Hour 2: Tongue the Shell (feat. Nick Wright)

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Have a great day. This is the Don Labatar show with the Stew Gats Podcast.

Gonna get to Nick Wright here in a second. And also, I need to get to Billy because I don't know what his thoughts are on the coach's poll, but I've been told he's got a lot of questions.

Well, Kirk's taking stray shots at me for some reason about the coach's poll. I don't know what your deal is.
Pooh poohing. I guess you're jealous that FAU is not in there.

Couldn't sniff the coach's poll. Wow.
That's right. I went there.
Do the coaches have to admit who they voted for? Is it transparent? I actually have a theory on who it was.

I think it was James Franklin because Penn State plays FIU this weekend. That's awesome.
So I think that if you're James Franklin and you put your opponent in the coach's poll,

then you're like, look, this team was in the coach's poll outside looking in. Yeah, it's a working theory of mine.
I haven't proved it yet. I'll talk to Pablo in eight months.

We'll figure out if that's true or not. Oh, Nick Wright has a bit of a nemesis issue with Pablo.
Before we get to that in a second, bad day to have a nemesis issue with Pablo, incidentally.

We'll see what Nick has for Pablo in a second. But first, we've got a new partnership here with Nuttiest fan.
What are we doing here? With the, I've had some of these hot peanuts. They're delicious.

Oh, the Hampton Farms peanuts are

the best. We are doing nuttiest fan dan.
Left you speechless. I mean, it is.
I mean, I was, because he said the hot. I haven't had the hot.
I've had the spicy dill pickle and just the classic.

So I couldn't speak on the hot yet, but they're all fantastic. And it's the nuttiest fan, Dan brought to you by Hampton Farms.
Get nutty with Hampton Farms, the official snack nut of the tailgate.

And be sure to keep an eye out for Lucy Rodin at Iowa State if you think your team has a nuttiest fan. So, here's what we're doing, Dan.

I'm going to send you, I'm going to show you two college football fans, and you're going to tell me who's nuttier. And then you can go to our Instagram.

The fans can vote on this, and we will reveal later in the week who the nuttiest fan is. The first one, we talked about him a little yesterday.
It's the Alabama guy.

This guy just throwing a bird in the middle. He saw the camera was on him.
He dropped a deadpan bird. All right, so that's our first option.
Middle fan. That's salted peanuts right there.

That is salted peanuts. That's good camera awareness.
That is. And some of those dill nuts.
And competing with this Alabama Alabama fan is two UM fans who had an interesting choice of jersey.

It's a husband with on the back of his UM jersey, it says, I blank in peace.

And then his wife, I assume it's his wife, sitting next to him. Yeah, you don't know that.
Her jersey just says peace.

That's a spicy dill pickle peanut if I've ever heard. She's the peace.

You get it. So these are our two.

Chris, I can't tell you how poor a spokesman

we have

when you're doing the spokesmaning. Last time he got a sheet steal out of this, so who knows what he can get out of this? Well, I actually read, the read was fine.

It was just the setup could have been better. It was diving the pictures.
It was the you that was not fine.

So who's the nuttiest fan? Voted our Instagram. I'm voting for the UM fan.
Okay, excellent work by you, professional, as always. Let's get to a real professional, Nick Wright.

He has issues and has had issues with Pablo Torrey. He's just always doing this, Dan.
He's just fanning the flames. Can I say something about your new sponsor?

It's positive, it's not negative.

I go to baseball games, and these days, you know what happens? You buy a bag of peanuts, and they're unsalt, like they're plain.

Like, because the whole idea of the peanut is you put it in your mouth, you crack the shell, you spit the shell out, but it's a lot of flavor is in theory.

Back when we were a proper country, that's what it was. Go to a Yankee game up here, I don't know.
Steinbrenners are saving money on salt. It's just a tasteless shell.

So I don't know the name of your sponsor, and I don't have any points on the package. But that sounds like a wonderful product that I will now try because I like

the dill pickle, spicy. It all sounds good.
Now you want to talk about Pablo Torrey's tweets? I don't care. Not yet.
I still want to talk about peanuts. Nick, I have a question for you.

