Local Hour: Dan's Great Analogy

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Speaker 2 Amin just just hit me with a voice that was kind of between on the spectrum lecherous and seductive.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 Are you going to be able today to resist it? Do you guys have any guesses on what the siren's call is?

Speaker 5 Opening day.

Speaker 2 That's what Jeremy whispered to me. That was a different conversation.
Oh, I can't wait.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a fast opening day.

Speaker 11 It's going to alter.

Speaker 4 It's going to take an hour and a half.

Speaker 2 What'd you say, Billy?

Speaker 11 I didn't hear you jerking.

Speaker 4 Then I might earn my bonus tonight.

Speaker 2 Would have been a funny joke, Daddy.

Speaker 10 Yeah, you know. It's fine.

Speaker 4 Move on.

Speaker 2 What do you think the siren's call is?

Speaker 12 Hmm.

Speaker 13 There's a number of options. Riley,

Speaker 13 could it be. Oh, I know what it is.
I absolutely know what it is. I think.

Speaker 10 I think.

Speaker 14 LeBron McAfee.

Speaker 14 That's what my guess is going to be.

Speaker 5 LeBron McAfee.

Speaker 2 No, well, it's adjacent. Steve May.
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.

Speaker 2 Like to peter out at the end with, I think, I absolutely know something I don't absolutely know.

Speaker 13 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 what was in play.

Speaker 13 But then I remembered, you know, there's, I mean, there's a number of LeBron things. LeBron started up his podcast again.
Sands, J.J. Reddick.
He was doing it with Steve Nash.

Speaker 13 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 trades, see if anyone signed a media deal. Hold on a second.

Speaker 15 That's the sirens' call for Dan.

Speaker 2 Check the trades.

Speaker 15 Variety.

Speaker 5 Hollywood Report.

Speaker 2 Where do you get your media news these days? Where do you get the trades? What are the trades? Offel Announcing?

Speaker 15 Ryan Glashfiegel, right?

Speaker 13 Offel Announcing has someone on staff just to write about this show, right?

Speaker 3 Like, that seems to be a lot of people. Several people.

Speaker 2 I think it's Ryan. I don't think it's Brian.

Speaker 17 I said Ryan.

Speaker 11 Oh, did you? Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 18 I also said Obama yesterday.

Speaker 15 Now, that one you missed. Yeah, you missed that.

Speaker 15 That was a $600 million fine. This should have been crazy, man.
Benmo can just retire.

Speaker 15 They're like, hey, Amin paid that one fine that one time. We're good for life.

Speaker 13 We called Osama bin Laden Obama.

Speaker 15 I've never felt more like, oh, this is what happens when you live in a red state for too long.

Speaker 15 And SEAL Team 6 killed Obama.

Speaker 20 This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 2 I don't know when Russell Wilson's professional career began,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, two lonely people met and are not going to find love.

Speaker 2 That's not going to end in the way that anyone thinks it's going to end. And it just made me sad.

Speaker 15 But Dan, 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.

Speaker 14 And lock eyes.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 15 Are they getting married? It's a one-year deal. Or it's like a two-year deal, whatever it is.
It's not like, oh, seven years. Russell Wilson's a quarterback.

Speaker 15 No, it's like, all right, damn, man, we need, we need somebody. Like, I'm dating, I'm kind of, I've kind of just met this person named Jameis, but like,

Speaker 23 it's three lonely people, not two.

Speaker 15 It's not really serious with TV and Jameis either. Like, hey, maybe, like, maybe, maybe.

Speaker 2 But I think it's a fling that you regret, though.

Speaker 2 You don't regret the fling before you. 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,

Speaker 2 you don't like how all of them are.

Speaker 23 You're staring in the mirror, like,

Speaker 14 I shouldn't have done that.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I don't think that anyone believes the Giants are going to be Super Bowl Bowl contenders.

Speaker 18 Their wins total, I think, is like three and a half next year, if you were to bet on that. They have one really good rookie wide receiver.
They have

Speaker 18 a couple good defensive players, but a good player on defense if you're Zaz or Witty or Mike.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I don't think it's sad. Like this is just sort of how sports work towards the end.

Speaker 2 Okay, except for

Speaker 24 he's not old.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 How old is he?

Speaker 18 He's 36. I mean, for a quarterback?

Speaker 18 That's young. I mean, young for a popular player.

