Best Of - Nick Wright reacts to SHREDDED Luka Doncic, Lamar Jackson PLAYOFF FAILURES, Browns MUST START Shedeur

problem with that is twofold. One is anyone that's watched ten minutes of Lukadanic at any moment of his career knows he never had a forty two inch vertical. The other problem is Lukdancic did not go to the combine, so there is no place to measure his vertical, So

what happened there? The most obvious answer, is figured out by some Internet sleuths, was if you googled Lukdanciic vertical, the top AI result was that Luk Adancic had a forty two inch vertical measured at the NBA Combine, which then links you to an article about Dante Divincenzo's forty two inch vertical at the NBA Combine. But AI hallucinated it. I guess they saw the chu in both names, white guys, the same draft class, and they just made it up.

So again, I'm not saying AI can't be used for things. I'm not saying it's not you know, the next, the future, all of that. I am saying, for some reason, AI does not know sports and can't figure it out. That's first thing. Second thing is this my other takeaway from that article demands. I'm going to read you a line in it which I found fascinating. The facility which is located in the town where Doncic is vacationed every summer

since he was a teen. That's important. The facility which is located in the town where Doncic has vacationed every summer since he was a teen, didn't have weights until earlier this month, when he had dumbbells, barbells, weight plates and medballs trucked in. So here's why that's noteworthy to me. Luke every summer goes back to this town in Slovenia UH and trains. But his training has always just included hoop it, you know what I mean. He plays ball

and does drills, all of it. Weight draining was never a big part of it for him. And so now you guys know, I feel like the go ahead.

giving him an excuse. But I just thought twelve months ago today, before Luca got hurt, before Luca got traded, when Luca was coming off a finals appearance, nobody thought and he had beaten in round two Shay and in round three Anthony Edwards, and had averaged thirty four to nine and ten in the regular season. Nobody thought Shay or Anthony Edwards was better than him. Now I think it's like conventional wisdom that those guys are better than him,

and Shade certainly has earned it. I guess Anthony. I don't think Quhite has. But whatever, the point I'm making is this, Luca, in non tip top physical condition, was already well on his way to being one of the greatest players ever. Luca like this should be the early favorite for League MVP.

this extra chip on his shoulder. Now people can say, why didn't he do it during the year. I don't think you can do this type of thing during a season, you know what I mean? I think you have to this. You n need an offseason. And he's about to be playing a ton of ball at euro Basket at for Slovenia and I right now he would be my early season pick to win League MVP next year.

but it was. It hit my radar in training camp. We've been lucky so far, fingers crossed. There hasn't been the like devastating superstar injury, and there hasn't been the contender that has just been hit with a bunch of you know, contributor injuries, at least not yet. So there have been to me two made stories out of training camp so far for contenders. One is a positive one. One is a worrisome one. The positive one and people can say this is you know, Chiefs colored glasses, but

I'm not wrong about this. The Chiefs rookie first round pick Get who was considered a top ten talent, who fell because people thought his knee was not right and he might not be healthy for a good portion of

his rookie year. Not only being healthy the first day of camp, but being slotted as the starting left tackle, not competing with Jalen Moore, who they signed to be the left tackle for that spot, and just being their left tackle from day one of camp today to right now is one of the biggest positive stories for any true contender this training camp, because if they have that spot locked down, and then you have Jail Moore, the guy they signed from San Francisco, and Juwan Taylor, the

right tackle who's been a bit of a disappointment with Kansas City since they signed him from Jacksonville, competing on the right side, then all of a sudden, the Chiefs offensive line is totally different. So and there was everyone agreed that Josh Simmons had the talent to potentially be the number one tackle in his draft class, but the

injury was so worried some he slid. If the knee is really right, then the Chiefs dealing at taking care of one of the most important and one of the most expensive spots in football by drafting a guy at thirty two is a game changer that's in the positive direction for a contender, in a negative direction for a contender. It's this Stafford story because aside from confidence for your team's secondary, there is nothing positive that comes out of

Jimmy G practicing and playing in trailing camp. And you need desperately healthy Matt Stafford in order to contend, and I think the Rams can contend. I liked now poor DeVante Adams. He's like, you got to be kidding me. I got massive, I got Jimmy G throwing me the wall again. I love Puka, I really like their d line. I obviously love McVeigh. I think DeVante is good as a number two with the Rams, but it all comes

undone without Stafford, and Stafford is thirty seven. He got the shit kicked out of him for a decade in Detroit. He has been banged up at times with the Rams. I am it's not the biggest story, but I Am not going to ignore it as a potential big story. So it's just something to watch. Nothing says summer like long days, clutch plays and firing off a few bets on the game, all with DraftKings Sportsbook. As the season heats up, so to the bats and DraftKings sports Book.

