up and get him. Once he started to slip, you know, I think it was a no-brainer for Danny, for Austin, for Justin Zanuck, all the decision makers in that Jazz front office.

19:26Who cares if he doesn't want to play there? Jason Tatum didn't really want to play in Boston years ago. He was kind of angling to get to Phoenix. He thought there was better opportunity with the Suns. Danny took him there, worked out, hopefully, for the Jazz. It works out with Ace Bailey. It does. Do you guys have any questions for this guy? What's the boxing latest?

19:44Rich Eisen:All right. Where were you guys last week? Jake Paul was fighting in Anaheim. I expected, like, a live remote from outside. If it wasn't a 60-year-old, we weren't interested. Okay. Is he going to get a real title shot? Did I see that? He is now officially ranked by the WBA, whose cruiserweight champion is Gilberto Ramirez, who fought on Jake's undercard last weekend. So he can now officially fight for a title. I don't think his next fight will be a title fight. I think his next fight will probably wind up being more of an event like Mike Tyson was, like some of these other YouTuber MMA guys have been.

20:23Oh, okay.

20:24Rich Eisen:I just thought he was going to fight a 70-year-old this time. No, no, no. Then we would be doing remotes from out front, man. Right down the street. Brought to you by the AARP. You know what I mean? We'd have gotten complete and total blanket coverage. Has the luster kind of been worn off a little bit on the J. Cole fight show thing? I mean, you can't really say that because a year ago they did like 100 million viewers or whatever it was on Netflix against Tyson. This event in Anaheim, I called the fight for DAZN. The live gate was about a million and a half, which is a good number. I don't know what the pay-per-view buys were, but on social media, the interaction was still pretty strong.

21:03He fought, like, look, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who he fought and beat, stinks. You didn't even give him, with all due respect, you didn't even like Jake LaRabia. I gave him the benefit of the doubt before the fight. Like, he's 39 years old and so far removed from being his best days. But he is a former middleweight champion of the world who has fought against some of the very best in boxing in his relatively recent pro career. So I give Jay credit for taking on that caliber of opponent this early in his professional boxing career. I just I don't think he's he's going to be angling for already for a world title shot against one of the established cruiserweight champions anytime soon.

21:48Rich Eisen:All right, Chris, let's talk real boxing. Ah, okay. Sideshow stuff, bro. Canelo Crawford, let's go. Talk to me, baby. Why should we tell everybody why they should be excited about this fight? It's the most marketable fight that you can see in professional boxing. Terrence Crawford still arguably number one on the pound for pound list. Canelo Alvarez still the biggest box office draw on the king of the super middleweight division. So it's the right fight to make for both these guys to make a lot of money. My concern with Crawford is that it's a lot of weight to put on in a short period of time.

22:26Terrence Crawford is effectively 147 pounder. Like he has one fight above that and didn't look great in that fight against Israel Madrimov last summer in his first fight at 154. Now he's going up another 14 pounds and say what you want about Canelo. He's not what he used to be. He's not the destroyer that ran through middleweight and super middleweight. The guy still hits like a mule. And if you stand in front of him, he is going to hurt you with some of those power shots. So I just don't know. Look, it's going to be competitive because Crawford's great. But I just don't see how Crawford hits Canelo enough to win a decision.

23:05And I certainly don't see Crawford knocking out a fighter with the granite chin of Canelo Alvarez.

23:10Rich Eisen:It's like, you know, back in wrestling, Gorilla Monsoon used to always say, if you take two competitors of equal skill, a big man is always going to beat a little man just because of that size difference. Natural weight for Canelo. And look, everybody's talking about Canelo's age. Crawford's older than Canelo Alvarez. So I don't know. It's going to be a huge... It's on Netflix. It's at Allegiant Stadium. It's going to be wild. It's going to be a great, great scene on fight night. I just think, to your point, the better big man, I would favor to beat the better small man. You're not asking the proper question about Canelo Alvarez.

23:43Rich Eisen:Let me do it to wrap this conversation up. How's his golf game? Do you know what his golf game looks like? I don't know. You were a golfer with him. Do you go to that invitation? I'm going to American Century Championship. I will be in the same field. That's right. As Canelo Alvarez next week. One of 92. I won't get in the ring with him, but I will step on the golf course with him. Is he any good? Do you know anything about his golf game? I think he's pretty good. Like one of the reasons that... I thought I could get at least a boxer. You know, I think, you know, certainly with a stable for scoring system.

24:13I don't know your game well enough to say that you can take him yet, but he has held a lot of training camps in Lake Tahoe and in San Diego. So my guess is he's playing a lot of golf on the side. So I don't know if he's at a Steph Curry level of golfer, which is probably one of the highest of non-golfer athletes, but I think he's pretty up there. I don't know if Canelo is in the field this year, Rich.

24:34Rich Eisen:I saw that he is. Oh, I don't see him on the odds sheet. Well, maybe, I don't know. Maybe they just don't know. But he was as of last week. So we'll see. I never get invited to those things. I'll let you know. I'm not. It's my first invite in 21 years. So let me get established. I'll see what I can do. You can put a warrior for me. I'll do it. Thanks for coming in, brother. My pleasure. You got it. That's Chris Mannix. Everybody check him out on DAZN and, of course, Sports Illustrated. We'll be back in a moment right here on The Rich Eisenhower with your phone calls and what's more likely.

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