00:00This from Dave. Dave writes, doesn't seem like you're taking the LeBron thing very seriously.
00:06I think you should, because he and Anthony Davis, along with their young talent, would make Washington a top four
00:15team in the East.
00:18Yeah, I'm not taking LeBron to Washington seriously. I mean, I guess anything can happen.
00:24But LeBron is about LeBron this time of year when he is in this mode. He's going to draw this
00:31thing out.
00:32He's going to bring as much attention to himself as he possibly can.
00:36He is still a very good player, you know, but he's not a max player.
00:42And he seems willing to take whatever it is that comes his way, in part because he's going to try
00:49to put himself into the best position
00:51to do something that no player in the history of the game has done.
00:55And that is to win a title with four different teams.
01:00He's won one with Miami. He's won one with Cleveland.
01:04And he won one with an asterisk in the bubble, COVID summer, with the Lakers.
01:12And the Wizards, with LeBron James on the team, they're not a contender. They're not.
01:18I do think that it is a team that if Anthony Davis suits up and plays and is motivated to
01:27play and plays 60, 65 plus games,
01:31I do think it's a team that could end up, you know, playing themselves into the Eastern Conference playoffs,
01:38even above the play in line, like a six seed.
01:41LeBron would elevate that to a four seed.
01:45They're not what the Knicks would be.
01:48They're not what perhaps Toronto now will be.
01:52And maybe not what Cleveland or Detroit will be.
01:57And there are some younger teams that are on the come here.
02:00Orlando, Miami with Giannis, although they don't have a complete roster.
02:06No, I don't think that they would be a top four team in the East with LeBron.
02:09I think it would be tremendous if LeBron James chose Washington.
02:15It would be a franchise moment like the franchise hasn't had, I guess, since Jordan came here.
02:24But Jordan got a piece of the equity.
02:28He got an equity piece from Abe to come here and then gave it up to leave.
02:33But, yeah, I just don't see LeBron picking here.
02:37The favorites right now are the Warriors are at minus 250, the Cavs are at plus 175, and then the
02:48Heat are at plus 800.
02:50That's what I'm seeing, max, right now for LeBron.
02:54That makes sense to me.
02:55Those three teams totally make sense to me.
02:59Cleveland, obviously, because he's already won there, and they were in the Eastern Conference finals,
03:04even though with Mitchell and Harden, they didn't have much of a shot.
03:09And, you know, I think LeBron, here's what I think LeBron will do, Max.
03:15I know you would love to.
03:17Let me be clear about something.
03:19I would absolutely embrace it big time because I want my favorite professional basketball team to be relevant.
03:29And he would make them relevant immediately.
03:32He would also make them better.
03:34I'm not suggesting that he would make them worse.
03:37Now, what do you do to A.J. DeBonce's development with LeBron on the team, some of the other young
03:43players?
03:43Because you're going heavy veteran then.
03:45You know, you're going Trey Young at point, Anthony Davis at the four, LeBron at the three.
03:51You know, those are three-fifths of the starting lineup.
03:55You are going veteran, and you're going to try to win.
03:58You're going to attempt to win 50 games.
04:01I don't know if that lineup does it personally, but I bet it would win 45 games.
04:06The key is still Anthony Davis.
04:08Even if LeBron were on this team, the key is Anthony Davis.
04:12Anthony Davis is the one player on their roster that we know for sure when he plays and he's healthy
04:21is a top-10 kind of a player in the league.
04:24Like, LeBron's not that anymore.
04:27Trey Young's not that.
04:29And so, without that, meaning you've got to have Anthony Davis for the significant majority of the season,
04:36you're not going to be a good team.
04:38So, I'm sure LeBron would look at Washington if Anthony Davis didn't have the injury history that Anthony Davis has
04:46and say, yeah, maybe.
04:49But I bet you he even believes that Anthony Davis isn't going to play 65-plus games.
04:55I also wonder what LeBron thinks of Trey Young, a guy who literally has not much interest in defending anybody,
05:02and when he does, doesn't do it very well, and is ball-dominant as a point guard.
05:09I mean, he played with Luka last year, rather ball-dominant.
05:13No, he's not coming here, people.
05:16I would love it, but he's not coming here.
05:18What I am interested in, though, is what were the results of the Waldorf Honda Twitter poll that we put
05:24up yesterday?
05:25It's actually a great question.
05:26I can find it real quickly.
05:27Because I have a feeling, I'm just going to guess here, that it's a 50-50 proposition.
05:3450-50.
05:35Because I bet you, we have fans that whenever, like, a superstar is in play, you know, they'll always say,
05:43no, no, no, no, no.
05:44You know, we'd much rather go with Sam Howell.
05:46We'd much rather go with Taylor Heineke.
05:49Oh, my God.
05:50Hell no on LeBron, 63.8%.
05:53Hell yes, 36.2%.
05:56Not a lot of votes.
05:57I don't know what's been going on with the Twitter polls recently.
06:01I guess I need to retweet it out.
06:03My fault.
06:06Yeah, I, that's actually, I was leaning, I was actually going to lean in that direction of, I bet you
06:15fans of the Wizards actually wouldn't want LeBron.
06:19There's something about our market and our hardcore sports fans for our teams.
06:24I mean, when our teams suck, they just refuse any sort of, like, big name to try to help it
06:31out.