Speaker 4 I already played another 10 years.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 Russell Wilson and the Giants just paired up, leaving them no options.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 I don't like him as a person, but I do think the Steelers have done a lot of good stuff

Speaker 18 in the draft, in the middle to later rounds, that make their O-line pretty good. Their receivers have gotten better over this offseason, signing DK Metcalf.

Speaker 18 I don't know. The defense should still be really good.

Speaker 18 This is not the best option, but again, as we've talked about for the last like three months really bad year to need a quarterback and the giants still also could draft a quarterback i think even though they 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 he's 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.

Speaker 23 There was a report yesterday said, hey, we're we're still interested, possibly, maybe, in Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 Yes, Roy, that was an Italian impersonation, but he only did it with his fingers.

Speaker 2 You couldn't tell from his voice.

Speaker 18 My culture is not your costume.

Speaker 21 Put it on the poll at Lebetard Show.

Speaker 2 Is my culture your costume?

Speaker 11 And always.

Speaker 13 I think chess, you need to make a Sudanese accent now and then that.

Speaker 11 That's a good idea, Billy.

Speaker 21 You're always helpful that way. Excellent work by you.
Always helpful ally. Work on it.

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 15 Luckily, there's a lot of source material you could go off of.

Speaker 6 Exceptional.

Speaker 2 You want to try that one, Billy, since you're so hot.

Speaker 13 I mean, I didn't make fun of Italians. No, no.

Speaker 15 He was celebrating, though. I was.

Speaker 2 Taylor was in the kitchen, and I know I said less Taylor, but Taylor had an opinion that I wanted to put on the poll as well because he's like,

Speaker 2 smoothies are fruit.

Speaker 2 He didn't like that there were green smoothies over there. So just put it on the poll at Lebetard show.
smoothies or fruit yes or no

Speaker 2 because um the greens are still out there like i saw that all the smoothies all whatever the colored smoothies were whoa

Speaker 13 smoothies are for everyone dan

Speaker 6 you already accused me of segregation yesterday now i don't even want to say fruits

Speaker 18 I don't know, maybe Russell Wilson is sad. I'm telling you.
I can't decide.

Speaker 8 I don't think it's sad, though.

Speaker 15 Here's the thing. What's the sadness? I know.

Speaker 18 He's married to Sierra. Like, I will never feel sad for that.

Speaker 15 Hey, here's many more millions of dollars to do this thing that you enjoy.

Speaker 4 21 million.

Speaker 15 Yeah, just do it again, man.

Speaker 2 So, you guys do this one all the time.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 15 Hold on, Dan. let's break this down

Speaker 15 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 like he's very successful in his career

Speaker 15 i'm saying to you should have won two 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.

Speaker 15 The Chiefs are going to bring me in to replace Mahomes. He knows who he is at this point of his career.
So he's got a job, a starting job, right? Most likely, and they're paying him $21 million.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So it's not like, oh, my God. Oh, okay, I could put Patrick Mahomes on the Giants.
It's still not good enough. It's still, that's an eight-win team, maybe nine wins, maybe nine wins.

Speaker 2 You guys are assuming that I'm sad for Russell Wilson here.

Speaker 24 Just the whole thing made me sad.

Speaker 15 Exactly.

Speaker 2 The whole thing made me sad.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But not for him, just for everybody involved.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 18 Like,

Speaker 18 he was okay. Like, I really think it was

Speaker 18 not, it's overstated how bad he was at the end of the season. Like, 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.

Speaker 13 This is good for him. Like, this is a good time.
Like, pad your stats.

Speaker 13 Like, 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.

Speaker 13 Like, go out there, take that starting job, and start racking up TDs, yards, whatever you need to do.

Speaker 18 Dan, Dan, you would say Russell Wilson had a well-above average NFL career as a starting quarterback, yes? Yes.

Speaker 2 And I think he still wants to be great, and it's not possible.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But the reason that I wanted, I wanted to tie it back into a conversation that we were having yesterday that we just sort of skipped past because

Speaker 2 you guys are like, well,

Speaker 2 gets his money, gets his things. What difference does it make?

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 probably got a sum of money. Do you think that money makes him feel okay about what happened there?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And you guys were all like shrugging your shoulders.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 11 Well, release it then.

Speaker 17 Can I? Well, he can. Why can't he?

Speaker 4 Because it'll be a lawsuit.

Speaker 13 Okay, well, if you believe in your work and that what you put out there is not litigious, then put it out there.

Speaker 23 Then there is a sum of money that would stop him from doing it.

