NBA Insider Shams Charania, Wilder/Fury, The Browns Had An Open Casket Funeral For A Dog

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On today's part of my take, we have NBA insider Shams Charania. He's from The Athletic and Stadium.
He is the second biggest insider in the NBA game. He's only 25 years old.
Very fascinating conversation with him. And we get an extra bonus to see how the sausage gets made.
We broke news while on the show, while he was sitting here. We kind of held him hostage.
We have a crazy weekend of sports to recap. The fight, college basketball, NBA, all kinds of things happened.
It was an awesome sports weekend.

But before we do all that.

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We'll be it higher. Oh, we're gonna rock down to electric avenue, and then we'll take it higher.
Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by the Cash App. Today is Bad Beats Monday.
Hashtag Bad Beats Monday. If you had a bad beat over the weekend, tweet it at Pardon take at the cash app they will help you make you partially whole again today is Monday February 24th and we had an awesome awesome sports weekend we had one two and four ranked teams in college basketball lost we had Fury Wilder which was great on Saturday night night we had some awesome nba games there was an open casket funeral for a dog but the lead story and pft has been all over it it is the fact that trey wingo tried to dupe the internet into saying that he had a bear in his backyard and we're on to you trey so that's actually the biggest story from the weekend it was actually.
It's Beargate 2020. We're all over the internet trying to track down exactly the history of this bear, how Trey Wingo may have come across this bear.
Trey Wingo's own personal history with this identical bear picture. I'm like Pepe Sylvia, Charlie from Always Sunny on the wall, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on inside Trey Wingo's brain because he tweeted out on Friday night, there's a bear on my back porch and a picture of a cute little bear standing on a cute little railing.
Mind you, it was like 8 p.m. and it was light out in the picture, but go on.
It was light out in the picture. First red flag.
He lives in Connecticut. Yep.
Bear country. It was a great, great bear.
I'm not taking anything away from the bear here, but it turns out that that exact same picture had gone viral back in 2016 when it really happened. And when it really happened, it just so happened to have happened at a house about two miles away from Trey Wingo.
So it was actually a Connecticut bear. It was a neighborhood bear.
Yeah. But Trey Wingo decided he would bring it back.'s it's baffling it is one of the weirdest moves i've seen on twitter from a guy that you thought you knew you thought you knew that trey wingo you know like he'll do his radio show he'll play 18 holes he'll smoke a huge fucking fatty and call it a night instead he's tweeting bears from 2016 and claiming they're in his backyard and like you said the craziest the craziest part is he's already posted this on his Instagram.
So essentially, Trey Wingo is trying to go viral using old stories and thinking he is smarter than the Internet. No person is smarter than the Internet.
No man, no woman, no child, no dog. No one is bigger than the Internet, smarter than the Internet.
So, Trey, we're on to your shit, bro. I'd bro I'd like an apology That's all I'd like Yeah You know what I'd either like an apology from Trey Or I'd like him To just roll with it Like we were talking about earlier He could just post The same picture Like once a week And be like Oh look Look at this bear That I just saw Bear Fridays And honestly It was a pretty fucking cool bear Did you see the bear Like the ear tags that it had's so crazy.
The bear looked like it was a hype beast that had the off whites hanging from his ears. It's fucking insane.
I don't know what he's doing. It's so, if he had just said, oh, you got me, or played into it and been like, ha ha, I was obviously joking.
Instead, he just went silent. So this is the thing I've been thinking about all weekend is you have as well, PFT.
And a great weekend so we'll hop into it let's start with the fight well one other recommendation for maybe this was trey getting people off the case of the one year anniversary of him posting that steak tweet oh which was last year when he posted that burnt ass steak that looked like it had been cooked on the moon yeah in radiation yeah he cooked under the hood of f1 450 it looked like it was hemi cooked inside of kirk cousins butt while he was sitting on aluminum foil on a grill and so yeah maybe that is exactly what it was he was trying to get everyone to but now we're here remembering that you know what though didn't work didn't work trey didn't work and what i'm gonna do i'm gonna post that fucking bear every day until you post it again. Yeah.
It's a bear off. It's a bear off.
All right. So we have the fight.
Let's start with the fight. Fury Wilder.
That was great. Two.
Not as good as one, obviously, because one was an all-time fight. Still a very fun, eventful night.
It felt like it finally was one of those nights where you had a heavyweight fight, and it like everyone was watching, which has not happened in a long time. I actually, before we actually talk about the fight, I have a take that UFC has kind of ruined my brain when it comes to boxing.
I used to love boxing. I used to buy pay-per-views when I was a kid.
I watched that fight and I was like, why the fuck isn't he submitting him? Why isn't he taking him to the ground? Why isn't he kneeing him in the face? It's just there's a level of violence in the UFC that you expect when you see a fight. And you're like, I was sitting there watching.
Like, why isn't Fury just sit on him? He's got so much more mass. He should just fucking squeeze him out and put him in a rear naked choke.
And it didn't happen. I had kind of the opposite take when I was watching it.
It made me realize I love boxing. I love boxing at the highest level in a different way than I love UFC at the highest level.
It's a totally different sport, obviously. The ref was being so annoying when he was slapping them on their backs and trying to get them to go apart.
He looked like a jockey that was trying to ride a Clydesdale when he was slapping fury on his back but he was doing it for a reason because it's fucking fun to watch two massive people just trade blows uh the the pre-game analysis uh like i don't want to credit the internet and also myself but the watching the pre-game and watching Deontay Wilder have to walk through the entirety of the MGM Grand like the entire it was they showed him walking to his uh locker room and it was no joke 10 minutes of him just walking through the through the back rooms he was walking through a kitchen at one point i said right then and there i was like he is going to be gassed because that is everyone knows that feeling when you're in a casino and you've been walking around the casino for like maybe 20, 30 minutes. And you have a moment where you're like, wait, I kind of need to sit down.
Like, I'm actually a little tired right now. That, I don't care how good of an athlete you are.
Casino steps are different. Well, it's more of a mental game at that point.
Because if you're in a casino, they are pumping in that extra oxygen. So you're getting the blood, the red blood cells going through your body faster.
However, when you get lost inside a casino and you feel like your spinal tap,

trying to make your way backstage to the stage,

and you're just trying to find a bathroom to piss in,

but every single corner of the casino looks identical with the slot machines.

Right.

At that point, it starts to take a toll mentally on you more so than physically.

Fun house.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like you're in a mirror house.

And so, yeah, I agree.

He did a lot of walking pregame. And then in the locker room.
Wilder looked like he was stressing out a little bit. He looked like he was thinking too hard.
You never want to think before you do anything. Yeah, which I understand.
You should be serious before the biggest fight of your life. But the difference between Wilder and Fury when they kept on showing their locker rooms, Fury was hanging out.
Fury was looking like he was going to watch the not fighting the fight he was hanging out on the couch he was slapping that ass he was dancing around wearing a crown all the while multiple crowns wilders just sitting there like fuck i got a big fight coming up like i'm gonna stretch stretch maybe too early and then on top of all of that fury gets carried out so even less steps i honestly think that that uh tyson fury maybe had 15 steps on his fitbit before the fight started that's smart for the entire day and you could tell with the legs that louder had on him yeah and when he was getting carried out by beautiful women on a throne it was that was an amazing entrance i don't know who planned that it's probably because you you probably can't get a duI on a throne that's being carried by other people, if I understand the laws of Nevada correctly. It was awesome.
And then Wilder's entrance was pretty cool, too, where he looked like a Mortal Kombat character with a red mask with the red eyes that were blinking and it was glow-in-the-dark with spikes and shit all over it. Two great, great entrances pre-fight.
And got into the ring and tyson fury uh showed that having a 40 pound weight advantage was actually pretty good shatter his eardrum and i actually was shocked they didn't stop the fight earlier because wilder in like the fifth round was holding on the ropes to try to keep up to like to stand up yeah and usually the ref will be like wait hold on you you aren't even standing on your own power right now. And, I mean, Tyson Fury, his post-fight, the American Pie, treated it like karaoke night.
He is an electric guy, the Gypsy King, like everything about him. Tyson Fury or Manny Pacquiao now.
Now we've got to talk. Who's the best karaoke singer in boxing? I'd say it's probably Tyson Fury.
Yeah. So it was was a cool night it was very much so it was just a cool it was cool to have boxing and like i said it used to be especially the heavyweight division like when in the 90s and you're growing up it's like holy shit there's two or three nights a year where it's like the whole world is watching boxing that was the first time it felt like that since yeah i don't know, the biggest Mayweather fight that has happened.
You know, it's been a long time. It used to be more like that back in the 90s because if you were by the house.
Mayweather McGregor, but like Mayweather Pacquiao was still too old. Mayweather De La Hoya was probably the last one where it was like, holy shit, it feels like the entire world is watching.
Back in the 90s and 2000s, though, before the internet and high-speed streams,

there would be one neighborhood house that would get the fight.

And it became an event that people would go over to.

Now you have to just do that on Twitter.

And that's your, as Darren Revell calls it, the world's best sports park.

Also, you pay-per-view shamers, I see you.

You guys get a fucking life.

The people who pre-complain about the fight, they're like, I'm not going to because probably the last like three rounds and the undercard sucks it's not about the fight it is about the fight but it's also about the experience of buying the pay-per-view and being like holy shit i watched college basketball to my eyes bled on saturday and now i got a big fight to top it all off i felt good once i hit i smashed that buy button on a 79 99 fight. Fuck yeah.
You know what? I actually bought it faster than if it had said $49.99 on it. It was cool to spend that extra $30 or $40.
I'm not good at math. But before the fight, did you notice that Wilder, when they were talking to him about how he's coming in at the heaviest that he's ever been and what was his strategy about that? Was he trying to gain weight to compete against Fury? He was like, no, I really didn't.
I don't monitor my body. My body is a vessel, and it changes shape sometimes, but we don't pay attention to what that is.
That's a great spin zone. Yeah, he looked okay.
For 19 pounds heavier, I don't know where he put it. Not in his legs.
Yeah, because if I gain 19 pounds, you know it. You see it in the face right away.
Right. Maybe that, yeah.
It might have gone to just like in that one area around his stomach that the waistband of the boxing shorts covers because it did not go to his thighs. It did not go to his calves.
Do you think in terms of body parts that can bleed, ears have to be up there for the worst? So my Mount Rushmore of orifices that you don't want to bleed out of, number one, I'm going to put butt. Oh, no way.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You and I are going to have a disagreement here because you don't want to bleed out of your butt.
Bleeding around your butt from wiping is one story. If you said to me right now, would you rather bleed out of your butt or your eyeball? Definitely the butt.
Eyeball would be the fucking worst. Eyeballs, it can be bad.
You're going to die. If you're bleeding out of your butt or your eyeball definitely the butt eyeball i would be the fucking worst eyeballs it can you're gonna die like if you're bleeding out of your eyeball it's death is imminent you could be hemorrhaging you could be experiencing some sort of outbreak fever or you could be joe biden but if you're yeah you could be joe biden you could be bob costas yeah they've all bled out of their eyes and they're fine i'm talking real blood out of your eyes i would rot like a lizard, I would take butt over eyes or ears.
Ears, there's a moment when Deontay Wilder's bleeding out of his ears. It was like when Klay Thompson was bleeding out of his ears.
You're wondering, is he just going to die? Is that just his brain? It is a sneaky bad hole to bleed out of. You shouldn't be bleeding out of your ears.
For me, it goes butt, eye, ear, and then distant fourth is urerethra because you can come back from everyone bleeds out of their dick sometimes yeah the the eye the ears though man fuck that that sucks and i i mean i'm sure it didn't help his balance at all even though afterwards he said it was just a cut well that's what i was thinking in in real time like drunk thought i was just like can you can you just lose your equal equilibrium forever yeah Yes, yeah, just for... never be able to walk his ear clearly like he got hit and like something like switched like what if that switch just never turns back on get vertigo yeah you can't look up oh we forgot to mention that tyson fury did the most disrespectful thing of all time and tried to lick the blood off of him mid-fight because he was so confident that he was beating him and going to beat him so uh, and then we had the celebrities.
Mrs. Fury is a very lucky lady.
Mrs. Fury is a very lucky lady.
We had, yeah, Joe Tessitore had no, he's like, what is he doing with his tongue? Come on, Joe. Well, he's Italian.
He never eaten a little? No, he's Italian. Come on, buddy.
You know. Yeah.
He's not a junior soprano. No, people talk about that kind of thing if you're one of the fellas.
Joe Tessitore, listen, seems like a really nice guy, but his voice now is forever etched in just like a shitty Monday night game or a shitty college game at like noon. I just – he did a good job, but it's one of those things, and we talk about it when you have that voice trigger.
Like when Beth Mullins comes on, I'm waiting for Purdue versus Indiana at 11 a.m. When Joe Tessitore is on, I'm just waiting for the Dolphins to have to play the Texans on a Monday night in week 14.
When Jake Marsh is on, I get super excited because I know that the Catamounts are about to smash some shit. Kaboom.
Tic-tac-toe. Kaboom.
Jake Marsh is in the studio right now. He is.
All right, so that was the fight. I have a question about Fury, though.
How do you even get that big in England? I feel like most British people don't get that tall. Gypsy King.
Yeah, but, I mean, I watched Snatch. Most of them were pretty wiry fellas.
No, but there's always one big guy. They don't get a lot of nutrients in their system.
It's like the big guy from Braveheart. There's always one big guy.
One giant guy, but even those big guys, I feel are just relatively big. And the food in England sucks, so it's tough to put on weight over there.
No, one huge guy per country for sure. Per group.
Per region. There's always one guy everyone talks about like, oh man.
Paul Bunyan. Yeah, he probably just still breastfeeds.
He probably just never stopped breastfeeding. What made you think that? No, that makes you huge.
Like the, what was it? It's nature's steroids. what was the guy the kid in game of thrones come on hank thrones your thrones addict brand the fucking kid who was breastfeeding at like 14 that little shit he lived in the sky tower come on you know i'm talking about robin aaron there we go finally What a pussy that kid was.
All right. So we also had great NBA games.
Hank, would you like to say anything about the refereeing in the Celtics-Lakers game? It was bullshit, and it kind of ruined the end of the game. It was a great game, and then the last, I don't know, like two minutes took like 35 minutes, and the refs just did the thing where Jalen Brown wasn't out of bounds at all.
They called him out of bounds. Didn't review it.
The goaltend, the craziest thing that isn't really getting talked about because they fucked up the end of the game so bad, but there was a goaltend call in the beginning of the game that was like the most egregious thing I've ever seen in my life. But there was also a goaltend at the end of the game that didn't get called.
Yes. Jeff Van Gundy had all-time sarcasm when he said they did their second or third review, and he said there's nothing more exciting than an instant replay review.
People are turning. I didn't realize how much hate Jeff Van Gundy.
I knew Mark Jackson because he's an idiot. But Jeff Van Gundy is starting to get lumped in.
It's like we our, on our announcers. I feel like they're getting

