'Cowboys of the NBA'? Skip Bayless Rips Dallas & LeBron's Lakers
A fan query about finding the NBA's Dallas Cowboys caused Skip Bayless to lose his eternal fake-sunny demeanor about America's Team.
Answering fan questions on his eponymous podcast, Bayless was asked who the hardwood equivalent of the starred helmets would be. Bayless initially nominated a pair of contenders from the Western Conference ... including their North Texas counterparts the Dallas Mavericks ... but ultimately their lack of recent championship panache and Jerry Jones' fame make a true match impossible.
"The truth is ... there are no NBA Cowboys. (There's) nothing like the Cowboys," Bayless somberly declared. "(They're) the most valuable team in the world, run by the most famous sports owner ever. This team hasn't even made it to its conference championship game in 27 years.
"The Cowboys are one of one."
The Cowboys' struggles to get to the NFC title game could perhaps mirror the disappointment seen on Dallas hardwood this season: the Mavericks followed up a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals with a 38-44 mark that ended with several starters on the bench so as to maintain positioning on the NBA Draft Lottery board.
Bayless' original comparison was the Los Angeles Lakers, who have held a similar stranglehold on the national sports imagination. Like Dallas, the Lakers' affairs were also overseen by an owner of celebrity proportions in the late Jerry Buss. But, Bayless declares, the comparison has rung hollow since the Cowboys' 1990s heyday: whereas the Lakers followed up their Showtime affairs led by Magic Johnson with six in the new century behind the efforts of Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, Dallas has come up emptyhanded despite a plethora of talent on its rosters.
True to form, Bayless uses the Cowboys' misfortune to take a few shots at his self-proclaimed nemesis (and wannabe Cowboy) James, with whom he shares an extraordinarily one-sided rivalry.
"My Cowboys haven't even been back to an NFC Championship game since January of 1996. That's 27 years ago," Bayless noted before bringing up the pandemic-affected 2020 NBA season continuation in a bubble setting at the Walt Disney World Resort. "At least LeBron's Lakers won a championship in 2020, odd as it was, (an) asterisk-laden bubble title. Not a really legit championship in my book, but a championship nonetheless."
For those who don't know, Bayless is essentially a highly-paid troll. NBA fans know that the "asterisk-laden bubble title'' might've been harder to win, not easier, due to the circumstances. And NFL fans who are plugged in know that Bayless is not actually a fan of the Cowboys; he's a fan of whichever ridiculous "hot take'' gives him enough traction to fill a segment.
"The Cowboys are one of one'' is accurate, though ... and about all we're going to get out of Bayless when it comes to actual insight.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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