Speaker 15 It's the lawsuit. It's whatever they would sue him for.
This is the $50,000 a hedge.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 15 Let me, can I say, can I date the unpopular opinion here? The unpopular opinion is, Ezra.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 13 Stop your eyes eyes and cross your T's before you waste all the time doing it.

Speaker 13 You're not gonna have it see the light. What do you think?

Speaker 23 You're gonna do it like, you know what?

Speaker 6 They're they're really gonna like what I did with OJ, so they're gonna say okay after I actually finished the project.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 Ezra Edelman's 50, he can still make other documentary. It's not quite a great

Speaker 4 analogy.

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to make a great analogy

Speaker 3 compared to Russell Wilson.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 13 But what is Russell's pain?

Speaker 6 I don't understand.

Speaker 4 I'm not doing that anymore as a conversation.

Speaker 2 I transitioned already.

Speaker 13 His pain is Jameis. Jameis is the one with a gripe.
I mean, that guy was led into thinking he was... to start no jameis

Speaker 15 look that dude is the most positive dude in the world he came came up with like three rhyming sayings in the time between he found out that Russell Wilson was signing and

Speaker 15 like what.

Speaker 18 Jameis Winston also is a player who probably would have loved to have Russell Wilson's success in career, in his career. He did not have any of that.

Speaker 18 Russell Wilson won a Super Bowl. Russell Wilson had a very long and successful career before things went sour with the Seahawks.

Speaker 18 I would venture to guess that when all of a sudden done, Russell Wilson retires from the NFL and he's probably like, I made a lot of money. I won won a Super Bowl.
I'm good. I'm fulfilled.
I'm happy.

Speaker 7 You know what? I don't understand.

Speaker 18 I have a great family. I have a hot wife.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 5 So, like, he still is.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 13 And then you get the fulfillment of people watching the movie that want to see the movie.

Speaker 18 I didn't charge like a million dollars per movie.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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?

Speaker 15 And then, 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.

Speaker 15 It was the best documentary ever made, but no one ever saw it. Oh, wow.
And now there's like this urban legend that goes right on.

Speaker 15 The lore grows. He becomes even greater as a result of this, right? They're like, you know, years from now, he'd be like, Ezra Edelman, Grandpa, tell me about Ezra Edelman.

Speaker 15 They're like, oh, let me tell you about the one work that he never got to release. Like, what? And then we're going to make a movie about this 30 years from now by the hunt for the Ezra cut.

Speaker 15 And then they're going to go and they're going to break into like Fort Knox, where it's hidden in the thing. And lasers come on.
And Prince's family, and the lasers are purple because Prince.

Speaker 15 And the Prince's family like, ha ha, we knew you were coming. And then

Speaker 10 a gold scrander falls down.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 10 You got to run away from it.

Speaker 13 He needs like an artist

Speaker 13 stunt 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?

Speaker 13 Like, I think that you have to have like a blimp that you project it on that's just flying around town, so you have to be following it around if you want to watch the whole thing.

Speaker 13 Or you just have like a water machine, and then, like, to what Amin was saying, you light it up purple, and then you're just projecting the movie on the screen. Like, you just do stuff like that.

Speaker 13 You need a big artist, like, to-do. That's what's missing here is the passion from Ezra, I think.

Speaker 15 Billy, let me ask you a question though. Would you be worried that that would reduce from, because whatever the imagination of what it is, is always better than what it actually is, right?

Speaker 13 The movie probably sucks. I mean,

Speaker 13 like, like, we're just setting the expectations up to this level.

Speaker 23 Hold on, Pablo said it was the greatest thing he's ever seen. Pablo

Speaker 13 smoke up his friends' asses. 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.

Speaker 5 And that's my famous friends.

Speaker 5 Like,

Speaker 25 we get it. You're friends with childish campaigns.

Speaker 13 Like, we get it. Exactly right.
Like, enough of that.

Speaker 19 The expectations are so high.

Speaker 13 And if we're going to be honest about the OJ one,

Speaker 5 we all thought way too long.

Speaker 5 Wait, like, an editor.

Speaker 13 Editor Edelman is what we needed there. Eight episodes, way too long.

Speaker 4 Could have been six at best.

Speaker 6 I don't agree with you anymore.

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Speaker 13 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 2 You don't remember the idea of that?

Speaker 22 I was probably like, that kind of thing! Something? Okay, no. The home run call was that kind of swing, that kind of thing.

Speaker 19 Stugats.

Speaker 13 Oh, it's a good call. Thank you.

Speaker 28 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.

Speaker 4 You just got to do that.