their shine. I don't know.
I feel, I feel like him talking about Alex Caruso was so beautiful. Yes.
He just, he saw like a young Jeff Van Gundy out there and he's like, this kid, his arms are sneaky long. Is it? That was the biggest compliment that he played.
Jeff, Jeff Van Gundy had a good point though about Brad Stevens and Brad Stevens face and Just his whole demeanor.

He's too nice.

He really is.

He needs to...

He needs to rebrand, maybe get a different haircut or maybe a face tag. He could do it with his shirts.
He could change up his shirts or something. He could look a little bit more Meripede-ish.
Yeah, he looks – No, no. No, no.
We're saying the opposite because he got a technical – No, but but people have turned on Mayor Pete now, so I feel like if he looks more like Mayor Pete.

No, he needs to go cool Brad Stevens.

Right.

Yeah, because Jeff Van Gundy's point, which was a correct one.

That would be unbelievable.

Yeah, like a purple turn.

The Dwayne Wade look from the All-Star game.

But his point was absolutely correct, that Brad Stevens,

like his face and the fact that he treats refs with so much respect hurts him because if he just raises his voice a little, he gets a technical foul. That was a bullshit technical foul.
And just calling a technical foul with a minute left in the game is also, who does that? Yeah, that's a big time let the boys play moment. Yeah, and it did come down to the last second.
But Hank, if you recall two years ago, about this time, we did a sogrows because the celtics lost a mid-season game on a sunday night so people were asking if you're going to do it again i didn't want to respond for you because i figured you'd want to you know really put yourself out there and i mean they were they were the underdogs i don't think that would make sense going back to tyson fury though uh he was on that okay he was why i was i heard this last night i just wanted to confirm before i said it but but he was born three months early. What? Three months premature, and the doctors wanted to give up on him or whatever.
And his dad was like, no, he's a fighter. Fighter, yeah.
He's going to fight. He's going to be the heavyweight champion of the world, blah, blah, blah.
There's no way his dad said that, but I like that. I like when they have the revisions.
Hey, you're going to be this premature baby in the NICU. He's going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.
This is a badass line. How many babies do you think that was said about that just don't end up boxing one day in their life? Yeah, probably.
Well, I don't know how many people look at a baby and say, this baby is going to beat the shit out of everybody one day. All the other babies are fucked.
I said he'll be all right. He will be 7 feet 20 stone and heavyweight champion of the world.
And I named him Tyson after Mike Tyson. It's got to be a little disappointing that he didn't get up to seven feet tall.
Yeah, shout out Mike Tyson, by the way, who they had all the legends coming out, and he just walked out for Evander Holyfield's walkout. Didn't realize that they weren't talking about him until they said Atlanta, Georgia.
Like, they listed all of Evander Holyfield's records and everything that he did, and Mike Tyson was just on another planet being like, that pretty sweet all those places I wasn't yeah but but he's saying I was it was cool to see Tyson Lewis and Holyfield all in the same building together it wasn't cool to listen to Lennox Lewis is not good jabber jabber you got a job and then you got a kind of with a job and you get jabbing too much then it becomes a jab is jab. All right.
So barstoolgold.com slash PMT.

You can watch us right now.

You can watch our interview with Shams.

It's coming up in a minute.

We had great college basketball as well.

Duke is all the way back.

One, two, and four lost.

What?

They are.

They are.

Gonzaga had their usual loss out against the Mormons.

That crowd, by the way, in Provo, those guys fucking party.

Not party party. Not party, but they party.
They Provo, those guys fucking party. Not party party.

Not party, but they party. They party as far as Mormons go.
Sober party. They have two Dr.
Peppers. It was pretty fucking cool.
Yeah. Kyle Vannoy was pretty excited about it, too.
Kyle was ready to soak. Yeah.
He was ready to soak some shit. Big time soaking.
And also, watching all the games yesterday, it made me realize that as soon as Arizona getszona gets eliminated we need to put sean miller in a studio uh under bright lights and then judge all of our games on how much he sweat through his suit because that arizona oregon game was awesome peyton pritchard by the way has definitely been at oregon for like 17 years but he had sweat through his suit coat like fully through his suit coat and that is a great indicator that the game is great. Yeah, it is.
For Sean Miller, he's a very sweaty guy in general. I've always understood if a coach has the back sweat through the suit.
That's a Bruce Pearl. Yeah, that's a big Bruce Pearl, or maybe around the breast area.
But it wasn't just the arms. It was the upper arm.
Yes. Whose upper arm sweats i think sean miller is see this is why sean miller escaped the fbi because when they interrogate him you can't look at a man and be like oh he's pouring sweat he must be lying that's just his natural like homeostasis he rolls out of bed sweating he just leaks yes he yeah he's got all these tiny little holes in his body just leaks like a strainer to make a blue suit get darker blue is a wild that's so much sweat he has to just rock like just black suits right no i think he just owns it i think he owns the fact that he cannot stop sweating or let him go shirtless yeah or yeah maybe let him just wear sweats he should wear a sweat band yeah he just used that uh your disposal Sean Miller go shirtless and wear the double little string sweatbands that college football players have on their biceps or maybe just a quarterback sweat towel just be rubbing your hands on it the whole time alright the other last story before we get to our who's back of the week the Browns now it wasn't a sanctioned event by the browns but we're just going to blame the browns had a live casket funeral for swagger with swagger jr his son there how does it not get sanctioned by the browns so like so they just get rid of the body and then i unfortunately have learned way too much about this apparently there is a funeral home in Cleveland that does this.
They will do live casket funerals for pets. Open casket, yeah.

Open casket funerals for open casket yeah open open casket sorry it was a live stream of an open casket that was the part where it was like why is there a live stream to pay respects but they uh they do it and they get like eight thousand dollars for these which i guess if you if you throw that out there if a funeral home is saying like hey you know what no one's been dying recently we have an off day let's throw a couple of fucking you know cats and dogs into a casket and and get eight thousand dollars a pop on a saturday afternoon kind of makes sense who pays them the people the dog owner so the browns no the browns were it was one of those situations where someone a family owns swagger so very fishy I'm telling you. So the Browns.
No, the Browns, it was one of those situations where a family owned Swagger. No, very fishy.
I'm telling you. So Swagger, you're saying, was just licensed out like a mercenary? That's how, unfortunately, PFT.
Like a Blackwater mascot? That's how a lot of these mascots work. As a used dog salesman, you know how this goes.
That's a lot of these. Ugga is not owned by Georgia.
I've never licensed out a dog to lease to anyone. That's not how you do it with a dog.

You are either all in or all out.

The underbelly of live mascots.

It's absolutely sickening.

So they had a live stream of this open casket,

and then they made Swagger Jr.

Sit there.

Go sit next to his dead dad.

And he had a boner.

And he had a boner naturally.

He was raging hard about his dead dad.

He's a fucking necrophiliac.

No, there's nothing.

That's absolutely natural. If you're around another type of your species and you see death, it's natural to get horny to be like, I have to procreate as quickly as possible because I'm going to die soon.
Also, Swagger. What if he had humped his dad? Swagger died like three weeks ago.
Yeah, that's what I was saying. I looked up his death.
His death was February 7th. I guess you have to keep Swagger in state for a while so the country can come pay its respects.
So he got embalmed? Have him lying in the state? He should have just had a fucking parade. They should bury him at midfield.
God damn it. Was it First Energy Stadium? Just when you think the Browns are starting to turn everything around, which they aren't.
Well, this is actually... No, you weren't.
But if you were thinking that, they had a fucking open casket funeral for a dog. I actually think that this is more normal than most of the things that have happened to the team.
It was so casual, too. I was just scrolling through Twitter on Saturday, and someone tweeted at me like, Wait, this isn't real.
See, I thought I was getting punked, and then I searched it, and I saw the live stream live stream and i couldn't and how about the people that are going how about the people that show up i think it's to see a dead dog i think that's that's that's the crazy no no i agree with hank i don't want to see a dead dog that's more normal i mean me out we clicked on a live stream to see a dead dog oh i didn't click i clicked oh i clicked oh. I mean, no one wants to go to funerals, but you pay respects.
SJ was just like staring at the camera like, get me the fuck out of this franchise as quickly as possible. I mean, it's just, it was a great sports Saturday.
You think it's an Onion title. Right.
And then you're like, wow. You're like, wait, this actually is real.
And of course, it's the Browns. No other franchise is this after seeing what they that they made him go look at his dead dad i would be completely in favor of any other franchise kidnapping swagger yes yes swagger jr yes and and the father's body which i'm sure is probably still embalmed they probably forgot it no they probably took it to like a playground or something yeah to have neighborhood kids say goodbye to it.
Put it under a tree. I say, yeah.
We also did. Can you imagine burying an animal? No.
Listen, that was different. And made people come out.
Well, that was different. That's a goldfish.
Like, let's drive in a caravan ceremony. That's different.
Also, we didn't have any of Larry's kids around us at the time. We did have a baby there, though.
Well. Did they have to learn about death sometime? Yeah we didn't bring the baby.
Someone else brought the baby. And they wanted the baby to experience what pain was like so it could grow up to be the heavyweight champion of the world.
Also, Larry, all due respects, but Larry was like 17 million times the winner that Swagger was. Let's just call a spade a spade here.
Larry won. Swagger lost.
He was a loser dog. I'll put it this way.
It would have been more appropriate for the Browns to put Swagger's body on like a little pontoon boat, light it on fire, and then push it out onto Lake Erie. Or just in the middle of the Cuyahoga River.
I know that's kind of a fire hazard. But just shove it out into a great lake.
That would have been more appropriate than putting a live stream on Facebook for all of America to tune into. Fred Smooch should start a business where he does Viking funerals for pets.
And he actually has the bow and arrow that lights it on fire. Little Viking funeral, boat funeral.
Where does the sex part come in? Well, if people aren't looking, he can do whatever he wants fred smoot can have sex with your animal what what someone in the audience will have sex with fred smoot at some point because i mean have you heard him talk that's probably the guy is yeah he's electric uh all right let's do some who's back hank why don't you start who's back of the week my My who's back of the week is Astros' bad PR moves.