So if somebody who eats the shell of the peanut, like just the whole thing, like if it was just one shot, insane or not insane? I have a buddy that eats it that way.

He's saying the whole shell, isn't he? I've done that. Put it on the poll levitator show.
Do you eat the whole shell when you know? So, I don't

do that. I don't, so I know what you're talking about.
Um, Tony, Tony, but no, I know Tony, I know his name. Uh, and but I, that's not what I do.

But you put the whole peanut again, I'm risking getting memed here, but that's okay.

You put the whole peanut in your mouth, you crack it open with your molars, you then, you know, if depending on how dexterious your mouth is, you can then, you know, bifurcate the actual peanut and the shell.

You spit out the shell. Like a sunflower seed.
Like a sunflower seed. Yes, exactly.
Part of that is the delicious coating of the shell,

which in today's days are gone. Now, Tony's saying his buddy just goes one-shotter, but listen, I know some people that eat the apple core.

Like, I almost feel like it is either a sign of lack of, like, it feels very caveman-ish, like, which is not a negative. Yeah, it just feels like, you know what?

If we, you know, if things ever really go south and we're all on our own, that guy probably has a slightly greater chance of survival.

Like, he's, his, he hasn't evolved to, you know, contemporary luxury, which is probably positive. Nick, when you crack a peanut, do you, like, peel off the skin on it?

Because I've read that it's actually beneficial to you health-wise if you eat the skin.

Yeah, no, you got to eat the, yeah. I mean, we're not, this isn't, it's not a

pomegranate. Like, we're at a baseball game drinking beers.
Like, it's not, we're not trying to be dainty.

Um, speaking of dainty, put this on the poll. Has Pablo Torrey eaten one single peanut in the last 30 years? I'll say no.

Why? What are you, what are you doing there? What are you implanting? It's just, it's just, come on. Just feel like.
I agree with him, though. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, come on.

It just, if we're like Tony's friend who eats the entire peanut with shell, I have a visual image of him. And I feel like I know that guy a bit.
And I feel like that guy's not hanging out with Pablo.

That's all I said. He's definitely not.
Yeah. Am I right? All I know is he eats the whole peanut with the shell.
That's all I know. And so, yeah, that's it.

We were at a baseball game together and we're just eating. And he's like three people down.

So we start looking and then all of a sudden the entire bag is gone, but we don't see peanut shells anywhere. And we're like, dude, what did you do with all the peanut shells?

He's like, that's how I eat that. That's a vomit.

Oh, come on nick you remember a couple years ago when pistachios had a moment that you just saw a bunch of commercials for pistachios and it was just like this green nut and you're like what is this company it's like

it's just pistachios it's just the farmers yeah yeah it's it's it's like when we were growing up the milk lobby was like we gotta put a lot of money into endorsements uh and evidently again for the fifth time and this one complimentary uh to bring up Pablo, I didn't know there was a tree lobby.

I didn't know they had marketing budgets. I didn't know any of this, but I do now.

Well, Pistachio seems like a Pablo type of nut.

Not a classic nut, but he has like the higher end nuts. No, Macadamia nut would be the way that Pablo goes.

No messiness. Dan, that's why you're the goat.
Correct. You just nailed it.
That is absolutely correct.

Macadamia nut is...

If there is a higher draft pick of the exact idea that I'm trying clumsily to convey, I can't think of it. Macadamia nut is correct.

And probably if he were on here, he'd be like, did you know that's actually not a nut? Be like, shut up, man. It's a lagoon.
It's a lagoon. It's a lagoon.

No, like, really?

Sorry. I just tried it, Tony's Friends Way.
And the way that Dan says he has occasionally. Occasionally.
Like a circus elephant? Yes.

I got to say, for like a one-off, not terrible. I like it.
I like changing the texture of the fish. Let me take it for a walk.

It's not gross.

