Local Hour: Dan's Great Analogy

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Amin just hit me with a voice that was kind of between on the spectrum, lecherous and seductive. And he said to me by way of good morning, and I'd be curious what you guys would guess.
He was talking about, he's like, Dan, are you going to be able to resist the siren's call? Are you going to be able today to resist it? Do you guys have any guesses on what the sirens call is? Opening day.

That's what Jeremy whispered to me.

That was a different conversation.

I can't wait.

It's going to be a fast opening day.

It's going to take an hour and a half.

What did you say, Billy?

I didn't hear you.

I said I might earn my bonus tonight.

Would have been a funny joke. You know, it's fine.
Move on. What do you think the siren's call is? Hmm.
There's a number of options. Riley.
Could it be? Oh, I know what it is. I absolutely know what it is.
I think. I think? LeBron McAfee? LeBron McAfee? That's what my guess is going to be LeBron McAfee.
Well, it's adjacent. Stephen A.
I love the confidence. I love the confidence of I absolutely know what it is, I think.
That should be a life principle for you. Like to peter out at the end with I think.
I absolutely know something I don't absolutely know. Well, I thought we were talking about Jimmy or something, but there's a bet going on, so I don't know if that's what was in play.
But then I remembered, you know, there's a number of LeBron things. LeBron started up his podcast again.
Sands, JJ Redick. He was doing it with Steve Nash.
Then LeBron was on with McAfee for like an hour and a half or something. There's a number of things there.
I mean, let me check the trade, see if anyone's signed a media deal. Hold on a second.
That's the siren's call for Dan. Check the trades.
Variety. Hollywood Reporter.
Where do you get your media news these days? Where do you get the trades? What are the trades? Awful announcing? Ryan Glashvigel, right? Awful announcing has someone on staff just to write about this show, right? Like, that seems to be the case. Several people.
I think it's Ryan. I don't think it's Brian.
I said Ryan. Oh, did you? Okay, I'm sorry.
We also said Obama yesterday. Now, that one you missed.
Yeah, you missed that. That was a $600 million fine it should have been.
Crazy, man. Benmo can just retire.
They're like, hey, Amin paid that one fine that one time. We're good for life.
He called Osama Bin Laden Obama. Yeah.
I've never felt more like, oh, this is what happens when you live in a red state for too long. And SEAL Team 6 killed Obama.
This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stugatz Podcast. I don't know when Russell Wilson's professional career began, but if you had told me in 2010, if you had come up to me and said, you're not going to believe this, but in 2025, you're not just going to be talking about what LeBron James said.
You're going to be talking about what he did in 2025, 15 years ago, while a Russell Wilson signing makes you profoundly sad. I would not have had the ability to understand what you were talking about because Russell Wilson going to the Giants, I saw that happen.
I'm like, oh, two lonely people met and are not going to find love. That's not going to end in the way that anyone thinks it's going to end.
And it just made me sad. But then, isn't it on some level two lonely people who know there's nothing going on tonight? So it's 3 a.m.
The lights are coming on. I don't have any.
You lock eyes. Yeah, and it's like, hey, were you my dream partner, the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with? Not really, but maybe tonight.
Almost like one of those pacts that people make on TV shows where they're like, hey, if we're not married by the time we're 40, you want to just go ahead and get married? It feels like one of those where both of them have just kind of reached a space in life where it's like, all right, we could settle for this. Are they getting married? It's a one-year deal.
Or like a two-year, whatever it is. It's not like, oh, it's seven years.
Russell Wilson's a quarterback. No, it's like, all right, damn, man, we need somebody.
Like, I'm dating, I've kind of just met this person named Jameis. I was going to say, it's three lonely people, not two.