Yeah.

So, Rob Manfred in his, you know, last week was saying that the Astros' punishment is going to be being publicly shamed. And, like, that was going to be the worst part.
They're not going to get stripped. They're not going to lose the World Series.
But the public shame is what's really going to be their punishment. They're going to have to have tough questions asked of them.
The Astros are now taking all signs away from people attending spring training that have any sort of joke towards the Astros cheating. So instead of publicly shaming them, they're now taking that away from any fan that goes to a game.
And they're absolutely screwed because every time that a fan gets it confiscated, you're going to have 2 million people making a, oh, they're stealing signs again joke. So there's really nothing that you can do to get out of this.
You either let them sign up or you're going to have a headline every single day saying, Astros steal signs again. Or take away the World Series title and say, no signs.
Or you can have signs and you can have the World Series title. They also, obviously it's spring training, so I wouldn't expect the starters to be playing game one of spring training, but it did kind of suck that the entire Astros team was a bunch of minor league guys who were just wearing the jersey and just getting booed so loud, and they did nothing wrong.
It's a bunch of guys who are trying to make the team who would be honored to be able to steal signs and bang on a trash can for Altuve and Bregman. But they had to go out there and just take the beating while Altuve and Bregman were playing golf.
No respect to those guys. But how funny would it be if the Astros just decided to keep cheating? Just didn't stop.
Yeah. They're addicted to cheating.
The exact same system is like, I dare you to catch me again. because now it's probably the last time that baseball is gonna be looking for them it's a perfect exact same thing right hiding in plain sight you would never expect the astros to cheat again could you um could fans instead of maybe bringing signs into baseball games try to sneak trash cans in that would also be that would be funny yeah i'm i'm in for all of it the astros are going to be the astros cheating scandal is just going to be a year-long story that we're all gonna have fun with it's gonna be a circus we're gonna have to ask the hard questions rob manfred has told us they are not getting punished so we must punish them uh pft who's your who's back my who's back of the week is ben roethlisberger yes so big ben was pictured throwing some passes.
He has now graduated to the point where he's able to throw what looked like at least a high school-sized football. I don't know.
I didn't get an up-close view of it. But, yeah, he was in a gym.
He looked good. He looked happy.
Good for him. Yeah, no, for Ben.
It's obviously on a sliding scale. I wasn't like, look at this athlete.
No, it was a very slow release, but he looked like he was about 280 pounds and tough to sack. You can shave now.
I'll put it this way. Big Ben looked like Big Ben.
Right. And that's all that we're hoping for.
Which is great. He looks a little less like a guy that goes and lives in a cabin for a winner and writes below average songs.
We need him back because him back because if they get the new playoff rules in a couple years big ben will just be in the playoffs every that was the one thing when they went through it all the steelers would just made the playoffs every year yeah they've always they're the model of uh never being worse than seventh yeah like eight and eight nine and seventeen after worse uh how do you think big ben has been rehabbing up to do you think he's been doing any exercise whatsoever uh i would imagine he's like an elliptical guy for 15 minutes and then maybe 10 crunches he's like a back row elliptical guy so you can get a view of the other clientele at the gym he mights on one of those balls and does like a few crunches then hits the steam yeah big time steam guy i was thinking about that earlier this week where as long as you that counts as a workout. Absolutely.
So Big Ben's definitely like a schvitz guy. Hollywood workout.
He's a sauna guy. Probably the first guy to drop the towel when he enters a steam room.
Oh, yeah. Let's everyone know what he's dealing with.
A type of guy that you probably had to hide every single football in the house, every ball in the house from him. Because if you just saw one, he'd pick it up and throw it.
Yeah. So you have to, like, put that on a high shelf.

But that's also everyone.

Like, if you see someone throwing a basketball around, like, doing,

you know, dribbling a basketball, you're automatically going to say,

pass me the ball.

It's true.

That's every ball ever.

It's just what happens.

It's probably like a dog.

See?

Yeah, there you go.

Like, you want this ball right now.

Yeah, there you go.

Hank, you want that ball?

Hank, you want it?

Look at it.

See?

It's over there.

All right. My Who's back is spring spring is back we had a taste this weekend because the groundhog because the groundhog but we had a taste this weekend and there's something about those first few days when it hits like 50 and it's that something in the air where there's still no leaves obviously it's it's that raw smell and you're like march madness is coming saint patrick's day is coming the masters is almost here it's just something beautiful about it the sun feels like oh my god the sun's back we're changing the clocks in two weeks just put out part of my take spring break merch oh fuck man it's there's nothing better than that feeling of you know what it is spring has some spring has some great drinking days, too.
It does. And you almost feel like...
Especially in college. Yes, in college.
And you're coming out of your shell and you're like, oh, my God. It's back.
Like that first day where you're like, hey, let's fire up the grill. Yeah, it's only 45 degrees outside.
But 45 degrees in the spring feels like 80. It's shorts weather.
Yeah. I wore shorts today just because I could without actually freezing my shins off.
yes but for you it's like this is your first spring as a dad so spring has sprung what you felt was like you stepped outside and it was it was uh jim nance's voice like going through the air like radio waves oh yeah hello friends oh yeah what you sensed and you were like yeah let's do this i'm very i already got circled father's day and i'm just like hey it's my day now it's an extra birthday and you're just gonna tell you when they when you become a dad you're gonna stare at your kid and be like, yeah, let's do this. I already got circled Father's Day.
And I'm just like, hey, it's my day now. It's an extra birthday.
So they don't tell you when you become a dad. You're going to stare at your kid and be like, why aren't you getting me anything, baby? No, I'm just going to be like, hey, sorry, it's my day.
I'm going to sleep and watch sports, which kind of is everything. You know what's tough, though? This year, St.
Patrick's Day is on a Tuesday. Yeah, but it doesn't matter in college.
College kids celebrate it whenever. The closest Friday.
I'm thinking for myself. Oh.
You're still trying to get fucked up on St. Paddy's Day? It's like an amateur night.
Yeah. I don't fuck around with that.
You're still going to get out there? Do they have a seniors division for St. Patrick's Day that you're entering this year? Listen, Tuesday night, I'm 35.
You can still get fucked up on St. Patrick's Day when you're 35.
Yeah. If you're Irish.
Yeah, I mean, you can. But I think there's definitely...
it depends if you're like with a bunch of like. Like a chameleon when it comes to drinking holidays.
If you're with like 24 year olds, I think you'll fairly get some looks. Yeah.
And be like, hey, what's up, man? Are you still doing this? I also can pass for like a 25, 26. You're wearing a kilt, yeah.
Yeah, that's true. Just wear a kilt.
Yeah, everyone looks like they're. Dressed like a leprechaun.
In a sure weirdo. Not because you're height, but just because.
I'm way too tall to be a leprechaun. Right, but you should.
Then you can drink all- That'll draw more attention to myself. Who's this fucking giant dressed as a leprechaun? All right, let's get to our interview.
We got Shams Charania. Great interview.
We also broke news on the interview, which everyone knows it now. I really want that ball back.
This is what the ball does. If you have a ball, you got to play with it.
It's so fun. When your home system or appliance breaks down, American Home Shield will help fix or replace the covered item, no matter its age.
Visit AHS.com slash listen for 20% off any plan. See AHS.com slash contracts for coverage details, limitations, and exclusions.
Okay, here he is, Shams Charania. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest.
It is Shams Charania. Did I say that right? Yes, sir.
All right, so Shams, we have to talk a lot of MBA. You're an MBA insider.
You are one of the best in the biz. But before we talk NBA, we have to talk at least about your rise in your career because I think you had the same thought when you were looking it up.
You're 25. And I don't mean that as a slight, but it's crazy how much you've accomplished at 25.
So my theory is always if you wear a suit on your Twitter profile,'s just 10 years automatically no question is that was that part of the plan like i'm sure you've probably struggled with this like hey i want to be taken seriously and i'm young which you know it's a this business is very hard to be taken seriously when you're young how did you do this how did you manage to get to this point at 25 so i mean i feel like i'm 35 in basketball years like i think that's just how I've kind of you know, every year, like last year I was 24 obviously, I'm turning 26 in a couple months now, like I'm 36 like that's just how, you know, I've been doing this since I was 17 and when you first like my junior and senior year in high school in New Trier, I was just cold texting, cold emailing, cold calling, whether it's agents, executives around the league, you know, the handful or so that reached out and actually hit me back. Obviously, I was like, wow, like these people actually, because, you know, I kind of put myself in their shoes.
If I rep like five all-star players, I'm probably not hitting this random kid who I've never heard of. He has no real track record.
What like what has he done? But I mean, I always try to, you know, you hide behind kind of your maturity in a lot of ways you get lucky you got to get lucky you know people that hit you back that takes luck in a lot of ways and also shows you there are a lot of good people in the industry that want to actually hit you back so i mean for me it was just like luck what was the lucky one like what was the one that you can look back and like i can't believe this guy texted me back and it helped me? I think my biggest, like the first story that put me on the map was probably Luol Deng. I don't know if you remember, but Luol Deng got traded from the Bulls to the Cavs, January 2014.
I was 20, probably a sophomore in college. And I'll never forget it because it was like 11.15 at night.
It was an email that came through from someone I had been emailing with. And again, we weren't texting.
We weren't on text levels. We weren't on call levels.
I'd never spoken to the person on the phone. We were emailing.
Probably had exchanged 500, 600 emails in the span of two years. And I got little tidbits here and there from that person.
I get email 1115 at night. Dang for Bynum and pics.

And I get that.

And I didn't even see it until 1145.

I was watching a movie.

And so I go to my Gmail and I see the email.

And I go to Twitter and it's not out.

I'm like, oh shit.

I'm like, holy shit.

Yeah.

And I tweet it out.