Speaker 22 got to swing, that kind of thing.

Speaker 20 This is the Don Lebatar show with his two gods.

Speaker 2 So Amin said in the middle of that, Amin said, who cares? And my answer to that would be, he does.

Speaker 15 I would not. He cares about the cattle?

Speaker 2 He cares about working on something for many, many years and not being able to show it to people.

Speaker 2 While people journal, I will tell you that when I write, I don't write to put it in a drawer, but I want a small, I want to stop for a second and just ask, as I often do too much, way too much, about origins, why is there smoke blown up an ass?

Speaker 4 Like, what is happening there?

Speaker 17 It looks good, Dan. Does it?

Speaker 15 Does.

Speaker 15 I don't, I don't. You ever had smoke blown up your ass?

Speaker 13 I don't yuck someone's yum, man.

Speaker 2 I don't know whether that is yuck or yuck. Singles.

Speaker 11 I'm unfamiliar.

Speaker 18 You are the king of yucking other people's yums, Billy Gill.

Speaker 13 I'm very pro-yum.

Speaker 2 I would say that that is exactly the kingdom that he rules over. Yucks and yums.

Speaker 2 And he just makes them collide together.

Speaker 2 So, yesterday, and this was interesting to me because we have seen

Speaker 2 over the years sort of the morphing of sports reporting and sports entertainment and big stars merging so that

Speaker 2 whatever the entity is, in this case, it's ESPN and Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James, and I cannot resist the sirens call.

Speaker 2 This is all great content for the machine.

Speaker 2 It is funny to me that everyone here is being more childish than Bronnie.

Speaker 2 because Stephen A.

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 11 calling LeBron a liar, which I have not seen him do a lot of.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 wants to sit this house. He says he didn't want to talk about it, sure.
And then he puts him in tidy whiteys eating ice cream, enjoying that LeBron confronted him during a game.

Speaker 2 But the childishness in it,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 4 You're the second best.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You can't resist it.

Speaker 15 I can.

Speaker 15 I was ashamed yesterday.

Speaker 15 All of it. All of it.
Both of them. Everybody.
And then the things

Speaker 15 and seeing the reactions. Man,

Speaker 15 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 and say, enough.

Speaker 15 Enough.

Speaker 15 This is embarrassing. This does not represent our sport.
And by the way, LeBron said a lot of stuff yesterday that I was just like, what are you talking about? Giannis has scored 200 in the game.

Speaker 15 He said, oh, Brian Winhurst says he's my friend.

Speaker 26 I'm like, that I didn't like.

Speaker 15 I've known Brian Winhurst 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.

Speaker 15 Damn, I've never heard Brian say that about people who he's actually friends with.

Speaker 15 So for LeBron to say that matter of factly to tee up a McAfee lame-ass Photoshop of like, oh, he was your teammate.

Speaker 22 Oh, there he was.

Speaker 17 was, ho, ho.

Speaker 15 And then they Photoshop him. Like, it was so, because LeBron had a problem that Brian said the reason why he signed with Nike, whatever.

Speaker 24 And my thing was, like, okay, so say he was wrong.

Speaker 15 He's never said he was your friend, never acted like he was your friend.

Speaker 15 It was, all of it was just so odd.

Speaker 11 He called him weird.

Speaker 15 I'm like, that's weird, dude. Thinking that someone's your friend or whatever.
So the thing, Dan,

Speaker 15 I say to all of that,

Speaker 15 it's like, LeBron has a responsibility, just like Stephen A has a responsibility. That when they say things, yes, they're human, yes, their feelings get hurt, yes, they react and lash out.

Speaker 15 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, whatever.

Speaker 15 In the same way, Dan, that... a week ago, two weeks ago, whatever,

Speaker 15 you said,

Speaker 15 why aren't asking about LeBron using PEDs? And I said to you, Dan, you can't say that. You can't say that.

Speaker 15 And you're like, Why not? I'm just, I'm not saying he is. I'm saying, why isn't why aren't more people asking?

Speaker 15 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 of my life, finally, someone's saying the quiet part out loud.

Speaker 2 I mean, no, I had a lot of NBA players texting me, and I couldn't like it.

Speaker 15 But, Dan, that I, because I saw it. I saw how you thought you were just doing this intellectual exercise.
And I'm telling you, no, when you say that,

Speaker 15 people take it as gospel because Dan Lebatt 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.

Speaker 15 And when these guys talk flippantly in that way, it hurts our sport.

Speaker 12 It's embarrassing.