It's not really serious between me and Jameis either. Like, hey, maybe I come over.
But I think it's a fling that you regret, though. At the beginning, you don't regret the fling before you partake in the fling, you don't regret the fling.
Like, I think it's something that you're in your house afterward and you're a little bit of, you don't like how all of that went. Staring in the mirror like, I shouldn't have done that.
I don't think this is sad. I think this is someone who's towards the end of their career finding a place to play and continue their career because he doesn't want to retire.
I don't think that anyone believes the Giants are going to be Super Bowl contenders. Their wins total I think is like three and a half next year, if you were to bet on that.
They have one good rookie uh wide receiver they have a good a couple good defensive players but a good player on defense if you're zaz or witty or mike um but like decades of like not a great o-line and just kind of not making great front office decisions and so he wants to keep playing they were the one team that needed a quarterback still I don't think it's sad like this is just sort of how sports work towards the end okay except for he's not old like we he's not an old person like I Russell Wilson to me if you give me word association that's a vibrant spry athletic personality that plays the position differently than a lot of people do. How old is he? He's 36.
I mean, for a quarterback? That's young. That's young.
Young for a podcast. Brady played another 10 years.
It's not young, but, you know, the Giants just took Russell Wilson over the 42-year-old guy who might be your quarterback in Pittsburgh. That's the only remaining door that's open there.
How do you feel as a Steeler fan about what just happened there where you lose Russell Wilson who gave you a winning season and it would appear that the only option left, the only musical chairs left for Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers are the loneliest of lonely meetups because they, Russell Wilson and the Giantsants just paired up leaving them no options. How do I feel about Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers? It feels like it's been inevitable for like three weeks now so I've just accepted it.
I don't like him as a person but I do think the Steelers have done a lot of good stuff in the draft in the middle to later rounds that make their O-line pretty good. Their receivers have gotten better over this offseason.
They're signing DK Metcalf. I don't know.
The defense should still be really good. This is not the best option.
But again, as we've talked about for the last three months, really bad year to need a quarterback. And Giants still also could draft a quarterback, I think, even though they signed Russell Wilson.
so I wouldn't rule that out either they could just cut Tommy DeVito and say sorry and by the way three lonely people Tommy DeVito is not lonely he has his agent that man has family all around him look at me you'll never be lonely as long as I'm around the Vikings also haven't completely closed the door on the Aaron Rodgers situation. There was a report yesterday that said, hey, we're still interested possibly, maybe, in Aaron Rodgers.
Yes, Roy, that was an Italian impersonation but he only did it with his fingers. You couldn't tell from his voice.
My culture is not your costume. Put it on the poll at Levitard's show.
Is my culture your costume? I think, Jess, you need to make a Sudanese accent now, and then that'll make you all right. That's a good idea, Billy.
You're always helpful that way. Excellent work by you.
Always helpful ally. We'll work on it.
Yes. Luckily, there's a lot of source material you could go off of.
Exceptional. You want to try that one, Billy, since you're so helpful? No, I mean, I didn't make fun of italians he was celebrating though i was um taylor was in the kitchen and i know i said less taylor uh but taylor had an opinion that i wanted to put on the poll as well because he's like smoothies are fruit he didn't like that there were green smoothies over there so just put it on the poll at Levitard show smoothies are fruit.
He didn't like that there were green smoothies over there. So just put it on the poll at Levitard Show.