And then I'll never forget. I'm like running around my house like oh my god like i i did it i got it and like that like rush that went because you know before then i had broken like you know malcolm thomas signing a 10 day with the bulls like chavlik randolph signing a 10 day with the celtics like different little 10 days and euro league signings and you know g league, G League signings.
But that was like my first real like NBA break. And when I got that, I think that, you know, it kind of validated the work that I was putting in up until that point.
Yeah. But that one for sure was probably like the one I would say.
That's awesome. What was your cold email script like or when you were cold calling somebody, would you be like hey this is who I am if you have any information that you're not doing anything with I'd be happy to take it off your hands like how do you how do you start to build those relationships? So I think for me the biggest thing was not to come off as like I want information at first it was like hey my name is Sean Strani and I'm you know before I was like so I started off at Chicago now which is a subsidiary of the Tribune.
This is junior year of high school. And I would just do that to get reps.
Like, I would do Chicago now. They weren't paying anything.
It was just somewhere where I could just get writing on. So I did that for, like, a year.
And then I pitched it to Real GM. I'm like, yo, this is my work.
I pitched it to them, like, two, three other outlets. And they were ones at that point, like real GM, hoop type.
They were like the holy grail for me. Like I would, me and my friends, we would just go on there and just hit refresh like constantly.
Right. Like what's going on? What's going on? Like who are the Bulls getting? You know, I want to know.
I'm like. No good free agents, but yes.
Because I was that person. Carlos Loser, yeah.
I was that fan. Like I wanted to know.
And so I get to Real GM and my – honestly, my text was I'm Sean Strani. I write for RealGM.com.
I'm covering the NBA. Would be great to stay in touch.
Do you have time to talk? And at that point, it's just building a relationship because I've always been in the mindset if you're going into something saying i want you know like i want that's probably going to be a turn off from jump um so for me it was just like genuinely showing that i'm in it for the long haul i'm in it for a longer term relationship this wasn't just like yo this champ's trying to give me something you got something like i'm ready it's more like you know this is who i am this is what i'm trying to be would never say how old i am you know you kind of hide behind the maturity level right whatever well i i know that that's probably awkward for you because you're probably sick of people being like wait you're 25 but i say it not as a oh my god you're so young i say it in holy shit man like congrats because this is an impossible business to be in and i think a lot of times i mean I mean, we've both dealt with it where, you know, it's a weird business where you don't really get your shot until later in life, which makes no sense because the audience we're going for is the younger audience. So, I mean, congrats, like that's incredible.
And I love that because I love anyone who grinds. So, I mean, it's, it's weird too, that you're 25 and you've been in it for, what do you say? Eight years years yes that's why that's what i told you i feel like i'm 30 yeah i really do feel like i'm you know i haven't seen everything i feel like i've seen a lot i feel like i know kind of the ins and outs of things and and really honestly man like it's it's the people that are in it that i'm just like every day i'm like damn like you like, you know, cause again, when I was 17, 18 reaching out to these people who have multiple players, multiple all-stars, like no reason to respond to me.
Like, what have I done? Who am I? You know, but just shows that they hit you back and you never know, you know, you never know what someone might be for me or anyone. You also have a cool name, like a name that sticks in your head that people remember.
And they're like, Oh yeah, I'm going to text this guy back. I like that name.
It's not like Sam. Michael Smith.
That's actually tougher to break in. You've got like a little bit of initial branding, right? When you hit somebody, it's like, oh yeah, I like this guy.
And the Twitter suit. I mean, the Twitter suit is good.
That's how I started going to games Like, when I was 17, 18, 19 years old, like, going to games in Milwaukee, Indiana, because I wasn't... The Bulls wouldn't credential me.
I did a... Of course not.
I'll get into that later. I know you need to keep your relationships, but I'll just say things, and you can just laugh.
I did a freelance piece for ESPN when I was 20, and that's when the Bulls finally were like, yeah, we'll credential you now. You're clearly showing you're not just in it to hang out with players or just come to the arena.
Right. Serious.
But before then, I would go to Milwaukee games. I would go in a suit.
That's just smart move. I haven't changed anything else.
Yeah, and I think it also is more to probably our immaturity because we don't wear suits and we don't really take ourselves seriously so like we have you know a friend john roste and he comes in he's like yeah i've been wearing a suit for decades like well that's smart people probably respect you a little differently treat you differently so that also shows just our dumb brain that like we see one person walk in the room wearing a suit like oh i'm like what's up dad look at this guy like hey yeah you're older than me this guy owns a bank you're like 45 no joke because of the suit so you get you get your big break so then you uh tell me the path from after college you start working with woge yeah so um i think that story kind of put me like in people's minds and thoughts a little bit more and so um you know that one was just relationships you know getting to know you know him getting to know other people and and once you know that kind of formed i mean the team that we had if you look back at that i don't know if you guys remember like the team we had at the dream team yeah i mean i was talking to a couple of those guys like you know whenever you see them in passing at games or events and you know scala brainy like chris mannix guys like that and like the way that we compare it's kind of kind of like the okc thunder you know they broke up so who are you are you hardened i don't know who i am that's a good question but i didn't you know i ended up staying that there was a gap year where i stayed you know a lot of the people um started to migrate either you know go to espn go to these different outlets me chris mannix michael lee we stayed our contract we still had one year left on our deal I still had one year left on my deal and so I couldn't you know there was at the time I was 22 so there was some talk that like you know try to leave your contract try to end up at ESPN or wherever because obviously that's where my relationships were like I came in with those guys but when when I realized I was going to have to stay that year out. Were you looking for, yeah, probably like in your head when you're thinking about some place to go, you probably thought you'd like to go to a place that doesn't have air going through the pipes when you're recording a podcast, right? Was that high up on your list? Oh, no, don't give me Jeremy Lane.
At least go to Russell Westbrook. I stayed.
I'll be Serge. I'll take Serge.
Have they retired your suit in any Houston strip clubs? I've never even been to Houston, but that might be next. But, I mean, I ended up staying, and I think that was probably, you know, obviously it opened up an opportunity and opened up a time.
I didn didn't know I was really prepared for at the moment. I think that summer ended up being big for me.
And yeah. It's a really cool story.
So let's talk some NBA now. Where do we want to start? You want to start with fire guard packs? Get that out of the way? You're the host, man.
I mean, what what is the i'll phrase it this way what knowing everyone in the league what is everyone else's thought of how the bulls are run right now i think everyone on league is expecting some level of change i think that everyone's you know for the last several years i think there's been a thought of like you know this you know the front office, the front office probably isn't where it needs to be. Right.
In 2020, it's a lot different than it was, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. It's a lot about relationships, a lot of like like you need to be able to manage players, manage their agents, manage their camps, manage negotiations, manage your own front office, have depth in your front office, have create like the constant like the best organizations right now are the ones that, you know, there's like a constant flow of information, Intel.
And now it's, you know, 2020, there's a lot of information out there, right? So having a front office that can decipher all that information and come up with creative ideas and creative ways to move you forward. And, you know, I do think the bulls are at a point now where they understand that you know we

need to build out some depth in our front office we need to build out some people that can bring those creative ideas and it's not gonna come from just like kind of doing what we've been doing for like 15 20 years i mean it's yeah you just explained everything and all i'm thinking about is like the fixes have been john paxton hiring his brother and bringing in doug collins who's like 80 yeah I got nothing on that

but what I can say

but his son is younger gotta get smarter we gotta get younger hire somebody that's got a talented son and then in hopes that he'll come work for your organization one day yeah so all right so so let me flip it then to the rest of the league what would you say is the most forward-thinking organization you know or you can rattle off a few that are doing things the right way that are always on the you know cutting edge hiring more people analytics whatever it may be i mean i look at you know you gotta look at the thunder i think they've done a good job the nets i mean obviously getting kd and and kairi i think a lot of the nets's situation has to do with creativity but also information like being three steps ahead of the curve on, like, all right, let's plan out two, three. Like, the Nets planned out Kyrie Irving and KD, like, three years in advance.
Right. Like, that's how early they were thinking about it.
That's how creatively they were thinking about it. Indiana, I think, has a great kind of culture already set.
And, you know, what those guys have done, likeipo missing most of the season so far, for them to be a fifth seed right now ahead of Philadelphia, I think that's a testament to the culture that they built there. Those are the three that really come to my mind off the jump.
But, I mean, listen, they're great ones throughout. San Antonio has been well regarded at every stop.
They have Brian Wright now running the show there. So R.C.
Buford's kind of taking a little bit of a step back in terms of day-to-day operations. But they were really the model organization.
You see Sean Marks came out of there. Dennis Lindsay came out of there.
Sam Presti came out of there. So I think a lot of it has come through there.
But you've got to give the Clippers a lot of credit, too. They've built out a great front office of just depth over there too.
Like Lawrence

Frank, Michael Winger. I mean the list goes

on and on. Like their front office is five, six people

deep. I think that's how you

have to be now. And what's going on in Cleveland

right now? When did things become totally

unsalvageable? Was it when that

report came out about the thugs

slugs comment that he made during the

film session or was there

something that was much deeper brewing ahead of that?

So we wrote a story in early December on

The Athletic where we said like, I mean we had

Thank you. Slug's comment that he made during the film session, or was there something that was much deeper brewing ahead of that? So we wrote a story in early December on The Athletic where we said, like, I mean, we had, like, three players, not quoted by name, but being quoted in the story as far as saying, like, basically saying that, you know, this is not working.
Like, we're over this. You can say shit.
Yeah, we're over this. You can say shit.
And that was all the way in December. And so he lost the team back then.
And, you know, you kind of, and I kind of feel bad for him. Everything I had heard going in was that John B.
Lyon was a great guy. He always had a great reputation as a person.
But just the instant he got in there, like, he did not mesh with those guys. and his, you know, one person described reputation as a person but just the instant he got in there like he did not mesh with those guys and his you know one person described him as a dictator and that's not the way you talk to NBA players it's not the way you behave with NBA players and that kind of goes back to the front office regime right like you need to be understanding it's a lot of taking on information that you're getting and then applying it you have to make your own decisions but you have to take what you're getting information wise and I don't think Beeline ever did that and he really lost the team then and then once it.
You have to make your own decisions, but you have to take what you're getting information-wise. And I don't think Beeline ever did that.
And he really lost the team then. And then once that thug comment was made and he went back and said, no, I meant slugs.
I think the players knew that that was – You never said slugs. You never – Slugs.
Yeah. It's so funny.
I had a player tell me that's bullshit. Yeah, of course it is.
That's not – you know. But at the end of the day, listen, like, do I understand kind of what he was meaning? Probably.
Like, you could, if he had said, guys, you know what, I said that. That's exactly what I said.
This is why I said it. Like, you guys weren't playing tough or whatever.
Like, I think the players probably would have respected it more. But then when you come with the, like, I meant to say slugs, I think that's where, you know lost.
Intelligence at that point, too. To be like, you'll buy this line, you'll buy anything, I say.
But I feel like with a coach like that, everybody, when you sign with the Cavs, it's like, what are you doing? You're a great college coach. Your system works in a college environment.
It's not going to work in the NBA. You have to imagine that he had a plan, at least in his head, of how he could adapt.
Did he just not even try, or did he try and it went sideways? I think he thought that what his methods were in college were going to work at the NBA level, and it just wasn't even close. It's crazy to think about because he had such a cushy job at Michigan.
He would have stayed at Michigan for however long he wanted to stay. And now he's one and done in the NBA.
Couldn't even make it to the All-star game like i i remember just working on the reporting of this story and like that weekend like around all-star weekend a lot of high-level executives were talking about like hey like he's retiring or he's stepping down at the end of the season i'm like what no there's no way right no fucking way right not even one and done no way half and done and then the more you track it they're like yo he might like, yo, he might resign. Or they might part ways during the week, like after All-Star break.
I mean, it's probably one of the most shocking departures of a coach. I mean, in recent time.
I think the last coach this little time was in like 81. So it was just – and then the guy is playing like the thug music after – Right.
Like he says the line. A player walked into the team bus with beats, that audio player that you had.
You're just holding your hand. The pill thing, yeah.
Just blasting trick daddies on my thug. And Beeline's sitting first chair.
It's insane. That's perfect.
I don't know when this is going to air, but I'm actually – I bet on the Cavs tonight just like the dead cat bounce back game where they're just – You think so? Yeah. I mean, they'll play harder tonight.
They'll play hard for J.B. Bickerson.
Right, and they'll play harder just to be like, oh, he really was the problem. Because like Kevin Love now, I mean, I think we all know that he was one of the leaders of I'm not really buying into this he's gonna play harder to be like hey i'm proving a point that that was never gonna work he said it i mean i think he said he showed up to camp like two seconds before the season started which was a pretty clear sign that he didn't want to be there but you know i've never seen it i've never seen a team kind of revolt or you know feelings toward a coach kind of like quite like this like yeah to 15.
We're not even talking just the stars or just select young players. This goes to the end of the bench, like the 15th man.
There's got to be one guy that's like, you know what, I'm cool with this. Yeah.
And you've got to also point the finger to the front office and the ownership. For them to go and hire him.
They couldn't have saw this coming. It was not a good point.
I noticed that when Big Cat's phone just dinged, you instinctively grabbed at your phone. Did you ever get anxiety? It was my baby monitor at home.
Swear to God. That's beautiful.
Do you get anxiety if you leave your phone in a different room for five minutes? Yeah, no question i've missed you know stories probably because i'm like a minute late or 30 seconds late so you just you always got to be on um i mean like going to school when i was a kid like i would walk out of classrooms for like 20 30 minutes at a time because i i'm just like i i you know i gotta take this yeah people at the time i don't think they knew why i was like leaving for like 20 30 minutes and the teacher would be like, hey, we need to talk after class. Alright, here we go again.
Dude, your life is a movie. They're going to write a movie about this.
Like 16 years old, walking into the hallway and taking calls from GMs and stuff. That's it right there.
That's a movie. You guys got the first.
We'll write it. We will write the movie.
If you're cool with some dogs with boners being put in there. We'll get into that later.
We'll get into that later. We'll get there.
So, Anthony Davis, any chance he goes anywhere but the Lakers in this offseason? I don't see it. I don't see it.
No. Not Chicago? Toy with anyone? I don't see it.
I mean, you know what? The Knicks, you know, we're in New York now. Like the Knicks, people don't believe it, but the Knicks were really on his mind.
Really? The Knicks. God, I will never play for them on my mind.
Man, did you imagine having to play for guys like that? That's the one team I do not want to take a steak dinner from is the Knicks. That's how they were.
The Knicks never put Mitchell Robinson and Kevin Knox together in trade packages to New Orleans. Just think about that.
And if they did, they probably would have made it a little bit more interesting. But they never did.
Mitchell Robinson had a great summer. I think a lot of people had high hopes for him.
They never put him in any deal. I do think if the Knicks did and put a pick or two, they could have made it interesting.
I do think Anthony Davis would have given them a strong opportunity to stay. He wanted to be either with the Knicks or the Lakers.
So is he going to give even a meeting to the Knicks this offseason, or is it just Lakers? Because it's weird. I feel like Anthony Davis is in that situation where, yeah, of course he's repped by Clutch, and yeah, that's LeBron and everything, but Clutch also is very empowering to the players, and keeping your ability to be a free agent and actually take all the offers is something it seems like Clutch is very high on.
If their season doesn't go according to plan, like if they lose in like the second round or the conference finals, like could I see him, you know, potentially? Yeah. But I mean, the Lakers have everything he wants.
Yeah. You know, the team he wants, the chemistry he wants, like they have everything.
They've done everything in their power to make sure he's involved in all the moves they make. Could he take a meeting? Yes.