Speaker 2 You're interesting in this respect because

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 last 15 years in media with and around LeBron.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And when you say it's bad for the sport and the commissioner should step in, I think you're wrong.

Speaker 2 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 instead of the game, you'd be right there, but you sound like

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 and LeBron, try to keep up in the modern game of attention is currency.

Speaker 10 Stephen A.

Speaker 4 aging is insane.

Speaker 13 Stephen A. has never been younger than he is today.

Speaker 1 Fine wine.

Speaker 10 Get out of here. Select them crack.

Speaker 15 The commissioner, first of all, is a steward of the game. The steward of the game.

Speaker 15 And that is

Speaker 15 part and parcel of making sure that it doesn't cross a line. Is the attention currency? Yes.

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 and all based on fact.

Speaker 15 LeBron also said, oh, yeah, you know, the NBA made sure I went to Cleveland just like they made 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.

Speaker 15 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's stuff that, you know, for instance, the kind of

Speaker 15 humor that some comedians on podcasts do. I wish we could do that here all the time.
I can't because I understand I'm not in that space.

Speaker 15 And if I make that joke, it doesn't land the same way as when a professional comedian does.

Speaker 2 Billy wanted you to make it. Billy wanted Jess to make it earlier in the show.

Speaker 15 Trust me, that's not the joke that anyone wanted. But the point is, Dan,

Speaker 15 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, which is this is the only way to get that kind of attention.

Speaker 15 This is the only way to get everyone talking. And I I don't believe that.

Speaker 19 It's the easiest way.

Speaker 15 Okay, why do we have to do it the easiest way?

Speaker 15 Like

Speaker 15 as a sport, right? Again, I don't see Pedro Martinez fighting. Well, no, I guess not Pedro Martinez want to be the guy who's a

Speaker 15 Bug Shambi having an argument with Jazz Chisholm about, hey, man, you should just man up. Who cares if they cut up your feet or whatever?

Speaker 2 You really, on opening day, you showed your baseball ignorance there. Jessica thought I had a bad bad analogy.
Boog Shambi against Jazz Chisholm is not Stephen A. Smith against LeBron James.

Speaker 6 You know, if you're ignorant about baseball, you might want to go to a game. You know, today, Sandy Alcantra, Paul Skeens at Lone Depot Park.
And if you want to go to that game.

Speaker 15 How would I get to that game?

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Speaker 15 Game time. Ooh.

Speaker 15 So, Dan, I don't see this happen in any other sport where like, yeah, there's always going to be the curmudgeons, the old guys, like, man, these young guys didn't do it like us.

Speaker 15 Yeah, Yeah, there are going to be young guys who'd be like, oh, man, I wish I could pitch to Babe Ruth. I would, you know, I'd strike him out in two pitches or whatever, right?

Speaker 15 Like, there's always going to be those, but you don't hear it at the pinnacle. At the pinnacle, we don't do that.
And again,

Speaker 15 this is tied into every conversation we've had about, oh, the NBA ratings, NBA PR, whatever. Like, man, at some point, the commissioner's office, you can't control everybody.

Speaker 15 You can't control Gilzarina. You can't control oddball.
You can't control those fringe places.

Speaker 2 You can't control Stephen A. Smith.

Speaker 22 Yes, you can. Yes, you can.

Speaker 15 Because that network broadcasts your stuff. I can't call in everybody.

Speaker 19 I can call in

Speaker 15 everyone from ESPN doing their NBA stuff. I can call in the best player in the game.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 2 Yes, but it's a different age.

Speaker 11 And the two people.

Speaker 15 Is it still money? Is it still money?

Speaker 2 It is still money, but I will tell you, having run into these clashes at ESPN

Speaker 2 with Rob Manfred, who was trying to control what I was saying,

Speaker 2 that ESPN could not do that to me.

Speaker 17 And while Stephen A.

Speaker 2 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 against the company.

Speaker 2 I would say that Stephen A.'s present power is such that he could absolutely buck the people involved. And if

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 15 I'm curious. By the way,

Speaker 15 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 called them.
That's my job.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Because it's not just, here's money, you guys do our stuff.

Speaker 12 Have at it.

Speaker 15 Say whatever the hell you want. No, Stephen A.
There's language in there where it's like, hey, man,

Speaker 15 you want us to take you to court on this?

Speaker 2 ESPN is a good corporate partner. Stephen A is a good corporate partner.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's great for their television partner. In fact, I'm going to say that LeBron James went to McAfee.
Like, that's Indiana.