Smoothies are fruit, yes or no?

Because the greens are still out there.

Like I saw that all the smoothies,

whatever the colored smoothies were.

Whoa.

Smoothies are for everyone, Dan.

You already accused me of segregation yesterday.

Now I don't even want to say fruits. I don't know.
Maybe Russell Wilson is sad. I'm telling you, man.
I can't decide. I don't think it's sad, though.
What's the sad? Here's the thing. What's the sadness? I know.
He's married to Sierra. I will never feel sad for him.
Hey, here's many more millions of dollars to do this thing that you enjoy doing. 21 million.
Yeah, just do it again, man. One more time.
So you guys do this one all the time. I want to ask you about this because I understand when people have a lot of money or are married to someone that you think is wonderful, how it is that we arrive, that person can't be sad because they have things.
Hold on, Dan. Let's break this down.
This guy, you say, oh, he's getting a lot more money. Like, well, it's not always about money.
He's married to this beautiful woman and has a great family. Well, it's not just only about love.
It's about professional fulfillment. He gets to do the job one more year.
This job he loves. Well, it's not that, well, what is it? Also, he won a Super Bowl super bowl like he's very successful in his career i'm saying to you showed up one too i'm saying to you as he sits on his couch he knows the year he had last year he's not sitting there like okay here we go the chiefs are gonna bring me in to replace mom he knows who he is at this point of his career so he's got a job a starting a starting job, right, most likely, and they're paying him $21 million, and his family life is great.
Yeah, I'm going to say it's not sad. It's pretty happy.
And if you're the Giants, again, like Jess said, they're going to be one of the worst teams in football next year. So it's not like, oh, my God, okay, I could put Patrick Mahomes on the Giants.
It's still not good enough. It's still, as I said, eight wins, maybe nine wins, maybe nine wins.
You guys are assuming that I'm sad for Russell Wilson here. Just the whole thing made me sad.
That something has to exist in the sport to feed at the bottom of the standings in that division that is only existing to lose to everyone else, that a champion's career ends with that as the punctuation, bums me out, but not for him, just for everybody involved. I mean, but his career could have ended two seasons ago, right? Like, his career could have ended after the Broncos, but he got another chance with the Steelers.
And he was fine. Like, he was okay.
Like, I really think it was not, it's overstated how bad he was at the end of the season. I think the whole team fell apart at the end of the season.
I think he was part of it, but I don't think you 100% put it on him. This is good for him.
This is a good time. Pad your stats.
Ensure that you're going to make it into the Hall of Fame because people have said that you've played your way out of the Hall of Fame. Now it's time to start compiling.
Go out there, take that starting job, and start racking up TDs, yards, whatever you need to do.

Dan, you would say Russell Wilson had a well above average NFL career

as a starting quarterback, yes?

Yes.

And I think he still wants to be great, and it's not possible.

And I think that part, when anyone is afflicted with it,

is something that when you're a champion and have had that kind of confidence

is a hard thing to overcome.