But I don't see a scenario where he's not a Laker.

Okay.

Off the record, that's a little trick.

You can say off the record and then record everything and no one follows up on you.

But with LeBron James and the Lakers, how much of the budget for Space Jam 2

is going directly to free agents to circumvent the cap?

Is this on?

No, it's off the record.

No, it's off the record.

We turned everything on.

There's no way they could get away with that.

But if they were to do it, hmm.

Just something to think about.

Yeah.

No, there's no way.

Bitcoin?

How much is LeBron paying you?

Good question. I'm getting paid by him.
All off the record stuff here. Okay, all right.
How about Giannis? Do you think it's good for the league that we're already talking about Giannis being a free agent even though he's two years away? Yeah, I mean, that's what everyone eats up. You know everyone eats that up.
I know. I feel bad, though, for Bucs fans.
If you're a small market team in the NBA, and you have a generational star, and you're trying to enjoy them, and all anyone's talking about is like, oh, he talked to Steph Curry a little bit after their game. But the thing is, they're so good that you don't hear it as much.
I think there's a difference between when he's going to be a free agent and when LeBron was going to be a free agent.

I don't think the Cavs were on this

like they're mowing through the league.

What are they, 48-7?

It's not even close. They might win 70

games this year. So it's

tough for them to get nitpicked

and like, oh, is he going to stay? It's not

a topic when the team is that good. Good point.

But the one thing about Giannis that I think everyone

around the league has understood, whether you're behind the scenes, whether it's from the agent community, front office community, the guy wants to win, period. And so the Milwaukee, they have two years here to try to win a championship, try to get to the finals, win a ring.
And if they don't, that gives you all the signs. He wants to compete and he wants to win for a championship.
That's literally the only thing on his mind. Do you ever think, though, like we always mock the this league and the player movement, and we're fans of the NBA, but there is a little element of sometimes it feels like people are more fans of Twitter, Instagram, free agency than they are of the actual games being played.
Because like you said, the Bucs are insane. They're so, so They're so, so good.
And then still, if you ask people like, what's the honest story, it's probably where's he going? Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I, I do think the league office likes that though. I do think that there is a part of them.
I mean, for us to be always talking about the NBA on Twitter, on Instagram, like I think that's a positive. I think that that's a good thing for the league.
Obviously, you hope that the ratings continue to rise for the NBA. But, I mean, if you have everyone talking about whatever part of it, you probably go with the headlines and nothing.
Yeah. The buzz is good for the league, for sure.
Do you have a dream scoop? A dream scoop? Yeah. Donald Sterling died.
Gar Foreman and John Paxson fired. You know, I don't want anyone to do that.
Ryan Zerf is selling the team. Dream scoop.
Dream scoop. We're talking our dream scoops.
What's yours? I mean, my dream scoop over the weekend was John B. Lyon's situation.
I thought I did an okay job with that. You did a very good job.
I mean, all you can think of is the next one. The next one.
That's the right answer. I don't know what the next one is.
I got to get back to you on that. What – do you have any kind of rivalry with Woj when it comes to free agency and breaking news? Because people play into it.
I think I'm guilty of it too. I think I actually tweeted like, hey, Shams, are you still alive? Just checking in on you after Woj.
I'm sure everyone was tweeting stuff like that. I definitely did.
did i saw the tweet i was looking at it before but um do you feel any rivalry do you get angry when you you know someone beats you by a second oh of course you but that's with anyone with everything um like that's someone obviously you work with for multiple years so there's always like that level of respect and like that's a role model i mean him guys like him brian windhorse like adam sheffield those are all guys i looked up to when i was 15 16 years old like trying to see you know if i wanted to do this once i got caught playing basketball like i wanted to be in media i wanted to cover like i love the behind the scenes like all these fans now that i think follow me follow all these other reporters that was me was me, like, 10 years ago. So I know, like, the passion and, like, the craving of information.
So, but at the end of the day, like, you can only focus on yourself. Like, because if you're worried about what other people are doing, you're just, I think that's a distraction in a lot of ways.
Yeah. Is it bullshit that Schefter tweets basketball news sometimes? Like, we need to feed him, Leroy should feed him football news.
My dog breaks scoops. Don't hit me up.
Inside of Leroy, I can give you some football scoops so that you can actually get ahead of Schefter on some stuff. That'll really irritate him.
You know what? You guys have broken some stuff the last couple years. We've broken some things.
Leroy's broken a lot of stuff, about 60% correct.

When you mess up a scoop, do you ever apologize or retract?

Because Leroy has a strict policy of once it's out there, it's out there.

It was true to him at the time, but there was a material change.

I've never – I can't remember the last time I was in a situation where it's like,

oh, you know, I put that out.

I was wrong.

You haven't screwed up anything?

There's got to be one that you've never got to go. Oh, you know what? There was one.
It was in the draft. Okay.
But I wouldn't even call it a screw-up because, you know, like picks. Picks are coming out.
Yeah. I think I had the Cavs picking Keldon Johnson.
Okay. I think at 26 or wherever they were picking late in the first round.
But, you know, these things change. Material change.
We're doing it in real time. So we're like three picks ahead.
Yep. So you're on pick 26.
Commissioner's on pick 23. And you get word that they're going with Keldon Johnson.
So now it's like pick 25. Then pick 25 happens.
Then you're like, all right, it's still going to be Keldon Johnson. And then you get a text.
No, it's's actually Dylan Windler. So that was the last one I can remember where I'm like, I think people thought I messed it up.
Now that I'm explaining it, giving you context, there clearly was a material change. I like the terminology you guys use.
We did steal it from now that I'm thinking about it, I'm sure you've seen his Twitter account, the guy Aria out in L.A.

You've seen it.

He's basically every— Kawhi Leonard is not going to the Clippers.

Yeah, he is.

You are everything that he thinks he is.

Like, he's a young kid who thinks he's in the business,

and he just breaks, like, completely incorrect tapes and scoops

and then just says there was a material change.

It's a good line.

It covers everything.

It's a great line because materials do change frequently. Things change.
It's not a lie. It's going to be one way, and then it went a different way.
Then I was wrong. Yeah, but I mean in terms of a story.
I would hope mine is a little bit more plausible. Yes, I think yours would be.
And in terms of a story to screw up, that's probably the least consequential mess up that you could ever have. And I told you where they're actually going.
They're going to Dylan Wendler. Right.
You corrected it. Do you have alerts set up on your phone for Woj? No.
Not for anyone. Do you think he has it for you? I don't know.
Do you read it? If you're like five seconds late on a story and everyone replies to you late, do you read that? And you're like, fuck. Yeah, they're roasting me pretty good? The teens are out here.
How do I answer that? You answer no because if you answer yes, then everyone's going to reply late to you. No, of course there's no, but it's like sometimes it's like if – and it's not even – usually unless I have something to add once the news is out, like if a signing is out, but I have the terms, right, I got to get the terms out.
Right. But if it's out and someone has the whole story, I'm probably, you know, fall back.
Just retweet them. Yeah.
But that's another... Probably fall back at that point.
Okay. That's another Schefter technique, though.
So he likes to add on sometimes terms, but if he doesn't have the terms, I think it was Adrian Peterson when he signed with the Cardinals a couple years ago, or no, with the Saints a couple years ago. So he got beat on that scoop.
And they said it's a two-year deal for Adrian Peterson to New Orleans. And Schefter quote tweeted it and said, yes, it's a two-year deal.
And I'm told per sources that they hope to have Adrian Peterson on the team for both of those years. So like adding in a little nugget of inconsequential terms can actually make – now that's your scoop.
Now you own that. I got to have consequential.
Yeah. You got to have something that's like, all right, I'm learning something in this tweet.
You know what I mean? But the answer is no. Are you still a fan of – can you root for the Bulls or do you not root for any team anymore no i root for stories

like people like like the relationships i have and the stories i have like there's a difference like when i was growing up obviously like i was a fan like i remember sitting in like environmental science class like seventh grade like waiting to see if the bulls were going to get like a tj ford like we needed another guard that year i feel and we didn't end up getting him No, because we never do.

But I was the fan.

Right.

The modern fan that exists now that craved information. And so I was, but then once I transitioned into actually writing and covering not only the Bulls, but every team in the league, you just become a fan of the stories, especially stories that I'm working on.
Okay, so let me put it this way then, because I think it's a lot easier probably to make that transition when the Bulls are just terrible. If the Bulls ever get good again, and they're in the NBA finals, will you have a little part of you being like, shit, I'm not rooting for stories, I'm rooting for a team here? Probably not.
Okay. I'm trying to crack you.
You're a big journalist. I'll be there.
I definitely will be there. But you could have the best of both worlds and say what a great story this would be if the Bulls won the NBA title.
It would be a great story. I mean, they haven't won it since the Jordan years.
So whatever team is able to bring them back to that prominence, I mean, they're going to have – I thought at one point it was going to be those Derrick Rose Bulls. I know you had that Joe Keem out here earlier.
He was saying that it was, I mean, that's the best Garpax line is that they still are recovering from Derrick Rose. It wasn't that 10, 11 year.
It was really 11, 12 where they thought, like I remember that was my senior year. And that was when I was working on players like John Lucas III and Mike James signing like 10 days.
You remember that? You remember those guys guys? They would come back every other week on 10 days.

And I remember reporting on those stories,

but I knew that was the year these guys really mentally thought that they were going to win it all.

And then obviously what happened happened.

But whatever team ends up bringing them back to that position

where they're a championship team,

they're going to be like legends in the city forever probably.

Give me a team that's building something that you're like you got your eye on.

