Hall of Famer Chris Webber Talks LeBron, Giannis, NBA Playoffs & More w/ Rich

Hall of Famer Chris Webber joined Rich for the full NBA playoffs tour. The Pistons-Cavaliers series. The Spurs-Timberwolves matchup. Greg Popovich pulling Wembanyama aside on a tarmac. And the LeBron-or-Giannis sweepstakes that will define the offseason.

Webber kept dunking on TJ for being a Cowboys fan along the way.

The opening was Detroit. The Pistons came back from down 2-0 against Orlando, then dropped three straight to Cleveland. Webber told a friend after Game 2 he expected exactly this.

"It's a difference between offensive minded philosophies and defensive minded philosophies," Webber said. "If you get a tie game, maybe you want an offensive philosophy. I think Big Steve has done a great job out of the last nine minutes of that game."

Webber's player memory was about coaches who could get him an easy bucket on demand.

"I as a player remember having to have coaches to get me one or two easy ones," Webber said. "Call a play so I can get an easy layup. Call a play to get us involved and move, and not just depend on the flow of one player."

The Cleveland small-ball pivot is what flipped the series, in Webber's read.

"When Cleveland went to that smaller lineup, your big has to be able to score at a clip to really make the other team fearful and want to change strategies," Webber said. "If you're not getting that scoring from that position, then that defender, that bigger guy, is a mismatch on the floor defensively for the little guy that he should have been going at."

Rich asked if Cleveland can finish it. Webber reached for a Golden State-Houston game he covered with Marv Albert.

"I remember watching Houston shoot threes, and I think they missed 13, 17 threes in a row, something that was just incredible," Webber said. "If the philosophy was just to get one layup, or if you had a player that wasn't able to shoot threes, could he get in there, get a foul, and a layup?"

His prescription for Cleveland was shot selection. Honor every possession against a defensive team like Detroit. Webber gave Cleveland's bench credit, naming Schroder.

"I don't see how, if I'm a Cleveland fan, how we can't win," Webber said. "We got to win one out of two. They should win."

The Mitchell/Harden conversation followed. Webber pushed back on the "poor man's Harden" critique aimed at Mitchell.

"You cannot check one player in the NBA," Webber said. "There's not one player you can check, period. It's can you make them uncomfortable? Can you get them off their spacing?"

What he loves about the pairing is the unselfishness.

"The easiest guy to check is a selfish guy," Webber said. "But when he and Harden get the ball in their hands, if you're waiting in the corner, if you're waiting at top with your hands ready, you might get a wide open shot because they attract so much defense."

Webber will not count Detroit out at home. But the pattern looks familiar.

"We saw them get down to Orlando like this because Orlando was scoring, and then they got away from their offensive principle," Webber said. "Cleveland should feel, not like they've accomplished anything, but that they're on the verge of getting it done."

The Spurs-Timberwolves piece focused on Wembanyama coming off his ejection. Rich asked Webber what he thought Pop told him on the tarmac.

"The man that I know Coach Popovich to be is to hold you accountable," Webber said. "Hold you accountable in a space that could be uncomfortable, because he wants you to understand. And then he lifts you up and puts a battery in your back. It's almost like being Tyson with his great cornerman in the corner telling you you could do it."

Webber's framing of the Spurs is built around how Popovich extends the franchise across generations.

"He keeps the older guys from the team around," Webber said. "Those are his fingerprints. It reinforces your tenets of your organization to new players that come in. They can lean and say, hey Timmy, you've gone through this. Hey, David. Hey, Sean Elliot. A lot of organizations don't do that, and that's why they have no identity besides one great season or what happened last year."

The OKC-Spurs Western Conference Finals matchup gave Webber a chance to drop one of his favorite analytical asides. The Fox dynamic.

"Everyone has a system," Webber said. "The system of San Antonio is to have one of the greatest big fellas in the world and a point guard that can score and get in the paint with speed. And that's who Tony Parker was. He led the league some seasons in points in the paint with Shaq because in our league, who is the most dominant in the paint, but he got in the paint so much because of that quagmire."

The same blueprint applies to De'Aaron Fox.

"Fox is really going to be an important cog in this, because the speed of he, and maybe the MVP again, is going to be something special," Webber said.

The biggest swing of the conversation was the Giannis-LeBron question.

For Giannis, Webber returned to Golden State.

"He's only going championship," Webber said. "Giannis in the West Coast where the game is faster, you're going to have to build a wall for him on every play. That may just be an unstoppable combination."

The LeBron section was longer and more layered.

"The thing that's working against LeBron is his age, not how he plays," Webber said. "The way he has played the next two years, he's going to be a dominant cog, period."

His real preference, before pragmatism, was sentiment.

"I'm not a Laker fan, obviously, but I'd love to see him back with the Lakers," Webber said. "I'd love to see the Lakers honor him with the contract that he deserves so he could stay there and keep his legacy going."

If LeBron leaves, the case Webber kept building was for a contender that needs lifting.

"What you need during this time of the year, if you're a Durant, if you're a Cat, if you're anyone, you need someone that makes everyone better," Webber said. "We can't say LeBron is a liability in any era if we're talking about just to win a championship."

Rich pressed him directly. If you can only get one, in the next two years, who?

"In the next two years, as important as Giannis is, they're tied," Webber said. "If I can only get one of them, it really depends on the type of team and shooters who I have, what I need."

The tiebreaker leaned LeBron.

"If I feel like our team needs confidence and needs IQ, thoughtfulness, and a player that can go get it, I'm going to get LeBron for two years," Webber said.

His framing about star power was about weight.

"I like playing with guys that have more weight with the name on the back of their jersey than the organization," Webber said. "You can trust that the pain of the organization, they're going to feel, because he's an organization within himself. The same with Giannis."

Susie asked the side question that landed: LeBron to Golden State for two years with Steve Kerr.

"I think Golden State more than anyone is kind of the furthest away because you still have Butler," Webber said. "Can you trade him for a piece this valuable? You've lost Kuminga. You have some good pieces, but I just think they're furthest away."

The team Webber circled when Rich tossed it out was Cleveland.

"I like Cleveland," Webber said. "I didn't think of Cleveland. The reason why I like Cleveland is because he has big guys he can throw the alley-oop to. You need big guys, right? Gets him to pick and roll, and he has shooters and he has other guys, you know, Allen or Kyrie and others that can take over, you know, when he just wants to be Magic Johnson, then when he wants to be Jordan, he switches, and starts attacking."

Webber landed on the homecoming.

"Just right now from this conversation, Cleveland is, man, that would be something," Webber said.

TJ promised to text Webber at 4 in the morning during football season. Webber predicted what those texts would say.

"How Dallas went again, TJ?" Webber said.