But the reason that I wanted to tie it back into a conversation

that we were having yesterday that we just sort of skipped past because you guys are like, well, gets his money, gets his things. What difference does it make? We were talking about what I thought was the very particular awful pain of Ezra Edelman going from making the OJ documentary to having to meet the expectations after the OJ documentary, spending years with the Prince documentary, and then not being able to show it to anybody.
Probably got a sum of money. Do you think that money makes him feel okay about what happened there? Like, do you think, do you think there, I'm guessing that if I talked to Ezra Edelman, he would say there was no amount of money that would keep him from releasing that to the world.
And you guys were all like shrugging your shoulder. That seemed like a particular kind of imprisonment for a creative person to spend years obsessively compulsively working on something to know that it is great and to not be able to show it to anybody release it then can i well he can't why can't he because it'll be a lawsuit okay well if you believe in your work and what you put out there is not litigious and put it out there is a sum of money that would stop him from doing it it's the lawsuit it's whatever they would sue him for this is the,000 hedge.
I'm saying there's not an amount of money he could get to not release that. That he could get.
There's an amount of money you can take away from him. Can I say, can I do the unpopular opinion here? The unpopular opinion is Ezra.
You knew what a state you were dealing with before you even started. How did you not get like, hey man, if I'm going to do this, you guys can't say shit to me.
Dot your I's and cross your T's before you waste all the time doing it. You're not going to have it see the light.
What do you think? You're going to do it like, you know what? They're really going to like what I did with OJ. So they're going to say okay after I actually finish the project.
I mean, also like it is not a great analogy because Russell Wilson is someone who's getting older and can't continue to do the job because of his age. Ezra Edelman's 50.
He can still make other documentaries. It's not quite a great analogy.
I'm not trying to make a great analogy compared to Russell Wilson. I'm tying it to an incomplete conversation that we had yesterday about the ways that you guys dismiss pain because someone gets something in return for the pain as if the pain is not pain just because you get a few dollars.
But what is Russell's pain? I don't understand. I'm not doing that anymore as a conversation.
I transitioned already. The pain is Jameis.
Jameis is the one with a gripe. I mean, that guy was fooled into thinking he was going to start.
No, Jameis is fine. Look, that dude is the most positive dude in the world.
He came up with like three rhyming sayings in the time between he found out that Russell Wilson was signing and like whatever told him. Jameis Winston also is a player who probably would have loved to have Russell Wilson's success in his career.
He did not have any of that. Russell Wilson won a Super Bowl.
Russell Wilson had a very long and successful career before things went sour with the Seahawks. I would venture to guess that when all is said and done, Russell Wilson retires from the NFL and he's probably like, I made a lot of money.
I won a Super Bowl. I'm good.
I'm fulfilled. I'm happy.
You know what I don't understand? I have a great family. I have a hot wife.
You know what I don't get about Ezra Edelman? So he's not allowed to show the movie, but he's showing it to all his friends. So like he still is like, why didn't he just do a series of one-on-one screenings? Like if you want to come watch my movie, like come over to my house, I'll show you the movie.
And then you get the fulfillment of people watching the movie that want to see the movie. And charge like a million dollars per view.
No, not even, let's be honest, right? Like real artists, they don't care what the masses think. These people are stupid cattle is what they think it's like.
But they're friends, they're peers. That's who they care.
So like Billy said, just invite your friends over. They'll all tell you it was awesome.
And then you still got your money. Who cares? And you know what's the best part? Here's the best part.
All we're going to do for the rest of time is whisper about yo ezra made the craziest documentary about prince it was incredible it was the best document ever made but no one ever saw it oh wow and now there's like this urban legend that goes around the lore grows he becomes even greater as a result of this right like you know years and i've like ezra edelman grandpa tell me about ez Edelman. Oh, let me tell you about the one work that he never got to release.

And then we're going to make a movie about this

30 years from now, the hunt for the Ezra

cut. And then they're going to go and they're going to break

into Fort Knox, where it's hidden

in the thing, and lasers come on

and Prince's family, and the lasers are purple

because Prince. And Prince's family

are like, ha ha, we knew you were coming.

A guy's scrum. A blaster falls it he needs like an artist starring the cage you know like he needs to pull some sort of grand stunt and say that it's for the art and get sued or get arrested or whatever right like i think that you have to have like a blimp that you projected on that's just flying around town so you have to be following it around if you want to watch the whole thing or you just have like a water machine and and then to what Amin was saying, you light it up purple, and then you're just projecting the movie on the screen.
You just do stuff like that. You need a big artist to do.
That's what's missing here is the passion from Ezra, I think. Billy, let me ask you a question, though.
Would you be worried that that would reduce? Because whatever the imagination of what it is is always better than what it actually is right the movie probably sucks i mean if we're just setting the expectations up to this level hold on pablo said it was the greatest thing he's ever seen pablo smoke up his friend's ass he's like get out of here like pablo just likes to be friends with famous people and talk about how he's friends with famous people and that's my famous friends like we get it you're friends with we. Like, enough of that.
The expectations are so high. And if we're going to be honest about the OJ one, we all thought, wait, like, an editor.
Editor Edelman is what we needed there. Eight episodes, way too long.
You lost me there. Could have been six at best.
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Don LeBetard.

You don't remember the idea for a home run call? I was probably like, that kind of thing.

Something.

Okay, no.

The home run call was that kind of swing, that kind of thing.