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Mahomes is more of an improviser. Lamar Jackson's obviously like super fast, and Josh Allen's like a freak athlete.

And he responded by having more yards than any player in the history of the league, winning the Super Bowl MVP, winning the regular season MVP, and having arguably the greatest quarterback season anyone's ever had. So I'm I'm not even mad at Madden. Maybe they motivated him. I act actually, I I want to use this as an opportunity and listen, Josh just won Super Bowl or I'm sorry, regular season MVP had, you know, for a team that a lot

of people thought was not going to be good. Some people who had always been called a Bill's hater for just being right about the Bills then last year thought the Bills could be really good and that person was me, but that it was because of Josh Allen, So it's fine. And Lamar has had basically back to back perfect regular season, so you want to give him a ninety nine rating,

it's fine. I actually want to use this time here to talk a little bit about Lamar and the Ravens, because I was on Mina's podcast and she was a gog that I was skeptical of the rape Vins and Mena, you know, said Lamar didn't play poorly in the playoff game, which I find unbelievable, and said that basically she thought I was being unfair to Lamar or the Ravens by not I guess chalking up the same exact thing happening every single year to just dumb luck and said, oh,

I didn't know you were a Ravens hater. And this is where as I said with her, I will break k fabe for a moment. I adore Mina times. I know, I call her my rival that I want to vanquish. I think she's outstanding. It's the only reason I went on a podcast with her at seven o'clock New York City time on the night before I was going to the Bahamas for a few days, and I think she does great work.

Never is the answer? Nope? If the whole world acknowledges this guy is just you know, dan close to a perfect player, who's had a couple perfect regular seasons, who's just bad timing for these awful moments and now twenty twenty three for Lamar, it was an awful game. Twenty twenty four, it was not an awful game. It was a couple really awful moments that ruined an otherwise really good game by him. But I am and so because I didn't think Lamar was terrible in the Divisional round

game against Buffalo. What I did think was a guy who was historically good all year about protecting the football having two turnovers in the first twenty minutes of that game made it to where the best grade he could get for the games, like a C plus and especially because they end up losing. And so the the question I truly have, and the question I truly have for the audiences is that hating is. And I'll use the Bills thing as an example. Every single year people called

me a Bill's hater. Now I was a Bill's troll to a degree, and I said drop the banner, and I poked fun and I did all that stuff. But I was also right every single time. And then this past year when I thought the pendulum had swung too far in the other direction, and I said, I actually think the Bills are going to be excellent. I think they're once again the biggest threat to the Chiefs, And that's the opposite of hating, and it was just correct. Right.

So then the and yes, guys, when I say Mahomes at the most yards in the single season ever, that's that is exactly the It's exactly what I'm saying.

twenty twenty two Patrick Mahomes. So the Lamar stuff to me is interesting because I it's not only that I don't think I'm a hater, but I think a lot of other really smart people who cover this league are in willful denial because they like him and because they want it to be different than it is, and because and this part I really empathize with, because they detectest so much, so many of his original actual haters, the people who said he should change positions coming in the league,

or he'd never be any good or any of that stuff, and so all of that has created this very odd world where folks patronize him a bit in a way. They discuss what is the only hole on his resume, but it's the hole that matters the most, which is in that league, for that position, how you play in

the postseason. And so this is the question that I would just have to everyone, Folks on Ravens Twitter who are mad at me because they think the team is absolutely stacked, and I have questions about its received position, and folks in the media that think I'm unfair in

my skepticism. Because one of the other things that happened when I was talking again I think Mina is outstanding with Mina was Stafford came up and I talked about how if I were like I kind of impromptu was talking about how he might be my third pick of any quarterback in the league to have in the postseason.