Because I feel like the NBA, obviously you need a star.

it feels like you need a star to attract a star. But what team do you see like, hey, that team, they're like one piece away or they're building something or they're thinking two years in advance.
Maybe you're Nets today but three years from now. That's a good question.
Thank you. Great question.
Put me on the spot. Awesome.
Awesome question. Thank you.
I like what Miami's doing right now. Ooh.
That's my heat. They already got Jimmy Butler.
So it's like they don't have a star already, but I think Pat Riley is positioning himself for 2021.

And Pat Riley is a master at putting his nuts and his rings on the table and being like, come to Miami.

Listen, to get Andre Iguodala, Andre Iguodala had no idea or intention in his mind to go play for Miami this year.

Like, none.

Like, I'll rather just stay at home in Silicon Valley. You know, he had a part-time job in Silicon Valley, and he was telling anyone who would listen, like, I'm good.
What do you mean a part-time job? Was he like coding? He had a part-time job. For Google? He has a firm.
What is he doing? I don't have the name of the firm off the top of my head, but he's working for a firm, and I don't... Imagine getting a cold call from Andre Iguodala in the middle of the season he's selling yeah he's selling like salesforce subscriptions that's really what he was doing manager crm it's me he wasn't thinking about it at all no but then pat riley got really like i remember i i said that they emerged as suitor on tuesday morning and at that point i was like you know it's probably not gonna happen let me just get it out there a suitor.
At least get some buzz going. And then as the day wore on, it's like Pat might call and talk to Andre.
And then the next day, it's like Pat Ryan and Andre Goddard got on a call, and Pat sold Andre. Now, obviously, that – I was looking at his phone.
Getting a buzz. What do we got? Read it.
Just read it. Just read it.
Here, you tell me I'll have Leroy break it. Just read it.
What does it say on your phone? I have something, actually.

Oh, you do?

Break it.

Oh, live breaking news.

It's a live tweet.

Breaking moves.

Can I go on a call?

Can I make a call?

Yeah, yeah, do it on air.

I mean, we won't air this.

They really should be air.

This is Monday, so you're fine.

I think Marquise Moore has got a buyout.

Oh, wow.

Oh, huge.

I see which contender he's signing with right now.

Ooh.

This is massive. Wait, where did Marcus go? I'm catching a second-hand rush right here.
Clippers? Yeah. Yeah, Clippers.
Him and Isaiah. Ooh.
Twins? And twins. You guys love twins.
Mm-hmm. Did Marcus get his jersey retired and Markeith didn't at Kansas? That was awkward.
I saw that the other day. It was awkward.
Now they've got two LeBron stoppers. We're watching Shams his typing style.
He's got a loose pinky that's just floating out there. He's really only got two fingers on the right hand.
Put the phone closer to the mic so people can hear you touching your phone. Yeah, this is a young player.
I got to get what he's going to next before I put out the line. Do you think your finger age is a positive for you in your career? Like, Woj, I'm sure is borderline arthritic.
You know what? I thought it helps me, and then there are times where I'm typing on my phone, and then, like, the story's out. And I'm like, oh.
You know what you got to do? You got to have a BlackBerry strictly for business. It's got the keyboard on there.
Yeah. You might shave, like, quarter second off.
So what are you texting right now? Confirm? I'm hitting a few people to see where he's landing. Because I don't want to put out that he's getting bought out.
I want to know where he's going. That is the Shams.
That's the bonus.

That's why people go to you for their news.

Because they're not just getting the transaction, they're getting the impact.

You think so? Yeah.

This is also our breaking news, since it's on

our show. Right, so everyone credit us

even though, again, it probably is going to come out

much more later. Oh no, dead end?

It's not happening. Twice.

How much money would I have to give you for me to get to use your phone for five minutes? No restrictions. He's locked in.
What would you guess, PFT? You could pay me whatever I wouldn't get. One billion dollars? No.
What? You're out of

your mind.

No,

actually,

I probably do.

Yes,

there you go.

Jeez.

What about the

guy that the

Morris twins tried

to beat up

because he

fucked their

mom?

He might

know.

Oh,

fuck.

All right.

SeatGeek question.

Promo code take $10 off your SeatGeek purchase. Go to a basketball game.
PFT. Let's put the clock on it.
Let's bet this. Okay.
How much time do you think it's going to take, Shams, to get this? I know he got bought out, and I was like, where's he going? You've got to find out the extra detail. I don't want to say he got bought out and then someone else says, oh, he's going here.
Right. What do you think? What's your

guess? The amount of time he's gonna find

to figure this out? I'm gonna go

2.15. Alright, I'll go

3.25. Okay.

Alright, the clock has started.

Let's see. I'm gonna try to find it online.

Let's see. What is

Markeith Morris liked

recently on Instagram? That's not a bad way to go. I'm going to check out his likes on Twitter.
Yeah, all right. This is pressure.
I just put out the bio. Oh, he tweeted it.
He tweeted it. Pistons forward Markeith Morris has agreed to a contract bio.
Leaks sources to Athletic Stadium. So James Edwards did have it, but he actually said working toward.
He works with us. I didn't even see it.
But you have the actual, he has agreed to a buyout. When did he tweet? He said two minutes ago.
I've had this by five minutes. Yeah, and he also said working toward.
You have it confirmed. It's bought out.
Isn't everyone working towards a buyout? That's the goal. I mean, there it is.
Sorry. I just retweeted that for you.
Let's read the replies. Lakers.
Lakers. Lakers.
I think it is. Clippers.
At Sixers. Here he comes.
Sixers. Houston's been a snag.
Damn, everything changes. This guy just did cry emoji, cry emoji, cry emoji.
Woj is your daddy. There's a gif of J-Butt.
Probably going to Lakers. Announce him to Lakerra.
So they misspelled Lakers. But they'd like you to announce him.
All right, this guy's a Lakers fan. He said, all right, bro, if we don't sign this motherfucker, I'm done.
LMAO. It doesn't seem like he's done.
No, I don't think that he's actually laughing either. Yeah.
Sixers. Oh, question mark? A lot of Lakers going on.
A lot of Lakers. Watch him sign with a clip.
Stanley from The Office gift. I just got to that.
That's a good one. He's asleep.
I don't know what that has to do. Oh, he's saying that it's a boring scoop, I think.
Oh, James Harden. We got to find the who.
Oh, this is good. It's a helicopter.
It's got the light and says, we got to find who the fuck asked. So someone's saying, like, no one cares, Sean.
It's like, who the fuck cares? Rob Palenka. I think it's the Lakers, but I'm not 100.
We got to get 100. We can go as long as you want.
Here's one of LeBron just looking at it. Are there any other good replies? No, nothing really.
Everyone's just saying Lakers. Piston tank season, let's go.
Power Boston, Celtics. Someone tweeted Derrick Rose in Detroit.

Yep.

That's true.

That's good.

That's good.

It's a Will Smith.

Get used to that.

All right.

You're at two and a half minutes, so you've surpassed what PFT thought.

Sean Baum.

We got to get the team, though.

This one said.

Most of Twitter is saying Lakers.

Yeah.

But they're just random people that are saying Lakers.

Fuck me right, Daddy.

You make me wet.

That's a weird one. It's got a video.
You're going to retweet that one? Clippers, LOL. Lakers have to get this move at Vino on Cork.
Do you think that LeBron James has a Vino problem? Yeah. Sheesh.
All right, we're going to end this interview with you. Does Leroy have anything? Leroy.

Find out.

You need to get on this.

Let me call him.

Someone said to the Lakers confirmed, but they used the SpongeBob font,

so I don't think it is.

It's probably not that.

Yeah.

It's probably not that.

That means that it's not confirmed.

Yeah.

If I understand memes.

Raptors.

Okay, let's see what Leroy has here.

Leroy, you piece of shit.

You were wrong about the New York Giants job going to Matt Rule. Ooh, that's tough.
That hurts. Ooh, my...
Woj is asleep. Woj hasn't tweeted anything.
I'm pretty sure it's the Lakers or Toronto. This is your scoop.
We got to get it. Oh, I'm hearing that Steve Sarkeesian is going to be the coach of Colorado football.
All right, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to quote treat you and say, anyone know where he's going? See if that helps.
Get everyone talking about it. Anyone know where he's going? John Bayline going to Boston College.
It's going to happen. Who said that? This is a report.
Wait, no, stay on your marquee floors. Don't get side force.
This is Leroy's tip inbox here. Don't get sidetracked.
Oh, he said, I had a dream that this was going to happen, so it's going to happen. Feel free to run with this.
Okay, right now. So probably, that's unconfirmed.
What's the team? Someone had a dream that he was going to coach for Boston College. Alright, so right now I have one vote for New Zealand Breakers, one vote for Lakers, one vote for Clippers.
You tweeted it out? That's what they're saying? Yeah, Clippers, one vote for Bulls. It would be pretty sick if you was with the Clippers, right? Yeah, that's what I said.
That was actually first reported by me if you're going to report that. I did.
He's not going with the Clippers. Well, yeah, because you don't want me to be right.

That's fucked up, man.

We need to get this.

We're not leaving until we get this.

We'll edit it so it went by very fast.

We'll make you look good.

I bet.

Damn.

Who could I call?

Oh, I could call Blake. Should I call Blake?

Blake Griffin? Yeah.

Alright, I'll call Blake. Actually, you should.
Yeah, I'm going to. We're trying to get to the bottom of this.
You think Blake's in the know? Maybe. He's got nothing better to do right now.
He might be in Cabo. Yo.
Oh. Tell me.
Tell me. Yo, we're with Shams right now.
We're trying to break a story literally on air, but it's taped, so we're probably not going to break it for like five days. Do you know where Markeith is going? Lakers or Toronto? Oh, gosh.
Damn. What are we doing here? He just got...
We were literally interviewing Shams, and he was like, holy shit, Markeith Morris just got bought out, and we won't let him leave the podcast studio until he gets the team. So now I'm working my sources by playing with you.
Yeah, he's going to the Lakers, but I don't know. That's what I'm hearing, yeah.
Okay, so we got one vote for the Lakers from Blake. Do you have Derek Rose's number? You can FaceTime him in.
Where are you right now? I'm not with Derek right now. Don't really know where I'm at, Dan.
Okay, are you with Markeith? I'm sitting next to Markeith. Where are you going, Markeith? Lakers.
Oh. Confirmed.
I don't know if you're fucking with us or not. God damn it.
Markeith sounds a lot like me for some reason. All right, fine.

All right, well, thanks.

We'll put your opinion into the pool, but we're trying to confirm it,

so I'll let you know.

Yeah, I would say Lakers.

Okay.

All right, that's one vote.

One vote.

Does a vote count as a source?

No.

All right, your vote doesn't count as a source. Tell Blake I said what's up.

He says what's up.

Sean says what's up.

Tell him I said what up.

All right, hey, he says what's up.