I'm not sure what's happening. You don't remember the idea for a home run call? I was probably like, that kind of thing.
Something. Okay, no.
The home run call was that kind of swing, that kind of thing. Stugatz.
Oh, that's a good call. Thank you.
And plus, it doesn't matter who's hitting it. Like, you're not tailoring it to a particular name.
You know, all that jazz. You know, you don't got to do that.
You just have to do generic call. Oh, that would be a great call.
That kind of swing, that kind of thing. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugats.
So, Amin said, in the middle of that, Amin said, who cares? And my answer to that would be, he does. He cares about the cattle? He cares about working on something for many, many years and not being able to show it to people.
While people journal, I will tell you that when I write, I don't write to put it in a drawer. But I want to stop for a second and just ask, as I often do too much, way too much about about origins why is there smoke blown up an ass like what is happening there feels good dan does it does i don't i ever had smoke blown up your ass i don't yuck someone's yum man i don't i don't uh know whether that is yuck or yungles i'm uh i'm unfamiliar you are the king of yucking other people's yums, Billy Gill.
I'm very pro-yum. I would say that that is exactly the kingdom that he rules over, yucks and yums.
King yum, that's me. And he just makes them collide together.
So yesterday, and this was interesting to me because we have seen over the years sort of the morphing of sports reporting and sports entertainment and big stars merging so that whatever the entity is in this case it's ESPN and Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James and I cannot resist the sirens call.
This is all great content for the machine.

It is funny to me that everyone here is being more childish than Bronny

because Stephen A. is calling LeBron a liar,

which I have not seen him do a lot of.

That seems like an escalation.

Stephen A. calling anybody a liar on television.

I think that's a lot of. Like, that seems like an escalation.

Stephen A. calling anybody a liar on television.

I don't think that's something he does all of the time.

I think that is very strong as we continue to push the boundaries on these relationships and as Stephen A. gets rewarded for all the things that he is.

And as LeBron goes on McAfee and they create content between all of the shows and try to get integration between all of the shows, you get LeBron saying, yeah, sure, Stephen A. wants to sit this out.
He says he didn't want to talk about it. Sure.
And then he puts him in tighty white. He's eating ice cream, enjoying that LeBron confronted him during a game.
But the childishness in it, beyond I would have swung at him and he would have kicked my ass and all the nonsense that men do when they're being silly around the soap opera.

The idea that LeBron is mad and that Stephen A. thinks he's mad and keeps coming at him with, you're not my goat.

You're not the best.

You're the second best. Shannon sharp thinks you're the best it's seven-year-olds that's how seven-year-olds would do all of this and it is passing for content i cannot resist you can't resist it i i can i i i was ashamed yesterday all of it.
Both of them. Everybody.
And then the things and seeing the reactions. Man, this is quite possibly the biggest journalist who covers the sport and the biggest named player who plays the sport.
And if I'm Adam Silver, you get him on the phone, it's enough. Enough.
This is embarrassing. This does not represent our sport.
And, by the way, LeBron said a lot of stuff yesterday. I was just like, what are you talking about? Giannis has scored 200 in a game.
He said, oh, Brian Winhurst says he's my friend. I'm like, that I didn't like.
I've known Brian Wynhurst for at least 10 years personally. And I read his work for 10 years before that.
I have never heard him say, insinuate, like hint, try to act like, not even close. Damn, I've never heard Brian say that about people who he's actually friends with.
So for LeBron to say that, matter of factly, to tee up a McAfee lame-ass Photoshop, oh, here's your teammate, ho, ho, ho, there he was, ho, ho, and they Photoshop him. Like, it was so, because LeBron had a problem that Brian said the reason why he signed with Nike, whatever.
And my thing was like, okay, so say he was wrong. He's never said he was your friend your friend never acted like he was your friend it was all of it was just so odd he called him weird i'm like that's weird dude thinking that someone's your friend or whatever so the the thing dan i say to all of that it's like lebron has a responsibility just like stephen a has responsibility, that when they say things, yes, they're human, yes, their feelings get hurt, yes, they react and lash out.
But the problem is when you're at that place, you can't do that because your words hold more credibility than a regular person just lashing out or say, oh, man, that dude thinks he's my friend or whatever. In the same way, Dan, that a week ago, two weeks ago, whatever, you said, why aren't people asking about LeBron using PEDs? And I said to you, Dan, you can't say that.
You can't say that. And you're like, why not? I'm not saying he is.
I'm saying, why aren't more people asking? I said, Dan, because when you say that, there is a credibility behind that that leads millions of people to be like, oh, see, the number of people I had, friends in my life, finally someone saying the quiet part out loud. No.
I had a lot of NBA players texting me, and I couldn't. But Dan, because I saw it.
I saw it. You thought just doing this intellectual exercise and I'm telling you no when you say that people take it as gospel because Dan Levitard is someone whose opinion is held up here Stephen A Smith is someone whose opinion is held up here LeBron James is someone whose opinion is held up here and when these guys talk flippantly in that way, it hurts our sport.
It's embarrassing. You're interesting in this respect because two things are in play that have been interesting watching you in this world over the last several years make a career, the career that you have, as you, like all of us, have aged.
You're not wrong in saying that this is shameful, but you are protecting your beloved sport and asking the commissioner to step in on famous people doing what is the natural evolution of everything we've been doing over the last 15 years in media with and around LeBron. This is all part of the game for the last 15 years on what these two human beings have wrought near and around this sport.
And when you say it's bad for the sport and the commissioner should step in, I think you're wrong. Now, it could be bad for the sport in that you're tired of storylines that we're talking about drama instead of that as the oldest player in the league,