That would go Mahomes Alan Stafford, And she seemed legitimately a ghast that I was not including Lamar in the math for that, and I was legitimately aghast that she possibly could include Lamar in the math for that specific question. You could have any quarterback for a playoff run, like, well, I'm not going to pick the guy who's literally never like shown us that he can do that. It would seem that would seem silly to me. You might be like, well,

Josh hasn't shown it. Josh has had plenty of playoff runs where he's played excellent throughout. He just the team wasn't good enough or did see that from Lamar? But that's fine. This is kind of an old hat. We've talked about this each of the last few years, because each of the last few years it has gone exactly like this unbelievable regular season that I look at with a quizzical eye because I want to see how it works in

the postseason. Then Lamar has one of, if not his downright worst game in the postseason, and then everybody has this moment of clarity for about three days, where after the year people are like, damn, Nick was right without saying Nick was right, and then come this time of year, it's like, no, this will year will be different. So this is my question because Raven's Twitter, Raven's Twitter thinks the team is absolutely loaded, so obviously like there shouldn't

be any excuses there. But my question in the media is this, if it were to happen again, same be to the last couple of years, is Lamar gonna win MVP? He is the MVP's top two MVP, all of it, and then once again the Ravens don't play to their seed or don't play to their talent or you know, and it's because of massive quarterback mistakes early in a playoff game that puts him in a hole that they can't quite dig themselves out of. Will this year then

be enough? Is it, like before, the sample is too small or will it still just be a randomness, dumb luck of the playoffs? I find it really fascinating because it is absolutely true that the only thing standing between Lamar and being in the discussion demanse as one of the Mixer seven greatest quarterbacks of all time, is one great playoff run. That's all that's standing between It's just

one because the regular season stuff is so unbelievable. But the only thing standing between him and being in a very unique class of all time athletes in a in a not great sense, is deja vu all over again one more time. And it makes this year one of the most fascinating. It makes it makes the Ravens and Lamar one of the most fascinating stories of the season. Uh. And it also I am I'm really excited to watch it, and I am really excited to see how people react

myself included to how this full season plays out. And so like it was, it's back to back years. It's all been right there, all been. And that's one other thing I want to say, because one of the things Mena pointed out was Dvoa has over the last quarter century de Monday, the two best teams, the two best five year stretches by any team to not make a Super Bowl are the last five years of the Buffalo Bills and the last five years of the Baltimore Ravens.

And the point there that Mina made was, you know, basically that's an Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes stat, and it's that these two teams were good enough to be all time greats. They were just blocked by one of the great is, if not the greatest duo in NFL history. And I pushed back on that too, because I think the Bills being on that list is a Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes stat because the Bills have lost to the Chiefs five times in this stretch all r I'm sorry,

four times. I don't know that. I feel the Ravens being on that list is a Chief stat because only one of those years have the Chiefs been the team to block the Ravens. They haven't gotten to that level yet. So we'll see, and I listen, you believe in the Ravens this year year.

they need to get him. I talked a lot about how I thought there was too much discussion about Shador's personality and not enough discussion about his lack of arm talent, and I just didn't look at him as like a blue chip prospect. So I was not a Shadoor guy. And now the however, because of where he is and the quarterbacks that he is competing with. I find myself feeling like they've got to start him at some point, because here's the deal. Kenny Pickett is injured and not

an NFL quarterback. There is a zero percent chance Kenny Pickett is the Steeler's answer at quarterback. Zero percent. The Steelers, pardon me, there is a zero percent chance he wasn't. The Steelers answer that Kenny Pickett is the Browns answer quarterback, so cross him out. Joe Flacco is forty years old. There is a zero percent chance Joe Flacco is their long term answer at quarterback, so cross him out. Dylan Gabriel, sorry, and you're not gonna like this, demase, he's too small.

There is a zero percent chance Dylan Gabriel can be a nice backup, maybe a spot starter. There is a zero percent chance Dylan Gabriel is the Browns franchise quarterback three years from now. Shadoor, there is a five percent

chance Shadoor is the Browns franchise quarterback. Five percent got more than one, less than ten somewhere in there, when the other three guys are a combined zero percent, and you're gonna be a terrible team the moment you know, you can start Flacco to start the year, but the moment that the year has gotten away from you, you

gotta play shittor. And that's the other weird thing. Haslam was like Andrew picks the players, Stefanski sets the rock, you know, decide too plays, but then also said in that same SoundBite, obviously both young guys need to play this year. I mean, Haslm's not the greatest donor just just flat.

Alan Burrow, Lamar, Herbert Stafford, Jaden Goff Baker hurts. So here's the when I say they're an abomination, here's what I mean, or here's here's what's unfair about that. If he's simply flipped Hurts and Herbert, they're totally legitimate ranking. And that's I'm not saying that's how I would have it one through ten. But if it went Mahomes, Alan Burrow, Lamar, Hurts, Stafford, Jaden Goff, Baker, Herbert, that's fine, Like, there's nothing crazy

about that. But having Justin Herbert ahead of Matt Stafford, Jaden Daniels, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, and Jail and Hurts for nothing other than vibes, it's just it's just ridiculous.