Perfect. All right, I'll talk to you later.
I'm pissed that I don't have this right now. I can tell.
I'm fucking pissed I don't have this right now. I mean, you got to get it, dude.
This is your entire reputation on the line. What is everyone doing tonight for the weekend? I'm going to a great Mexican place tonight.
Nice. Got reservations and everything.
I'm going to fill up on chips. I'm going to fill TF up on chips.
Did you eat a big lunch? No, I barely ate lunch at all because I ate 35 chicken wings last night and I've been pooping all day. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Yeah. Hank, you going anywhere? Yes.
Oh. Very excited.
Should we do our predictions? Too late predictions? Yeah, I think it's going to be Fury. Ooh, I think Wilder's going to win.
I just like both their last names. Like, what a cool matchup of heavyweight fighters.
Fury, Wilder. Wow.
Yes. Yes.
Right now I'm hitting, like, just everyone I know that might know. Yeah, fuck.
All right. Who do I know that would know? No, I mean, I do think it's the Lakers or the Raptors.
I think, but I want to actually. Oh, maybe.
Oh, you know what? Roussillo might know. Let's call Roussillo.
Oh, you got beef? Oh, sounds like you got beef. All right.
We're going to get Roussillo in the mix. Yo, Roussillo.
What's up? You're on the air. What's your beef with Sean's, dude? He's right here.
Uh, I don't have any beef. Okay, good.
All right, I didn't think you did. I saw him last time.
We said what's up. I didn't think you did, but I was like, so all right, so here's the story.
We're interviewing him, and he got news about Marquise Morris. Yeah, no,'s freaking out right now so we uh he got news about marquise morris getting bought out and we told him he can't leave the studio until he finds out which team and it's that was like 20 minutes ago so he's freaking out um and i'm calling my sources and then i was like oh i'm gonna call rusillo and he and he like had a face and i was like yo what with Russillo? So, long story short, where's Marquise Morris going? I'd probably say Western Conference.
Oh, so that eliminates the Raptors. No, I have no idea.
I have no idea. Did he do, like, what kind of eye roll was it? Was it like, hey, that guy's awesome, or was it that No, it was.
Keep everything in the room. Yeah, no, it was.
I don't know. It was like.
Keep everything between us. It was kind of weird.
It was more like. You know what it was? It was probably jealousy.
Hey, what's up? It's PFT. Hey, Ryan.
It was probably Shams just being mad and jealous that Big Cat had your number because he thought that he was your best friend. Oh, was that it, Shams? He won't answer.
He's just texting right now trying to figure it out. I wouldn't say it was a bad eye roll.
It was more like a – I think he actually might have, now that I'm replaying in my head, he was mad that I would tip you off to Markeith Morris letting you get the scoop. Yeah, I'm not really in that world.
I have information at times, and every now and then I'll send out something or if i think something's right or wrong i'll be like hey this is kind of what i'm hearing but you know i think if you're a 24 7 information guy you probably look down on anybody else that dips their toe into it right it's kind of like year-round draft guy that then has to hear from like talk show host who four days before the draft is like you know who i love yeah and you're like dude you didn even watch him. You just read my mock draft.
So maybe it's just... Lakers.
Oh, wait, wait. Is it Lakers confirmed? He doesn't feel confident.
I agree with what you're saying. No, they're a frontrunner.
Oh, a frontrunner. What the fuck? Leader in the clubhouse.
That's all I can say right now. There's a lot of nervous energy in here.
Okay. That's all I can say.
If he looks down on me dipping my toe in the information thing, I actually would agree with him. Yeah.
So was that what that was, Shubs? No, that was I keep everything in house. Oh, he wants to just keep everything in house.
So I'm going to do this right now. Bounty, $500 to whoever gets the scoop first.
Can you call someone? I could. I don't feel like it.
You could just call back and say a team and we wouldn't care. Can you just tell us who to call? Yeah.
I don't feel like it You could just call back and say a team And we wouldn't care Can you just tell us who to call? I don't want this to turn into the Kawhi thing Where people start having Kawhi's kids Enrolled in elementary schools outside of Toronto By the way, how weird is that kid's school thing? That kid still has to go to school in Toronto When his dad left Oh he does? I'm making fun of the idea. Yes.
But I do like that idea that somebody should do an interview with him, although he doesn't do them, where you're just like, hey, how tough is it on your kid right now? Yeah, I'm reading this report from June, and man, that sucks. Hey, let's get an update.
Yeah, so if you do hear anything, I honestly think at this point Shams is never getting this scoop. Like, we're going to die in this room.
I mean, we kind of got ahead of it, though. But we don't have the team.
No, we said Lakers. We're the leader.
You're the front runner. I need to run with this.
I'm pretty sure. Yeah, you're right.
No, you're right. Here's what I do love about information, guys, is because they're in such competition with each other, is that they'll do sort of the vague the vague like all signs point to the lakers when they know it's the lakers but they can't actually say it's the lakers yes yeah yeah there's the parasite information what's up man what's up all right you're gonna laugh chom's gonna laugh about this my favorite is the parasite information people that don't actually have any good information and then like somebody like, somebody will break, like, here's where he's signing.
And then the person, like, two minutes later who had nothing to do with the story will say, sources have told me the locker room loves his fit. Yep.
Yep. Oh, we'll do that.
We're going to do that too, Shams. No kidding, really? They love his fit? They just signed him? Oh, man, he's freaking out.
Like, this has literally been, like, 20 minutes that he's just been stuck in our studio. Dude, those information, it's brutal.
Yeah. I can't believe anybody dates them.
Oh, wow. That's a little bit of a low blow.
Do you have a girlfriend? No. Exactly.
No. That was his point.
It's tough out here, man. It's tough.
It's kind of like when you leave the classroom for, when you leave the classroom for 20 minutes, right? Yes. And the same, you know, the teacher kind of like, all right, we got to talk.
Yeah. It's the same thing if you're on a date.
Yeah. Since he had news, like he was in the news business as a college kid, did he ever go out like on quarter drop Wednesdays and miss a scoop because he fell asleep? No.
No. I was fully engaged.
Fully engaged. But there were times where you'd go to like so wait so your lunch dates your your wildest like college story like when everyone's like dude we went on this radio you're like dude do you remember when john salmons salmons got bought out like from a 10-day contract that was me that was me it was a wildest night we've had do you have any do you have any scoops that are now beneath you to report?

There are more,

there are a lot now that like, you know.

Now we're just back into the interview, Ryan.

You're just part of this.

You're tagging along.

You just asked a real question.

Ryan, do you have any questions for Shams?

Yeah.

Let's see here. Wow, you're really unprepared for this.
This is good. No, I don't want to waste it it's like my one wish yeah let me see here let me see did Russell Westbrook prove that he's one of the toughest competitors did Russell Westbrook prove he's one of the toughest competitors in the NBA because he went at Lee and Marquise Chris in a blowout against the Warriors? Good question.
That was weird. Why is Mike D'Antoni even having him in the game at that point? Probably better off resting and preparing for Saturday.
You're going to just do this. You're going to be like, Giannis, staying or going? Yeah, we did that.
We did that. We did that, yeah.
Yeah. This isn't your first podcast.
Yeah. He talked about how the Bulls need to reconfigure their front office.
And he's like, oh, well, so you mean hiring John Paxson's brother and Doug Collins isn't getting younger and smarter? That seems personal. Yeah, that was personal.
He didn't actually respond to that because he's got relationships, whereas I do not. Are we ever going to get this? Hey, Ryan, we might be here until 6.
What was the end of that story about, we were trying to remember this, when Markeith and Marcus tried to fight that dude that fucked their mom? That one, I don't know anything about.

I sort of dabble in conversations about information,

but I'm going to let somebody else add to that.

All right, well, if you do hear about where he's going,

please call back or text so that we can beat Shams to the scoop.

It's now going on in 25 minutes.

You have to keep this in mind, too, though,

why this might dry like a day,

because the Lakers would have to cut someone. Oh, the Lakers have to cut someone.
Who would the Lakers cut, Ryan? I don't know. They're getting rid of all the draft picks that LeBron didn't like.
So, I don't know. I'm going to have to pull up the roster now.
Alright, pull up the roster. We've got time.
This might take a day. Let's just get back to it.
I don't want to... This is not going to take a day.
Come on. It might take a while, man.
I'm not going to lie. All right, let's look at who...
This is what's going to happen. An agent's going to find out his kid is getting cut.
Oh, yeah. So we've got to figure out...
Now this is working, so now we've got to figure out who the Lakers are going to cut, and then we call that agent. The agents of the players that are prime targets.
Right. Not Caruso.
No, no, you can't get rid of Caruso. Dude, he's an all-star.
Yeah, I mean, his minutes, he probably plays like less minutes based on what people, like I'm not saying he's not good, but you look and you're like, oh, wait, he doesn't play a ton. Yeah.
Well, they can't get rid of Giannis' brother. Oh, I forgot they had him.
LA lost their minds. That was like two straight days of LA radio.
Will LeBron take a pay cut? How will that offense work? It seems a little early to be doing this. That's like when the White Sox signed John Jay.
I'm not optimistic right now. He's best friends with Manny Machado.
Not feeling good? Do you get vibes? No, eventually. Do you get vibes, though? Like you're feeling just the vibes of the scoop right now, and you're like, does it feel right? It feels like it'll take some time because the Lakers have to cut someone.
My experience, like sometimes when a team has someone to cut, sometimes it takes the player a while to finally be like, yeah, I'm going there. Talon J.
Lee Horton Tucker? Yeah, I'm actually pulling him up right now. He's only played in two games.
Because Cook, I mean, I can't imagine they're going to get rid of a guard. Yeah, fuck.
Honestly, this whole buyout thing is so overrated, though. It turns into this massive arms race, and then everybody's like, we've got this guy.
How is Reggie Jackson even going to play for that team right all right well clippers all right good stuff um yeah this has been great stuff so uh i don't even know how much we're gonna keep i i actually think if you don't hear from shams ever again we kidnap them so all right well good luck all right thanks all right that got us nowhere so what should we do now if you were to guess guess, are you thinking like 12 hours on this one? I'm guessing a few hours. A few hours, okay.
We can order some pizza. We'll just stagger our piss breaks.
Yeah. All right, do we have any last questions to wrap it up? Is there any scoop that's beneath you? I wouldn't say beneath, but more like, you know athletic we have so many writers now like for all these markets that you know if i'm able to ever share like kind of you know if it's a 10-day uh you know g league call up or right you know two-way contract like i always try to you know we have so many hard-working guys i always try to look out for some do you ever get confused to all the different types of contracts that exist in the NBA? Because that's honestly the most confusing part of following the league for me.
It's like two ways and ten days and all that stuff. Yeah, I used to be.
But now I feel like I'm pretty good. I remember one time I reported that Tony Roten had agreed to a three-year deal with the Knicks.
And the funny part is it really wasn't my fault because literally the Knicks at that point, they're being led by Phil Jackson. They were negotiating a three-year deal with the player, but they can only offer two years.
So they agreed to a three-year deal, not knowing that they can only offer two. And so at that point, I didn't understand the contracts and everything like, you know, the salary cap.
Oh, I didn't even know like, oh, the Knicks could only do two years. Yeah.
So I reported three. And then after that, a bunch of people were in my mentions saying, they can only do two.
They can only do two. And so I looked kind of like, you know, stupid.
I had to go back, fix it. But now I feel like I have a pretty good understanding.
Gotcha. Do you agree with Chris Broussard that texting and DMing on Instagram are the same thing? Ooh, good question, PFT.
You're just asking about the question in general. Could you say, like, I was texting with Kevin Durant the other day, but in reality it was just him talking shit to you on Instagram.
Yeah, he was calling you a bitch on Instagram. Is that texting? I think you need to – probably need to separate the two.
I would agree. You know what I mean? That's fair.
That's fair. All right, Shams, thank you.
Appreciate it. Maybe next time you can actually break some news.
No, it's confirmed. It's the Lakers.
Oh, Lakers. Let's go.
What an ending. Fuck yes.
That was awesome. That interview with Shams Sharania was brought to you by Peloton.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on Amazon.com. Okay okay let's do a few segments here and then we get a monday reading uh first up we have a tattoo roast of your boy hank jason tatum who is only 21 only 21 who is quickly becoming you you know that a guy is having like an ascendant year when he starts getting the top 10 top top 10 in the league overall.
I thought you were going to say because LeBron dedicated an Instagram post. No, I mean, he's been incredible.
There's that. Simply incredible.
And then when you have an older guy that's about to become a free agent, like whisper stuff into his ear after the game, that's when you know that you've reached that elite status. They're linking up.
But he did get a new tattoo on his back. Huge tattoo.
God's will. God's will.
No apostrophe, though. God's will.
God's will is? God's will. He is God's will.
Right. But there's no apostrophe.
Yeah. God's will is Jason Tatum.
Yes. If his name was William, that would actually be pretty sweet.
Yeah. I think it's a great tattoo, but even if people think it's not a great tattoo, everyone when they're 21, you know, that's when people make bad decisions about tattoos.
That's true. He's no different than any other kid.
That's going to be the Boston version of the Sublime tattoo. Every kid that turns 20 is going to get the God's Will tattoo right across their shoulder.
I mean, it's not as bad as LeBron's. the chosen one on his back.
At least Jason Tatum is shouting out the big guy upstairs. LeBron, just because he got the chosen one tattooed on his back when he was like 17, he doesn't want people calling him king.
I don't know who came up with that idea to call him king. Well, that's a shout-out to God, too, to the Bible.
Remember when he had Bronny Jr. Change his number.
Change his number because he doesn't want people to think of LeBron James when they see LeBron James Jr.? Oh, wait. That makes a lot of sense.
So he got this tattoo. He got roasted for it online.
I noticed because it was like poking out the sides of his jersey. Yes, with the plastic.
Yeah, that's what I don't like. I don't like it poking out the sides.
I either like the just like straight up be all tatted or have the Kevin Durant business tats. Also, another Boston icon, Ben Affleck, also has a great back tattoo.
That's true. It's a dragon, right? Yeah.
Or a snake or something. But it's just a theme.
If you want to be the guy in Boston. The big ass tattoos on your back.
Yeah. Hey, you're right.
He's 21, so why not? Go do it. Go get a crazy tattoo.
And maybe you can fill it out and throw an apostrophe. The good news is that you can put an apostrophe in there.
That's true. It's easier to add that than it is to have it taken away.
Do you think he's going to add it? I think so. I think someone will tell him.
I think he will. Because, again, he is top 10 player in the league.
If he wants to be the best player in the league, he cannot have grammatically incorrect tattoos. That's what kind of sucks.
I mean, Kevin Durant, people didn't know he had tattoos until he was like five years in the league. They were all grammatically correct.
They are. Yeah, he has the W across his stomach.
You can look at them all. That's why he's going to sign with the Wizards.
It's tough to spell check somebody's back. They don't make a program for that, really.
That's true. That's true.
And it really sucks for the tattoo guy, who probably thought he nailed it and was like, this is going to be sick. I'm going to get so much business from this.
He was referred to him by Brock Osweiler. Yeah.
So Brock Osweiler, man. You just can't get those apostrophes right.
Brock Osweiler is just hanging out right now with millions and millions and millions of dollars and just panging and just being like, I did it. Spending it on stupid shit.
He does have a Super Bowl ring. It's true true so that's kind of cool um all right seeing red jim boylan is addicted to calling timeouts with uh the bulls completely out of the game with like 30 seconds left he did it again on saturday night zach lavine got upset rightfully so but the jim boylan called the timeout with 30 seconds left down 10 and when asked about it afterwards he said is there a chance that maybe I'm more competitive in those situations I think I have to own that so is he does this does this make him tougher to bet on or against well so he his line of thinking is it's a young team and everything's a teachable moment and also the Bulls had one random game where they came back from like down eight in 40 seconds in november so he in his mind is like we're about to come back at all times he also i think jim boylan is so disgusted with losing he is a football guy in a basketball guy's suit he's so disgusted with losing i think he uses timeouts the end of a game to literally stop time to delay the inevitable loss i got you like he can basically say look it's almost like uh it's almost like the end of sunday night football when you're like i don't have to go back to work and as long as sunday night football is going on it's overtime and sunday night football he's calling timeouts being like, we haven't lost yet.
Two things about that.