he makes the last shot against Indiana on the road last night at the buzzer,

and we're going to talk about all the other garbage instead of that, instead of the game.

You'd be right there, but you sound like you're clutching rosary beads in protection of your sport

as the media and game evolve around it.

And as those two aging superstars, Stephen A. and LeBBron try to keep up in the modern game of attention is currency Stephen A aging is insane Stephen A has never been younger than he is today fine wine get out of here so like don't crack the commissioner first of all is a steward of the game the steward of the game and and that is part and parcel of making sure that it doesn't cross a line.
Is the attention currency all, yes. But now you're crossing lines, both of them, where it threatens the very structure upon which this whole business is built, which is that people believe that it is all real and all based on fact.
LeBron also said, oh yeah, you know, the NBA made sure I went to Cleveland just like they made sure Patrick Ewing went to, like, he's just, look, I can do dumb shit like that on Basketball Illuminati, me and Tom and Anthony Mays, because we're not the biggest player who ever played the sport, or we're not the biggest journalist who ever covered the sport. It're not the biggest journalist who ever covered the sport it's a niche yes sometimes there are things that i see people doing elsewhere like i wish i could do that i can't because that stuff that you know for instance the kind of uh uh humor that some comedians on podcasts do i wish we could do that here all the time i can can't because I understand I'm not in that space.

And if I make that joke, it doesn't land the same way as when a professional comedian does.

Billy wanted you to make it.

Billy wanted Jess to make it earlier in the show.

Trust me.

That's not the joke that anyone wanted.

But the point is, Dan, it's there has to be like you can't just say, well, this is how it goes.

Because that first of all, it assumes a falsehood of which is this is the only way to get that kind of attention. This is the only way to get everyone talking.
And I don't believe that. It's the easiest way.
Okay, why do we have to do it the easiest way? Like, as a sport, right? Again, I don't see Pedro Martinez fighting, well, I guess not Pedro Martinez, wouldn't be the guy, who's Bougshambi having an argument with Jazz Chisholm about, hey man, you should just man up, who cares if they cut up your cleats or whatever. You did, you really on opening day, you showed your baseball ignorance there.
Jessica thought I had a bad analogy. Bougshambi against Jazz Chisholm is not Stephen A.
Smith against LeBron James. You know, if you're ignorant about baseball, you might want to go to a game.
You know, today, Sandy Alcantara, Paul Skeens at Lone Depot Park. And if you want to go to that game...
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Game time. So, Dan, I don't see this happen in any other sport.
Yeah, there's always going to be the curmudgeons, the old guys. Like, man, these young guys didn't do it like us.
Yeah, there are going to be young guys who are like, oh, man, could pitch to babe ruth i would you know i'd strike them out in two pitches or whatever right like there's always gonna be those but you don't hear it at the pinnacle at the pinnacle we don't do that and again this is tied into every conversation we've had about oh the nba ratings nba pr, at some point, the commissioner's office, you can't control everybody. You can't control Gil's Arena.
You can't control Oddball. You can't control those fringe places.
You can't control Stephen A. Smith.
Yes, you can. Yes, you can.
Because that network broadcasts your stuff. I can't call in everybody.
I can call in everyone from ESPN doing their NBA stuff. I can call in the best player in the game.
I can call in Steph. I can call in LeBron.
He can. You know how I know he can, Dan? Because David Stern did that all the time.
Yes, but it's a different age. And the two people, no.
Is it still money? Is it still money? It is still money, but I will tell you, having run into these clashes at ESPN with Rob Manfred, who was trying