If you eat 20 of them and you break it up with the entire salty flavor of the shell as well, with the right chosen shells, that's not a terrible decision. It's not.

At the very least, you have to tongue the shell because that's where the salt is. Hey, yo.
You tongue the shell.

Oh, you got a spicy dill. You brought us Greg Cody.
You brought us full circle. This is what I'm saying.

If you ever come to New York City during baseball season, I'll take you to a Yankee game, buy you a bag of peanuts. That's gross, Chris.
And what you'll notice is

there's no salt on the shell, which is a bummer. It's totally unheard of.
That's crazy. Yes, not terrible.
That's absurd. It's not the geeky.
That's how good these Hampton Farms peanuts are. They're

a shell and all.

I feel like this is the greatest endorsement ever. We're just doing 10 minutes on this product, and I don't even have any.
You should mail me some at least.

Macadamia nuts are coming back as a result for the most opulent nut that is available. However, pine nuts are

pine nuts are listed as more expensive than macadamia, where pine nuts range from about $22.03 to $51.61 per pound. No way, pine nuts.
Macadamia nuts are the most expensive nuts. Hold up.

Can I ask you a question, Dan? Because even though I've sadly

never in person met your father and he's, you know, an

older Cuban engineer, and my dad's an older Italian fireman, I feel like they're similar. Did you growing up in a room of your house have

like at not necessarily at all times, but certainly around the holidays, just a bowl of like walnuts and the like the

heart, the cracker, and with the with the and then the like lobster cracker thing just sitting there that occasionally, yes, that occasionally your father might just to remind you, you know, if push comes to shove, who's in charge, break the walnut in his hand.

Nobody ate them to show you he could. Nobody ate them, but they were always out.
They were available, and it felt like it was an intimidation thing. At least

my dad's one of the greatest men I've ever known, but it feels,

I bet it was similar for you growing up. Yo, Greg's choking.
Greg, can we get you some water? He's having some trouble with these.

I'm eating of... No, these are...
I'm eating the hot ones. Best nut I've ever had.

Wow. These nuts.
They're so good. Wow.
Has anyone ever practically used a nutcracker? They're simply decorative, right? Like no one actually goes and like, oh, I need a nuts.

The nuts he's talking about. You need them.
Yeah, but you're like, my nutcracker is no longer working. Unless your dad's a firefighter who breaks them with his bare hands to intimidate people.

With his hand, yeah. Just to let people know who's boss.
That's right.

We didn't have much money, so the greatest extravagance that we had in our childhood was my father taking us to Sears of all places to go to the place where they had the hot nuts and he would go grab a few of them and he was pretty famous for just stealing stuff and walking around the grocery store eating it without paying for it.

Yeah. And

daring someone to say something to him about it. My dad did the same thing.
Yeah, they're just samples. I see people doing that all the time with grapes as well as nuts.

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Don Lebatar. Baker Mayfield tearing up Tampa Bay.
38 for 45. Stugats.
Stratum! This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Nick, I want to talk to you about an assortment of football things, but we have a Tyreek Hill problem in Miami.

You know him pretty well and followed him plenty when he was in Kansas City, where the Chiefs were smart enough to not allow him to talk in public very often in front of microphones.

What can you tell me about what it is you're seeing from Tyreek Hill? Who,

last his last year in Kansas City, he was saying we're going to win seven or eight championships in a row.

He doesn't know how to lose, and now he's not a captain for the Dolphins, and everyone assumes he'll be traded before the end of the year because if they start losing, he's going to be a problem.

Yeah,

I don't know if I necessarily agree he's going to be traded because I don't know if they're going to pull the ripcord before the trade deadline.

I do know that I'm very excited for Kansas City Chief in 2026, Tyreek Hill. And

that has been written for the last couple years now. Here is my.

This is not a defense of Tyreek Hill, okay?

But the Tyreek Hill and the Dolphin situation, it is analogous, and this is going to be awkward and uncomfortable, but it is, I think, the right analogy.