Speaker 11 LeBron James doesn't do that.

Speaker 2 LeBron James, LeBron James. They play the Pacific.

Speaker 26 They play the Pacers.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 That's not doing a favor for a...

Speaker 15 A corporate partner? Dan, you're so naive sometimes, man. Yo, you think he went there? Cause he's like, I need to do a solid for ESPN.
Do you think he did that?

Speaker 15 Or did he do, I want to take a shot at ESPN.

Speaker 15 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 Warjanowski guy, what am I going to do?

Speaker 15 I'm going to be Sean Shirani, who doesn't work here every week, right? It's not an accident. It's not an accident.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So, because people ask me, man, LeBron, why didn't he go to Gilz Arena? Gil's his guy. He trained his son.
Why did he go there to say those things? Why didn't he go to All the Smoke?

Speaker 15 stephen 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 rich and why did shannon sharp why didn't he go shannon sharp why did 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 from miles and miles away i recognize that i like doing that

Speaker 15 so that's why he went there right and i know they're gonna say oh Amin i doesn't know what he's talking about, but man, like some of these things are pretty obvious.

Speaker 2 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 give 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.

Speaker 2 Like you cannot say that that is not all good for ESPN, all of it.

Speaker 15 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?

Speaker 15 But it's not good if your corporate partner whose rights you like are making money off of comes to you and says, what the F?

Speaker 15 What are you guys doing? That's when it ceases to be good in the same way that everything is is great as long as nobody complains about it, right? Sure. Oh, yeah, no, I cheat on my wife all the time.

Speaker 15 How 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.

Speaker 15 It's like that it's incumbent on Adam Silver to be the spouse who does not allow tomfoolery in the house.

Speaker 29 Does not allow it. Want to make an enemy out of me?

Speaker 15 Yeah, and there's that sure i mean look it's i i 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 like real contenders i actually booked my hotels we did a bit on the show which one i i booked them all i do this every year i booked my hotels for the finals guessing where the finals 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Yaniko Jokic is in play. All of these things, the Celtics, everybody.

Speaker 15 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?

Speaker 15 Because I know all of the talk today is going to be about, I can't believe Stephen that said he would have swallowed my man. I can't believe that.
It's not about what they said.

Speaker 15 It's the fact that they're saying it. Like, hey, group chat it.
Go do that behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 You understand, though, what I'm saying to you?

Speaker 15 You're saying, what you're saying to me is, if it bleeds, it leads. Like, you're doing, you're doing trash, kind of like most common denominator stuff.
And you say it's good.

Speaker 11 I am doing

Speaker 2 what ESPN is doing, which is what do the people want? What do the people want? Not what's good for the sport. Like this is the conflict is your television partners with somebody, but this is

Speaker 11 dream scenario on a Wednesday when there's not a lot going on.

Speaker 2 Your big guy is fighting the league's big guy in a way that makes for good media. that I guarantee you the ratings go up on when McAfee is interviewing LeBron and he is saying those things no so

Speaker 15 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 like like you're not wrong but that it can be a poison you're not you're not wrong in that yes 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.

Speaker 15 Why are you so mad? This is great for me. It's not great for me.

Speaker 22 The spouse was getting cheated on.

Speaker 2 It's not a good analogy because

Speaker 2 there's a lot of money being made by your corporate partner while you're having sex with other people.

Speaker 13 What do you mean? Depends on the industry.

Speaker 15 The sex is the money here, Dan.

Speaker 15 The sex is the currency, right? I'm getting more of this currency of sex.

Speaker 2 Your corporate partners with somebody, and what is bad for your game is good for you. That's the conflict.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 5 I don't know what that accent.

Speaker 4 What was that?

Speaker 2 There's been so many voices. There was a German accent before.

Speaker 21 The grandfather was German, when you

Speaker 14 asked about the story about

Speaker 14 Grandpapa and where did we land on the shake situation?

Speaker 13 Can it be shakes if it's green or no? Oh, smoothies.

Speaker 2 We made it a poll question. This is a democracy.
The people decide. Which one are you having? You're having your smoothie.

Speaker 13 This one's peanut butter, which I also think is not a smoothie because it's not fruit nor green. That's a milk nut butter.

Speaker 1 It's got banana in it, though.

Speaker 15 No, it's a smoothie. That's the rule.

Speaker 2 Play Stephen A again with the

Speaker 2 haunting threat.

Speaker 29 You don't want to make an enemy out of me.

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