One, I think if you call a timeout at the end of regulation,

you can get your team to listen to you.

They're a captive audience.

After the game, they go to the locker room and they do whatever they want.

So if he really wants to yell at somebody, he's like,

I have to do it while we're still on the sideline.

Also, completely tune me out.

The second is it's better to call too many timeouts at the end of games than to not call enough. Than to screw up by not calling.
Can't take him home with you. Absolutely not.
You got to use him up. Maybe he wants to make sure that no one can look back and be like, hey, what's that, man? The Suns went on a 15-0 run.
Why didn't you call a timeout there? He had one left. He's basically eliminating all the incriminating evidence that he's a bad coach.

Yeah, if you're a coach, you want to be seen coaching as much as possible.

Right.

So it looks like you're busy.

That's actually a secret to work life in general.

It's just always look busy.

So Boylan, by using timeouts, he's making sure that at the end of the season,

Gar Pax, when they go back, and the heavy analysis they do probably is how many timeouts that our coach used right like oh he's been working hard this chart he he did have uh in the post game conversation he said that he talks to john paxton every day and john paxton was like yeah i love that you're coaching them hard i don't think either of those guys like pick their head out of the sand and see what's going on around them because jim boylan telling the media and by way of the media the fans that he has approval from john paxton who everyone fucking hates that doesn't really i he thought he got us there he thought he checked me he's like hey listen order from on high i'm allowed to call all the timeouts okay so yeah all you guys are fucking idiots yeah not exactly the person you want to be bringing up as a reference bad reference know your audience right um all right uh last up before we do monday reading we have a quick all you think that was actually breaking news uh madison bumgardner has been participating in rodeos for the last few years under an alias what is it mason saunders saunders uh you think this is so fucking good and then he got so the someone from the athletic uncovered it and asked him about it and he wasn't really upset that like you would think the the initial thought would be master Bob Gardner saying, I'm pissed because now like a team could basically put this in my contract that I can't compete or they could take back some of the money if I get injured. He's just mad because his alias is blown and he can't just go and enjoy a rodeo without being hassled.
Now, do you think he ever dated a girl named Mason Saunders as well? Probably. That's probably where he came up with the name.

Or, no, do you think he made his wife be...

What was the name of the thing when we had Lockwood in here?

Remember his mom and his aunt and his wife were all...

Cody Lockwood?

Yeah, they were something.

Jess Lockwood.

Jess Lockwood.

Jess won again, by the way.

What the fuck were they?

Second championship.

Do you remember that?

They all did the same thing. I don't remember, but...
Maybe rodeo clowns? I don't know. No, we don't say the C-word.
I got tagged in a tweet. Apparently, they're like the power couple of because of...
Fuck, I'll look it up. Yeah, look it up.
So either way, I would imagine that Madison Baumgartner had his wife maybe be Mason Saunders and do... Barrel racing.
Barrel racing. Yeah, that's right.
Barrel racing. On the tip tip of my tongue apparently everyone recognized him when he was doing this but as part of the rodeo code they all kept it silent they're like we don't want to blow your cover Madison we know you're doing this for the love of the D.O.
what's the abbreviation for it? for the love of the road? yeah I like D.O. the D.O.
you just love to D.O. like the rest of us it's part of the lifestyle that the outsiders won't understand so we'll keep your secret for you i like it so keep doing it madison everyone just look the other way yeah he said that he can't stop because it's just part of who you are just roping roping cattle facts facts uh all right let's finish with the monday reading uh what is w i b ta what does that mean? What does that mean? Would I be the asshole? Oh, would I be the asshole.
So it's kind of something like the am I the asshole or whatever the other one is. All right, so would I be the asshole is the heading here.
Would I be the asshole if I asked my 5'5 fiance to wear man heels to our wedding? Nah. Okay, hold on.
This is good. 5'5", that's a little bit much.
Well, it depends on how tall she is. Yeah, all right.
So a little bit of context. So me, 24-year-old female, my now fiancé, 25-year-old male, have been together for three years.
I'm 5'3", and he's about 5'5". That's bullshit to not round that up.
Yeah. Like, round that fucking thing up.
He's 5' seven. He's five, seven.
Come on. Since we're both short, height has never been an issue for us.
When I wear my usual heels, we're about the same. If maybe I'm an inch or so taller onto the issue as a bridal gift, my grandmother gave me these absolutely beautiful Jimmy Choo high heels to wear to my wedding.
By the way, grandma knew exactly what she was doing. Oh, 100%.
Exactly. Grandma's 5'9".
Yeah, grandma understands exactly what's happening here, and she's sending you a message. Yes.
I love them, and they're definitely not something I'd be able to afford for myself, so they're a true luxury for me. The only problem is that they'd make me about 3 to 4 inches taller than my fiancé.
I know it wouldn't matter to a lot of people, but I can already hear all the annoying comments people making about me being taller than him. When we first started dating, a lot of people would say things like, oh my God, I couldn't imagine dating someone under six feet.
You guys are like the same size. Plus, how potentially awkward the photos could look if I'm towering over him.
That would actually be very funny. I mean, listen.
You want to make it a memorable day? You fucking get... You look like Tyson Fury fighting Deontay Wilder.
Do that. That's how you make it a memorable day.
To have him pull his pants up to his nipples? No, fucking smash his ear in and have him bleed out of his ear. Because if you do pull your wedding pants up to your nipples, it will look like you have longer legs.
Yes. That's a good strategy to go about.
Listen, it sounds like you're marrying Mike Bloomberg, in which case he's got enough cash where he should be able to afford some seamless heels. He has enough cash to have everyone have an NDA at the wedding to not make those comments.
That's true. You can't discuss the wedding photos until they've been Photoshopped.
So how many inches can you get off a heel if you're a guy? Well, here we go. I wouldn't know.
I've never tried. All right.
So I'm thinking about asking him to wear platform dress shoes or those inserts for his shoes to make him taller. It's called the air chef.
These, but I'm worried he might be offended or feel like I don't like him for him. But I'm also afraid if I don't wear the shoes, it might hurt my grandmother's feelings.
Wow, this is really a tough one. I'm the first granddaughter to get married, and this wedding is a huge deal for her.
My fiance is very comfortable and confident with himself and his height now, but I know he has made fun of it, or people have made fun of it in the past, and I'd hate to be the reason those feelings come back for him. So would I be the asshole if I ask? Yeah, I think you would be.
Nope. I've changed.
I've changed my mind. The fact that you're five, three tells me that you could go ahead and ask if you were five, if you were taller than him already and you asked him to wear the heels, let's say that you're five, six, five.
Yeah, true. True.
I see what you're saying. Let's say you're five five seven and you are wearing these heels that put you up to like five ten first of all that's an asshole move to be five ten above a guy who's like five five when you don't have to be right and then you ask him to wear heels too i think that's more of an asshole move at this point it's like haha i'm short too but i'm wearing these heels do you mind it's actually a nice heads up it actually you don't even have to ask him you just have to give him the heads up be like hey i'm wearing these heels they make me five seven heads up let him decide if he wants it because as long as he has the heads up he can do whatever also can you just he's not gonna have the heads up she's gonna be true well unless he gets the platform then he has the heads up lift kits what what if uh why can't you just shave heels is that crazy can you just shave heels i don't know how heels work uh i think you can like put them through a deli slice yeah right i think that's what elaine did yeah right absolutely you can shave heels shout out mike florio uh-huh i'm gonna be wearing heels next weekend you're going to wear heels i'm in a wedding next weekend and you're gonna wear i think i'm gonna be a bridesmaid in in a zillion beer's wedding.
You're going to wear heels? I'm in a wedding next weekend. And you're going to wear heels? I think I'm going to be a bridesmaid.
In the Zillion Beers wedding? Yeah. You're going to wear heels? I think so.
Actually, I don't know. I'm probably going to wear a dress.
Really? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Anything else you want to say? No, I'm just thinking it's going to be fun.
Yeah, it's going to be great. Wearing a dress in Vegas is actually going to be probably a great time.
Great, great time. Probably make a little extra money at the bar.
Yeah, I probably won't have to buy drinks for myself. I'll shave.
Yes. But I might get addicted to it if I end up putting on a pair of high heels and all of a sudden I'm six feet tall.
That's true. You should be the high heels guy.
I'm going to make everybody else wear heels, shorter guys wear heels around me. I mean, that would be a true alpha move.
It would be. Just make everyone come to your height If you're so self conscious with your height That you start cross dressing Just so that you can get taller Like three inches taller But if you do it Like it would be If you wore lifts in your shoes That's a clown move If you wore heels That's a I'm so confident in myself I don't give a fuck It's an alpha move right I will dress up as a woman checkmate and be six feet

tall checkmate um all right

that is our show we will see everyone

on Wednesday we're going to be in

Indy for the combine gonna hopefully

get a few interviews out of this out of that

but we will see everyone on Wednesday love you

guys I don't know what I'm to say I'm saved anyway Today's another day to find you Shining away I'm coming for your love of cake Take on me Take me on I'll be gone Into your team Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me I want to say it But I'll be so Will it away

Further than life

Is okay

Say it to me

It's no better to be safe

Than sorry

Say it to me