If you are in a long-term serious relationship, and somebody cheats,

you have a fork in the road moment where you must decide, you know, after a set period of time, am I over it or am I not? And if I'm over it, then it's done with. We will move forward.

It will not be consistently brought up. You won't be six months later in a fight dropped on you.
And if you're not over it, then you need to, and you're not going to be able to get over it.

You need to break up.

Every week, Tua and the team and being like, yeah, Tyreek's got to earn earn back our trust.

Man, Tyreek sure was an ass at the end of last year, up to and including them being the only team in the league where the hands-down unquestioned best player isn't a captain after being a captain the last two years.

Just, it's a half measure. And so I think that's foolish.
I think that what Tyreek did at the end of the year was awful. And if the Dolphins wanted to sever ties at that time, so be it.
They can't.

Once you're right, Nick, they can't.

Right. So, so so then you just gotta grin and bear it.
Then the public,

the public message needs to be, ah, we don't listen to Tyreek. He says a bunch of crazy stuff.
The guy runs super fast and is a great receiver and we love him. And yeah,

what you can't do is be like,

We don't want you, we don't trust you, but we need you. That's not going to work.
We all know that's not going to work. So I just felt like, I feel like this is a half measure that

I'm not a fan of. I'm also curious for you guys.

I don't know what would be more interesting because I think either of these is possible.

Do you think it's on the board that Tyreek was voted a captain? And Mike McDaniel's like, nope. Cook the book.
That's what I said.

It was just theorized earlier in the show today that nobody would ever, it's the perfect crime. Let me run another another theory by you, Nick.

So I think that maybe Tyreek comes in and he's feeling some remorse for how he's handled situations. And he said, you know what, guys?

I don't want to be a captain this year. And he showed that he really is a true leader and team captain by removing himself from the ability to be a team captain, showing both maturity and growth.

Yes, and if that happened, then you know what? I do to really put a nail in the coffin of this story.

When I'm Mike McDaniel announcing the captains, I announce all of them and then I say, and one more

back.

Tyreek Hill. And everyone claps, oh, yeah, Ty.

Because here's the thing. Like,

and this is,

there would be nothing.

What in, again, I don't think this happened. And this is unfair to Tua, but it is a fun thought exercise.
What if Mike McDaniel's counting the votes and he's like, we got a problem on our hands, boys?

Tyreek got more votes than two of them. Like, what we can't do is have that have that be the situation.
Now, he said it was overwhelming for the six guys who got it, and that's fine.

I just, he was, I think, Tyreek was never a captain with Kansas City, which

that's the other way to go is be like, yeah, this guy does a lot of things. Leadership's not one of them, so we're never going to put that on

his plate. But when he's been the captain the previous two years, this is a little messy in my opinion.
Hard Knocks concluded last night. It's the most boring hard knock season ever.

I know how you feel about the Bills. Did you watch any of that?

I have not watched Hard Knocks the last couple years.

And when you say you know how I feel about the Bills, you mean the only person in sports media who's been right about them every single year the last five years, including last year when people said, you know, actually it's a rebuilding year.

And old Bills troll, Bills hater Nick Wright was like, nope, they're going to be in the AFC championship game right again.

And I actually think that's going to happen again this year. I did not see it.
I did see Sean McDermott yesterday in his annual, maybe even semi-annual at this point,

press conference where he's like, people don't understand what great human beings live in Western New York and like what, how, how amazing our fans are and doing that whole thing because there is some weird monopoly on like Americana base

inversely correlated to how awesome your city is.

And so

he then said twice, he was like, I'm so sick of hearing about the Bills in the Super Bowls. They made four straight Super Bowls.
That'll never happen again. Oh, really, sir? Well, that's interesting.

Because the team that kicks your teeth in every playoffs has made three straight. That feels to me like a Freudian guarantee that the Chiefs aren't making the Super Bowl.
Noted. I haven't noted.

