To be considered a sports journalist is one of the highest honors one can receive. You have millions of people waiting for your views after the game. Skip Bayless, on the other hand, is eagerly anticipated for his meme-worthy content rather than his basketball knowledge.
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A perennial hater of all things LeBron James, Bayless has a template in mind when he talks about the Lakers man. It’s either “no clutch gene” when he misses last-minute shots or “Michael Jordan would never” if he passes to an open teammate. Either way, he wouldn’t be impressed if LeBron invented the cure for cancer.
So when he brought Mark Cuban to try and egg him on to join the LeBron-hating bandwagon all those years ago, it backfired spectacularly.
Not yet the white-haired, marathon-running, up-to-no-good presenter he is today, Skip and his golden locks thought Mark Cuban was going to take his side. Why not, since his team had successfully shut down Bron? In a finals appearance, that was so crucial to his legacy. 8 points in a finals game is no joke.
However, Mark Cuban knew what he was up against. Placed in the middle of Stephen A. Smith and Bayless, he started shooting facts in quick succession. Skip was reeling; he couldn’t collect himself.
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Skip Bayless is out of his depth when asked about Basketball – Mark Cuban had one question to prove it
Many NBA franchise owners have been called passive in the past. Nobody cared what their team was doing—as long as they got their money. The trend changed when a fresh-faced billionaire named Mark Cuban came onto the scene. He was not a tech genius who lucked into money; he was also a superfan.
Cuban asked Skip Bayless one question: “What defensive schemes did we run on LeBron James?” to which his reply was laughable. Struggling to even string two words together, Skip proved Mark’s exact point. He called almost all mass-media sports analysts “basic” because they only speak in generalities.
We all are to blame—we watch Undisputed more than “Old Man and the Three.” Nobody has time for insightful, resource-based debates; instead, the public enjoys a grandfather screaming his heart out about someone fit enough to be his grandson.
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Mark Cuban is not just a tech entrepreneur who lucked into buying an NBA team
For the past 23 years, Mark Cuban has toiled tirelessly to tame a wild bronco like the Dallas Mavericks. A franchise that had no direction was brought into shape quite seamlessly. He did all of this not because he knows how to run a business; he did it because he understands basketball.
The clip here shows everything a sports “analyst” should be. Speaking about what plays were run, what succeeded, and why. Reading numbers off a sheet isn’t analyzing anything; you’ve got automated voices for that now.
Mark was proud to speak about how his team operated better to stop a marauding LeBron James. He called for respect for having figured out what Bron was capable of and adjusting their gameplay accordingly. But once he heard Skip say that LeBron failed and you didn’t succeed, he lost it.
Cuban also deserves respect for going onto a show that was set up for him to get irate. He outclassed the most-watched “analyst” out there, all while wearing an I Love Smurfs shirt. Skip Bayless got his tongue tied by a smooth-talking Cuban; Stephen A.’s silence is a testament to that.
