It's possible that Skip Bayless would go away if we all ignored him. Or, more likely, it's possible that ESPN would stop putting him in front of its cameras if we stopped getting so caught up by his rantings and ravings. But Bayless often proves as hard to ignore as to agree with.
On the morning after LeBron James won his first NBA championship, the anti-Skip folks found a new champion for their cause when the owner of the team that prevented James from winning last year appeared on "First Take."
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban joined Bayless and Stephen A. Smith on Friday morning and called out Bayless (along with "sports writers in general").
"You guys like to talk in complete generalities where no one can question you. You don't ever use facts. You don't ever use substance," said Cuban.
"Don't ever use facts? That's all I use on this show," Bayless responded, perhaps forgetting the time that he got the facts about his own high school basketball career wrong.
***Pause for laughter***
Our favorite moment of the segment came when Cuban went on a rant about Smith and Bayless' discussion about Miami "wanting" the victory more than the Thunder in Game 5.
You guys were just talking about 'Miami wanted it more.' That is such horse you-know-what. It's not that Oklahoma City didn't want it more. I think Miami was better prepared to play the game than Oklahoma City in terms of adjustments and changes. If you want to talk about double teams and how they were used, whether or not they should have played zone, what defensive structure was in place. That's a valid conversation. But you're saying they wanted it more, that's ridiculous. When you're Kevin Durant, Derek Fisher, Russell Westbrook etc. And you're in that close out game, there's nobody who wants it more. It's just a question of who executes better.
So, Cuban now joins a list including Charles Barkley, Terrell Suggs and Jalen Rose to call out Bayless. Who will be next?