I haven't noted

alongside all of the nonsense I've heard about the defining dynasty of the defining sport of our time. And

no one ever again will make four straight Super Bowls unless, of course, the Chiefs do what they do every year, which is make the Super Bowl.

In terms of hurt for you personally, where you invest your mouth and your heart, last year's loss in the Super Bowl for you, and money, yes, and money.

Your feelings when you lost the Super Bowl last year to Philadelphia and loudly had proclaimed that you wouldn't lose, where did that one rank in terms of after it's over, you're actually hurting?

Worst sports loss of my life, Dan.

Thanks for bringing it up on the eve of the new season. Is it the worst? It's the worst sports loss of your life? Just financially?

Hit for the trifecta. Financially, professionally, emotionally, all of it.
You know, I'm a max pleasure, max pain guy.

I know Dan likes the trials and travails of my, you know, financial gain and ruin. So I'll tell you guys a fun little one, then I'll get to the real emotion of it.

I had obviously made a lot of bets before the year and during the year, Chiefs, future bets. I also am in a very,

it's kind of convoluted, but it is a gambling, what I will call consortium, where future bets are traded like stocks, and you can be like, hey, I'll give you 100 shares of the Chiefs for 200 shares of the Lions and doesn't matter.

Moral of the story is going into that Super Bowl because I'm such a sharp gambler, I was in a position where if the Chiefs lost the game, I lost less than $10,000.

But if they won the game, I won close to 80 because of all the swaps and trades I'd made. So for a normal person, that would be the action.
I'm like, I can't not bet the actual game too.

So Chiefs minus two and a half. Give me a lot of that.
They're going to win by a field goal. And they got curb stumped.
So that wasn't great.

The reason it's the worst sports loss of my life, Dan, is a couple, the cup, you know, multifold. One is pre-Mahomes, the Chiefs never played in big games.

I heard my dear friend and mentor, Colin Coward, say Patrick Mahomes got dropped in the greatest situation any player had ever been in.

The Kansas City Chiefs, in the 30 years before Patrick Mahomes had gotten there, won one playoff game. In the 50 years before he had gotten there, they'd been to one conference championship game.

In the seven years since he's been there, they've been to seven straight and five Super Bowls, but that's neither here nor there.

It was emotionally devastating because they entered that day with the opportunity to become the greatest team in the history of American team sports, and that's now gone. Like,

if you win three straight Super Bowls, you know, and get to win four out of five, or I'm sorry, it would have been four out of six, and all of it, you're just minted.

And I, do I think that they're ever going to have a chance to win, like win one game, be the greatest team of all time? That'll probably never happen again.

So, yeah, that's why it was devastating on all fronts. Luckily, in 30 hours, that's last year.
And last year might as well be 100 years ago. We're into 2025.

What are you excited about this season beyond the Chiefs?

Oh, so much. I'm excited about the annual tradition of

it's not Lamar's fault. Look at the EPA per play.
I'm very excited about that. I'm very excited about the

cope that we're going to have in late January when Lamar either wins another MVP or comes close to it.

And I listen to all the smartest football people I know explain to me how he's actually playing the quarterback position at the highest level ever.

And if you look at all of his interceptions last year when there were only four, three of them actually weren't his fault. He solved it.

And then when once again, he plays one of his worst games of the year in the playoffs, they're like, sample size, you moron, you think the results matter?

You idiot, you Neanderthal, you think there's such a thing as a big game quarterback? Haven't you seen the Ravens DVOA? I'm excited for that.

I'm excited for what I think could be a monster year from Baker Mayfield and a team that I think's going to make the Super Bowl, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I am very excited about that.

And I am also excited

to see...

What the rationale come around week 14

when Kansas City is about to clinch the AFC West. How all the folks who were like, Well, listen, I know Mahomes is great, but have you seen Bo Nicks what they're saying?

Because that is, there is, there is no hotter take out there on the sports marketplace than Bo Nicks is going to be the guy that dethrones the greatest quarterback of all time, and that's going to age quite poorly.