So like that is it's a weird because you can't argue as great as Burrow has been was in the regular season last year, a lot of the MVP voters, all pro voters, a lot of people thought Lamar was better. And then obviously the year before Lamar was better in the regular season is Burrow was hurt and wasn't that effective early and Lamar won League MVP, and so the knock on Lamar's postseason performances, but Burrow hasn't been in the postseason. So like that one I do think is a little.

showing up. And so like you got you got more, you got some questions right, and so oh like the and so that's the So I listen, I don't think having Burrow ahead of Lamar is outrageous, but it's not what I would have And and then it starts getting you know, then we start figuring out where exactly do you have hurts, And the hurts ranking is really interesting.

And I tried to make this point on TV yesterday and I did it kind of ham handedly, which is Eagles fans right now, and I get it they're feeling themselves. You won the chance Super Bowl, you should absolutely be thrilled, But they kind of want the best of both worlds. They want everyone to acknowledge how utterly stacked their roster is, how great, Howie Roseman's done, how good they are, you know,

in every way, shape and form. They want all of that, but they also don't don't want any of us to incorporate any of that into our evaluation of Jalen Hurts. Like they want everyone to bend the knee that they have the best overall roster in football by a mile, but also pretend like we think Jalen Hurts is carrying just a regular team. And so now I think Hurts has been clearly excellent in huge spots, and I think Hurts I think having Hurts ten like Danny did is

too you know, a bridge too far. But I also think that it is you view it differently than if Josh Allen had won the Super Bowl last year with the team he had, Jalen winning it last year with the team he had. I just think there is some nuance there. Eagles fans, on the other hand, want us all to be like, you have the greatest roster in the league. It's it's sakwan'sa Hall of Famer. How he drafts better than every everyone, the best wide receiver, duo

of the best offensive line. And I'll also Jalen Hurts got no help, Like, which is the you're not gonna get that.

social team to post, you know, end quotes. Everyone I speak to around the league privately agrees that it doesn't truly hold up as a genuine championship, with the source being the Athletic. So I'm going to read you. So I reached out to Daryl, and not surprisingly, he explained to me what I thought was going to be the case, which is, while he wasn't misquoted, it is being misinterpreted. So I'll read you the full quote and clarify, and but then I'll also give you my thoughts on what

everybody seems to think. All Right, Daryl says, quote, had the Rockets won the title, I absolutely would have celebrated it as legitimate, knowing the immense effort and resilience required. Yet everyone I speak to around the league privately agrees that it doesn't truly hold up as a genuine championship. Pause for a moment. The privately agrees is what is

tripping people up. He is saying everyone he talks to agrees amongst themselves, like he is the outlier that says this was an amazing accomplishment, but everybody else says not so much. Where people are saying, and I actually understand why people are confused. They are reading it as everyone privately agrees with me, he's saying, everyone privately agrees with each other, and so just to and again, Darrel is my pal. But I also you know, he deserves to

have his actual opinion out there correctly. He then went on to say, perhaps lasting legacy the NBA bubble is that the NBA should be proud of its leadership at both the beginning and the end of pandemic, even though the champion will forever be marked an asterisk. And he again is saying there because that's the way seemingly everyone else feels. And so here is I said to you guys a couple months ago that the vast majority of NBA myths fall into one of two categories. Not all,

but the vast majority. Category one is uplifting Michael Jordan, and category two is tearing down Lebron James. And there is no greater example of that than the revisionist history on the god Doog bubble. So here is the accurate timeline of the Los Angeles Lakers winning the twenty twenty

NBA Championship. Okay, in twenty eighteen, Lebron James was universally old as by a wide margin, the best player in the NBA, dragging a Cleveland Cavalier team to the NBA Finals with a playoff run that had an all time record eight forty point games, two true buzzer beaters, two game seven victories, one of which on the road, and what some consider the single greatest individual performance any players ever had fifty one to eight and eight in Game

one of the twenty eighteen NBA Finals, where with no other because Kevin Love was not was had gotten banged up at the end of the Celtics series with no one around him against Steph kd Clay Draymont two Lebron

was in twenty eighteen. In twenty nineteen, he goes to the Los Angeles Lakers, who were in the midst of the worst half decade stretch in the history of their franchise, and is playing a game on Christmas Day when they are a top four as drug that team to a top four seed in the West, and suffers the first major injury of his career. But at that moment, there was still no argument and no debate over who the

best player in the world was. That offseason, they acquire Anthony Davis and instantly become the best team in the league. That Lakers team pre pandemic, pre bubble, pre everything with ad started the year twenty four and three was running rough shit got over everyone. Lebron James was the leading NBA MVP candidate and they were the favorite to win

the championship pre pandemic. So what we had was the Lakers had the best record in basketball, the Lakers had the best player in basketball, the Lakers had made the biggest trade an acquisition of any team that offseason with respect to what the Clippers had done, and they were

the favorites to win the championship. The season then shuts down post shutdown, or right before the shutdown, Jannis had, you know, really gone on an unbelievable run, and the NBA MVP debate came down to two guys, Giannis or Lebron, with hardened kind of lurking because Harden had made the Key and Westbrook thing work and that team seemed dangerous.