06:32Um, because we're, we're okay with, we're okay with Bub.
06:36We're okay with Koulibaly.
06:38We're okay with AJ.
06:39AJ's going to be the next superstar.
06:41Maybe.
06:42And also, maybe not.
06:43We'll see.
06:45Um, I, look, I, it's not going to happen.
06:50Um, and, uh, but if it did, I would really, really be pumped up.
06:55It would make the Wizards relevant and it would be a fun season to watch next year.
06:59The key, of course, would be Anthony Davis, not LeBron, not Trey Young, not AJ DeBonsa, not any of the
07:07young people.
07:07The key would be, can you keep the big fella motivated, happy, and healthy?
07:13You know, um, yesterday with all of the reporting that kind of went against the day before's reporting, and we
07:22had Josh Robbins from The Athletic on, and he thought, um, you know, the reporting on the Anthony Davis possibility
07:29of being traded to Golden State was ridiculous.
07:32And more came out even after the show yesterday.
07:36Reports are that Will Dawkins really likes Anthony Davis and wants him to play for the Wizards, and that's pretty
07:41much what he told me when he was on with us the other day.
07:45I think that that's true.
07:48I don't know that, and I don't take everything that a general manager says to me in an interview on
07:54the radio show as gospel, and the Wizards are very tight-lipped, and they don't really tell you much.
08:00I mean, they've got it going on out there in terms of, we're not going to be loose lips around
08:06here, and they're not.
08:07I mean, I couldn't even get Brian Keefe when we had him on the show during the NBA playoffs, and
08:12I think it was right before the finals, to tell me, you know, kind of how they would guard, how
08:17the Knicks should guard Wemby.
08:20And I said, are you, what, are you trying to keep secrets because next year's finals matchup between the Wizards
08:27and the Spurs, you don't want to give away any secrets?
08:30And he laughed, but they are tight-lipped out there.
08:33We got a couple of organizations in town now that are pretty tight-lipped, and they didn't used to be.
08:39But I do think they want to try to make something happen in 2026, 2027.
08:46You know, there is collateral damage, at the very least, when you lose 196 games in three years.
08:57Even when there is recognition from the fans that are paying attention that what you're doing is intentional and what
09:08you're doing is, you know, as they called it, a deconstruction before you can reconstruct, but what we call tanking.
09:17Even those of us that understood what they were doing and were supportive of what they were doing.
09:24It's still, man, when you lose 196, 196 games in three years, your organization is out of sight, out of
09:33mind.
09:34And they got to get it back into sight, and they got to get it back into people's minds.
09:39And I do think getting the number one pick overall helped.
09:42But that's fleeting.
09:44You know, that is a lottery one day and a couple of days of follow-up, and then the draft
09:51a couple of days of follow-up,
09:53and then the beginning of the season to see what old A.J. looks like in a Wizards uniform wearing
09:59number four, Antoine Jameson's number.
10:02He, not that I have any issue with him taking any previous number, that anybody, 41 and 11, you know,
10:10are sacred, okay, in terms of the Washington Bullets.
10:1541, Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes' 11.
10:18Those are sacred, you know, and nothing else to me would be untouchable.
10:23What are the retired Bullets Wizards jerseys?
10:26Are those the only two?
10:28Look up Bullets Wizards retired jerseys.
10:31There may be a couple of Baltimore Bullets.
10:33Earl Monroe's jersey might be retired, which I think was 15.
10:37Earl Monroe, Elvin Hayes, continuing to scroll, Gus Johnson, Wes Unseld, and Phil Schneer.
10:44Oh, Schneer's jersey is retired.
10:46Okay, yeah, don't touch 45 either.
10:48Don't touch 45 either.
10:50That's fine.
10:52Gus Johnson, Earl Monroe, Baltimore days, I'm not, you know, I don't really care about those days.
10:58Due respect to my listeners up north, 30 miles or so.
11:04Yeah, I, I, Anthony Davis is the key.
11:08Anthony Davis is the absolute key to making this upcoming season one in which people re-engage.
11:18I mean, an A.J.
11:20DeBonsa rookie of the year campaign while they're winning 25 to 30 games is for our market, for the interest
11:30level in the Wizards in our market, it's not good enough.
11:34We have become, I've said this in recent years, and I didn't used to say this because I think it's
11:41changed.
11:41But this sports market is football team first, everything else, everything else is bandwagon.
11:51You've got to win.
11:52And by the way, it makes sense to win early in your season to take out the most benefit that
12:00you can from winning.
12:02You know, if you go, you know, if the, if the Wizards were to go say 41 and 41 and
12:09be the last team in the play-in and then, you know, win a play-in game and get to
12:14a playoff series and make a run, it would be beneficial because people would jump on board, but you wouldn't
12:20have had a bill during the regular season.
12:24And I'm really talking about for the team itself, the interest level, the revenues, et cetera, makes much more sense
12:30for Maryland or Georgetown if they're going to be a really good team in March to start off as a
12:37really good team, ranked in the top 15, ranked in the top 10, so that you get the benefit during
12:43their regular season of packed houses and a lot of attention.
12:47If it happens late, there's not as much benefit because this is a bandwagon town now for everybody other than
12:57the Redskins, other than the Skins, other than the Washington football franchise.
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