You couldn't help yourself. You couldn't help yourself, though.
I asked you non-Chiefs division, and

you always bring it back to the chiefs.

You cannot have an interest that doesn't somehow involve the chiefs.

I asked you non-Chiefs division.

It's 1938. Dan's hosting a physics talk show, and he's like, hey, non-Einstein, tell me what you want.
And then you end up referencing somebody, and he's like, you, you, rube.

Where's Oppenheimer when you need him? I don't know, man. Yeah, you're right.
I do think that

in the 2020s, the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes are the main character of the movie and everyone else is supporting actors.

I don't like your hostility. I think it's born just because Pablo's having a big morning.
Big morning.

I think that that's what the problem is.

That Pablo's having a big morning and you hate it? And there's nothing you can do. I don't hate it.

That's the thing. I think I really legitimately respect the, and I think important,

important

niche he's carved out. And I mean,

there's no other way to in six...

Do you know how groundbreaking your work has to be to in six months become, you know, according to Time magazine, a more influential podcaster than Joe Rogan or Dan Lebetard.

I mean, those guys have been working at it for 30 years or 20 years.

And I want, listen, here's the deal. I want to root for Pablo.
But then,

occasionally, things like...

His name being in the mini crossword and him tweeting it, okay, fine, I'd probably do the same thing.

But then also tagging in the picture the Peabody Awards makes it to where I just can't, I just can't

see that exist and not react.

Like, it's again, I'm happy for the guy, I suppose. And the work he's doing is, in our silly cartoon world, quite important.

And I do like the fact that he's actually getting the documents and doing journalism.

I don't know, you know, I'd liked, I haven't followed up on the Malik Beasley expose because I thought he had him dead to rights. And then I guess the feds disagree.
I don't know.

I actually tend to side with Pablo on it. So there's a lot of these things that I think are relevant and good.

But then, like again,

there was a moment in time where Pablo is doing the mini crossword. He sees his name and he's like, this is awesome.
And then he's like, I should screenshot it. And then he's like,

I shouldn't just text this to my mom or my friends. I should tweet it.
And then right before he hit send, he was like,

anybody I should tag? Should I tag the New York Times? No. Everyone knows it's Times.
What if I tag the Peabody Award?

That's just, I'm sorry. That's hilarious.
That is objectively hilarious. And I can't get over it.
I just can't.

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Don Lebatard. All right, we got to go back out there.
That was big.

Wake him up. Uh-oh.
He doesn't want, he doesn't want to be bothered anymore. Now it's getting tense because he didn't need that as a result.
He needs something that happens.

You can see Mother FOIA. He says, Can we bother? Are we bothering you right now? Turn on your microphone, Greg.
My microphone's on. Stugats.
Paint the scene.

The paint the scene is: I gotta go to work. Good night.
This is the Don Lebatar Show with the guys.

You're not wrong. I mean,

I love Pablo, but that was worth lampooning. That is worth, yes.

Also worth lampooning is that he joined us to talk about his story today from the Harvard Club. But what did you think about the actual story?

What was your reaction to reading some of the details you've read on what you'd agree would be the biggest sports story of our day, yes, before football starts?

It's the most important sports story of the day. Now, first things first just got expanded, so it's three hours long.

I'm not sure if we have quite enough time in those three hours to talk about Kawhi Leonard on the eve of football, but if maybe if we get to a fourth hour, I think we would have fit it in.

Here, I mean, honestly, you're going to hate this answer,

but my reaction is:

these are the

lengths the league has to go to prevent LeBron from getting six rings. It's just unbelievable.
He was gonna sign with the Lakers, they was gonna have AD and Kawhi and rip off a whole bunch of them.

And then they're like, We'll look the other way, pay him extra. He wants to be in LA, but we

can't have that happen. Um, so that was my first reaction.

My second reaction is, it seems a little clumsy like i i in today's day and age i would have thought there's easier ways for a multi-billionaire to slide a guy a few million bucks like maybe maybe ballmer and and kawaii if this is true need to spend a little more time in the high-stakes gambling world there's there's a lot of ways to transfer millions of dollars that don't involve notarized contracts with llcs Like, that seemed odd, but that's, I'm impressed.