to control what I was saying, that ESPN could not do that to me. And while Stephen A is the only

person at that company who has told me on the phone after a conflict with that company, hey, Dan, you can't go against the company. I would say that Stephen A's present power is such that he could absolutely buck the people involved.
And if Adam Silver calls him, I'd say he's got a responsibility to report that that he's got a responsibility to tell people that adam silver has called him and tried to mute the conflict as a journalist i'm curious by the way let him let it let it be out let it be out who cares like yes yeah i said it i told him this is shameful i told lebron this is shameful yeah If I'm Adam Silver. Yeah, I said it.
I told him. This is shameful.
I told LeBron, this is shameful.

Yeah.

If I'm Adam Silver, yeah, I called him.

That's my job.

That's my job.

I'm curious.

I'm curious.

Maybe we should call Skipper and ask him.

I wonder what kind of language is in the broadcast deal.

Because it's not just, here's money.

You guys do our stuff.

Have at it.

Say whatever the hell you want.

No, Stephen A.

There's language in there where it's like, hey, man, you want us to take you to court on this?

And I'll see you next time. It's not just, here's money, you guys do our stuff, have at it.
Say whatever the hell you want. No, Stephen A is this.
There's language in there where it's like, hey, man, you want us to take you to court on this? ESPN is a good corporate partner. Stephen A is a good corporate partner.
But we disagree on what's good and bad for business here, and we disagree on what it is Adam Silver should do. Because you think this is bad for the game, and you're not actually wrong, but it's good for their television partner.
It's great for their television partner. In fact, I'm going to say that LeBron James went to McAfee.
Like, that's Indiana. LeBron James doesn't do that.
LeBron James, LeBron James, he played the Pacers. I know, but I'm saying LeBron James doesn't get into a car and go somewhere, into a warehouse away from where it is that the arena is in order to do an interview for an hour unless you're trying to please a corporate partner.
That's not doing a favor for... Corporate partner? Dan, you're so naive sometimes, man.
Yo, you think he went there because he's like, I need to do a solid for ESPN. Do you think he did that or did he do, I want to take a shot at Stephen A on his ground, right? He went to McAfee's show.
Remember the same show that when he was like, F this Adrian Wojnowski guy, what am I going to do? I'm going to be Sham Sharani who doesn't work here every week, right? It's not an accident. It's not an accident.
Like Pat McAfee is the space that if you want to take a shot at someone at ESPN, this is the safe space on ESPN's airwaves where they're going to let you say whatever you want. So, because people ask me, man, LeBron, why didn't he go to Gil's Arena? Gil's his guy.
He trained his son. Why didn't he go there to say those things? Why didn't he go to All the Smoke? Steven Jackson, Matt Barnes, those guys, they got a great relationship.
Why didn't he go to Uninterrupted? Why didn't he go to Knuckleheads with Q Ridge? Shannon Sharp. Why didn't he go to the white guy, Pat McAfee? And I said, guys, it's not about white or black.
It's not about who's his boy, who's his not. He wanted to do the nuclear strike from inside the building, not from miles and miles away.
I recognize that. I like doing that.
So that's why he went there, right? And I know they'll say, oh, Amin doesn't know what he's talking about, but man, like some of these things are pretty obvious. You say it's obvious and you say that I'm naive, but what I did assume, because that's what happened when we got LeBron in that time slot, is they you like there is the 10 to 1 they give you some things to play with so that you could create a bigger entity that becomes the thing after first take that you need it to be like you cannot say that that is not all good for ESPN all of it it's good for ESPN in the short term right other than whatever internal politics now that they have to traverse based on however Stephen A might feel about friendly fire and all those things, right?