And then we get to the bubble and there is no home court, which penalized two teams more than any which were the two teams that had earned home court advantage, Lebron's team and Giannie's team. Lebron's team which won the West by four games and Janice's team, which won the East by four games, and then the bubble happens, and the playoff bracket is set, and every single potential pitfall matchup that people are convinced is a bad matchup or the toughest possible path hits the Lakers. We can now

pretend it did not happen. But Dame and Portland were the scary team that nobody wanted to face in round one, and the Lakers drew them with no home court advantage, and after losing Game one, dispatched of them in five.

Then the Rockets with the one year Harden and Westbrook worked that Rockets team with James Harden being third and MVP voting that year and Russ the last actually really good season of his career on a at least that involved winning It's Round two, the Lakers get the rights and they lose Game one and then dispatch of them in five. And then you get the Denver Nuggets with a healthy Jamal Murray who would not lose another playoff series with a healthy Jamal Murray four years, and Anthony

Davis plays the best basketball of his life. Lebron James in a closeout game goes thirty eight, sixteen, and ten, and they dispatch of the Nuggets in five. And then in the NBA Finals, Oh, they get a fluke of a team that definitely wouldn't have made the finals if not for the Bubble, the Miami Heat, who responded by the way to that finals trip by two years later making game seven of the conference finals, and the year

after that making the NBA Finals again. And in those finals, Lebron James plays close to perfect basketball, reminding people once again that he's still the best player in the world when he averaged thirty twelve and nine on fifty nine to forty two splits to finish off a playoff run where again the best player in the world, Lebron James averaged for the postseason twenty eight eleven and nine on fifty six percent from the field. That team won the championship.

And then how did they defend their title when the bubble was done? The next season? They started twenty one and six, well they I mean they started actually eleven and three, and they had the best record in basketball or in the Western Conference was maybe the Western Conference or basketball The day Solomon Hill stumbled into Lebron's ankle and he got hurt. So before the pandemic, they were the best team in the league with the best player

in the league. During the pandemic, they had home their home court advantage they had earned taken from them, and got what people were calling at the time a nightmare path Dame in round one, Harden and Russ in round two, Joker and Jamal Murray in round three, and dust them all in five in the finals. People think, oh, they got lucky. They don't have to face yeh honest, they don't have to face I think Toronto was actually the

two seed that year. That would have been no problem, and they got this fluke of a team in Miami, except for the fact that Miami a couple of years later beat Milwaukee again and came within a jump shot of going back to the finals. And then the next year did go back to the finals, and the best player in the world played peak basketball. And then the next season they start twenty one and six. The idea that the wrong champion was crowned, the idea that that

was an easy or fraudulent or lesser path win. The only basketball ringible basketball thing that was altered was no one had home court, and so the only tangible damage that was done to any of the teams were the teams that would have had home court throughout, and that was the Los Angeles Lakers. And every single person watching knows that if the Milwaukee Bucks, who were the one seed and had the League MVP, it's like the Lakers, who were the one seed and had the second or

the runner up for League MVP. If the Bucks had won that title, there's not a person in the world that would be like fake title if the I don't even know if the Warriors made the playoffs that year. I don't think they did. Certainly, though, if the Clippers with Kawhi and Paul George instead of absolutely mortifyingly folding against Denver had won the title, no one be calling it a fake title, because ultimately that discussion is not

about how real or fake a title is. That discussion is about dis either dislike or jealousy of Lebron James. And now our chat says seventy nine percent say yes, the Bubble title is legit. Our chat probably skews a little Lebron and Laker fan heavy, but you cannot say that the team with the best record and the best

player in the world with a very difficult path. Who again, the team they beat in the conference finals validated their appearance there by winning a championship a couple of years later, the team they beat in the NBA finals validated their appearance there by making the finals a couple of years later. You cannot argue. And then they validated it themselves by being an awesome team the next year before Bron got hurt. It's just such horseship and deep down everybody knows it.