I'm impressed that they got the info. I do think it's noteworthy.

My guess is this gets a little swept under the rug, but anytime you can get, you can include in your media that cool like voice distorter thing, it's a win. Like, I'm a big fan of that.

And in the, in the, in, if we were to stack up all of the instances, someone was like, I need the face and voice distorter.

I don't know where whistle blowing on Kawhi Leonard's extra money ranks on it, but it's, you know, it is, that is, that is, I think, charming as well.

I'm surprised to hear you say, though, that you're underwhelmed as you are by what might be the ramifications of this, so it doesn't make your three hours of conversation today, because I do believe whatever you imagine the penalties are going to be here, if I gave you the penalties today, there would be no circumstance under which you would tell me that's not a story you're talking about.

Oh, so that's actually, you know, if you guys all pull back the curtain a bit, that's actually one of the reasons that I don't think we're gonna talk about it today on the show.

Is it, to me, it goes one of two ways. Either the NBA turns a blind eye,

in which case it's a story, but like what it it's it's it's a better written article, long-form podcast thing than seven-minute television segment, or there's real penalties, and if there's real penalties, then we'll have obviously ample time to talk about it.

I don't, I would, I, I would

set the over-under

at penalty for this

at

one and a half second round picks. And I would probably take the under because my guess is this is, and this is, this is not a shot at the story or the reporting at all.
This is more about the league.

My guess is it's just easier for them to be like,

like, we got to kind of do nothing because the real penalty, it feels like a max-men situation. The real penalty would be way,

way, way worse than what happened to Joe Smith or the Timberwolves. Is it Joe Smith? Do I have that right? Yeah, the Timberwolves with Joe Smith.

And I don't, do we think the NBA wants to just generationally kneecap

the Clippers and that new arena? Not the NBA, but the other owners.

I believe the other owners will be pissed off enough about this and what you said, which is the Lakers could have had him and we're going to have him.

And the Clippers evidently cheated in order to get him. Or does Nick think that the other owners are like, damn it, they're on to our

circumvention. Right.

Well, that's.

I want to be very careful with this, okay?

And so careful that I don't even want to say the names. Go on.

There was a very unique thing that happened with one of the league's absolute super marquee franchises and super marquee players like seven years ago, where a player,

a player... who was a clear max player, arguably one of the very, very best players in the league, took less money on an extension than he could have.

And it saved, it was like $6 million less than he could have gotten. And it saved the team $0 in cap space.
They were over the cap, whatever.

But it saved the owner like, again, $30 million, call it, in luxury tax, okay? But it didn't help the team on the court at all. There was no competitive reason to do it.

It was, you know, a hundred millionaire player losing out on $6 million. So the owner who's a multi-billionaire could save 30.

And it never made sense. And the only way that, to me, ever made sense was if the owner was like, hey, man,

rather than me send the league office 30 million to pay you six,

here's a flash drive that's got 10 million in crypto on it. I'm going to leave that on the table and you figure out whatever contract you want.
Like,

I always felt like that specific instance was so illogical that there had to be like a, okay, we'll make you hole on the back end.

Maybe it wasn't as simple as the, you know, crypto drive, but something.

And so I do, I wonder how prevalent things similar to this are, just maybe not as ham-handed as a no-show contract. Can you guys look up for me some of the information on Anthony Carter with the heat?

Because I remember something happened with him where I remember it very well okay tell Nick the details on this because I assumed that the heat had some sort of side deal because that's what I always thought what Anthony Carter and his agent ended up doing yeah I mean Nick we're talking back this is 2004 and Anthony Carter had a player option which he his agent forgot to opt into

the money that the heat now didn't have to pay him allowed them to sign Lamar Odom and Anthony Carter ended up missing out on back then what was a pretty significant amount of money and it really benefited the heat.