But it's not good if your corporate partner, whose rights you are making money off of, comes to you and says, what the F? What are you guys doing? That's when it ceases to be good.

It's a, Okay. does she feel about it well she doesn't know but she's fine but then when she finds out you're like oh man that was a bad move yeah of course it was a bad move so that's the thing it's like that it's incumbent on adam silver to be the spouse who does not allow tomfoolery in the house does not allow to make an enemy out of me yeah there's that sure i mean look it's don't want, as this is an exciting end to our season, we're going in the playoffs, legitimately nobody knows who's going to win the championship.
There are a lot of real contenders. I actually booked my hotels.
We did a bit on the show. Ooh, which one? I booked them all.
I do this every year. I booked my hotels for the finals, guessing where the might be.
And this year for the first time I had like nine different cities. And because I don't know who's going to be the number one overall seed or who's going to have home court advantage, I had to do multiple permutations.
It's really that's what's great for the sport. That's what's great for the sport.
And all of our big players are in play. Steph Curry is back in play.
LeBron James is in play. Yannick Lee Okic is in play.
All of these things, the Celtics, everybody. Instead, we're going to do this.
And I know what people are going to say. I mean, well, you guys could just talk about that right now.
Why are you talking about this? Because I know all of the talk today is going to be about, man, I can't believe Stephen. They say he would have swung.
man, I can't believe it. It's not about what they said.
It's the fact that they're saying it. Like, hey, group chat it.
Go do that behind the scenes. You understand, though, what I'm saying to you? What you're saying to me is, if it bleeds, it leads.
Like, you're doing trash, kind of like Norse Common Denominator stuff. When you say it's good.
I am doing what ESPN is doing, which is, what do the people want? What do the people want? Not what's good for the sport. The conflict is your television partners with somebody, but this is dream scenario on a Wednesday when there's not a lot going on.
Your big guy is fighting the league's big guy in a way that makes for good media. I guarantee you the ratings go up when McAfee is interviewing LeBron and he is saying those things.
Of course. But this is the conflict in the partnership.
It's the conflict. And it's the conflict in the world happening around the partnership as the sport feels like it deteriorates a little bit because it's storylines and highlights instead of games.
You're not wrong that it can be a poison. You're not wrong in that ESPN is like, I'm in the money.
I got a lot of what it takes to get. They're doing that for sure.
I'm telling you, Adam Silver should not be doing that. Adam Silver should be like, no, in the same way that someone who cheats on their spouse could be like, yo, I'm having sex everywhere.
Why are you so mad? This is great for me. It's not great for me the spouse is getting cheated on.
It's not good analogy because it's an excellent a lot of money being made by your corporate partner while you're having sex with other people what do you mean depends on the industry the the sex is the money here dan the sex is the currency right i'm getting more of this currency of sex your corporate partners with with somebody and what is bad for your game is good for you that's the conflict and my point is the person it's bad for can open their mouth and say hey this is bad for me stop doing it that's the point i don't know what was that voice there's been so many voices there was German accent before. The grandfather was German when you asked about the story.

Where do we land on the shakes situation?

Can it be shakes if it's green or no?

We made it a poll question.

This is a democracy.

The people decide.

Which one are you having?

This one's peanut butter, which I also think is not a smoothie because it's not fruit nor green. It's peanut butter.

It's got banana in it, though.

No, it's a smoothie.

That's the rule.

Play Stephen A. again with the haunting threat.

You don't want to make an enemy out of me.

Hey, you in the audience, it's Mike.

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