And I always thought, you know what? Because I don't think even Anthony Carter fired his agent after it. I was like, ah, you know, he's being made whole somewhere.
Was that Bill Duffy?

Was that the agent? Like, it's an agent who would never make that mistake. Was that Bill Duffy? Like, but

you think this is a ho-hummer that the NBA is just going to skip past. I don't, I, again,

because I poked fun at Pablo,

I don't want to

be misconstrued here. I do not think this is a ho-hum story.
I think this is legitimately excellent journalism. I think it is, it seems like they've got them dead to rights.
I think

it is too,

it is, the path of least resistance is to find a way to skip past it. I didn't think it was, and again, people get very,

again, I'll try to be careful.

I didn't think it was a ho-hummer

when it was like, hey, crazy thing. Maybe the greatest baseball player ever, certainly of our generation,

his

translator has simply the greatest credit limit of any gambler in America. Oh, okay.

No problem. Nothing to see here.

At some,

that never, and again, maybe this is because I'm very fluent in like legitimate kind of high-stakes gambling worlds.

that's the type of credit limit that really can only be extended to someone who is known to have tens of millions of dollars and I didn't think now again maybe the maybe the translator just had the worst bookie and they just you know maybe they thought he's backstopped I don't know that to me felt like

there's it's doesn't quite make sense to me but the easiest thing for everyone was to be like that guy's a gambling addict that guy's a gambling addict with a very irresponsible bookmaker.

It's like, okay, like that struck me as odd. And so sometimes I think on these things, the path of least resistance is the way the path people go.
He is the host of What's Right with Nick Wright.

He's on FS1's First Things First. You can watch him on First Things First weekdays at 3 p.m.
Eastern on FS1. We have less than 50 seconds left.

Your answer or rebuttal to your nemesis, Mina Kimes, claiming that you fraudulently had two different number one teams, that you told her the Ravens are the best team in the NFL, and then months later you went on with Dan Patrick and said the Chiefs are the best team in the NFL.

Wow. Okay.

Mina sets up her

show

where that,

she gives you a binary choice. She says, I think it was Eagles or Ravens.
I could only pick one of them.

And so Mina is, Mina and I, I almost have to be be clear on this because my bosses and her friends thought our, like we were really at a real beef.

And so I actually adore Mina and, you know, and she's obviously much, much smarter about, you know, the most boring parts of football than me.

I can kind of just see the actual landscape of the league better.

But I had no choice there. And Mina cannot question my take integrity.
There's a lot of things. You can make fun of my nose.
You can say I might have a gambling problem.

You can be, you can question how I, you know, got the platform that I did. All those things.
You can call me outright obnoxious. That's fine.

Do not question my commitment to take integrity in any circumstance.

So that's what happened. Obviously, I think the Chiefs are the best team in the league.

But again, I'm not as smart as the folks that are like, actually, if you look at adjusted EPA over a five-year stretch, the Ravens are historically great.

great and the playoffs they don't really matter um by the way subscribe to the podcast please your guys listeners, I would appreciate it. What's right with Nick Wright? Thank you.

It is great, and he does it with his son. And

he said we can make fun of his nose.

He said we can make fun of his nose. Dan, I have something better than that.
It's not germane to the conversation. Dan, I have something better than that.
Lewis, can you pull up?

He met somebody that is very famous online, and I was very excited to see this collaboration. Once we get it on the screen, it's going to be exciting.

Nick, you Nick, you met Coojine. Oh, this is a good thing.
Looking into a mirror. You and Coojine.

Me and Coojine. This was a good bit.

This was a good bit we did. Me and Coojine.
Yeah.

Me and Coojine. That was a good bit.

Yeah.

Again, what's right with Nick Wright? He does it with his son. It's different.
And he's allowing us to make fun of his nose. So there it is.
He said it is casting indeed a shadow on his teeth.

Casting a shadow on your teeth.

Nick,

it's good to see you.

We'll talk to you soon. Send me some of those peanuts.
See you guys. We'll talk to you soon.
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