Transcript of Dan Le Batard Threatens The University of Miami Athletic Department | Hour 1 New

This is the Dan Levitan Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

This episode of the Dan Levitan Show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Worst pitcher name: Homer Bailey.

Greg Cody, during the break, Mike, I don't know whether you would have felt bad for him the way that I felt bad for the immortal Hulk Hogan watching the documentary on Netflix about him. Because Greg Cody is an immortal, and you would have heard him during the break just muttering to himself, and he said this out loud, I heard him, "Even my inner voice is against me. I can't win around here." He muttered it sadly, and you would have been— this— he deserves more honorable punctuation to his career than that. That seemed like a setup. We weren't setting up. We were going for a sit further away. I'm also not aware of the clock. Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that the inner monolog would also have no idea where the clock was. Yeah, okay. Unfortunately, we will not be able to get to Greg Cody's catchphrases because we already did that on Monday. They needed— they put, uh, they pulled the emergency ripcord on Monday.

We weren't here on Monday. Me, you, or Mike weren't here. How do you know what they were?

I know it's not right, but they, they took our months-long joke that is Greg Cody's successful months-long long joke on the Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody with show. And so that's where we are with things at the moment. He is mad. I didn't get to any of what I wanted to get to in the local hour. Radakovich, the University of Miami athletic director. There was some heat stuff I wanted to get to, and now we've lost our opportunity.

Yeah, what can you do?

Not a breakdown of Jansen Junks' new kick change.

Nobody wants to talk about the angle variation on his fastball.

It was that Fangraphs approached him and said, hey, your velocity's higher when your arm angle's a little bit lower, from 53 degrees to 49 degrees. And then he went to the folks over at, uh, you know, his pitching staff in the offseason, and they said, all right, there is validity to this. And it's really impressive, his velocity's up a whole mile an hour.

I have top 5 things found in junk drawers if you want that also.

Nice.

Put that in your back pocket. Actually, no, I like that. Let's do that here, uh, because, uh, am I alone here? I don't know what this polling is doing, but the junk drawer is a positive thing. People think of the junk drawer as a positive. It's got the stuff you need. I can You learn so much about you by looking in your junk drawer.

It makes a house a home. It makes a house a home.

I would love to peruse your junk drawer. All right, put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Does a junk drawer make a house a home? You can learn a lot. It's true. You don't— at your Airbnbs, you're probably not as homey and comfortable as knowing where your things are in the junk drawer. But I look forward to seeing this because I know everyone— you cannot get consensus about anything in this country, but I am sure everyone's got batteries in their junk drawer.

Damn it, number 5!

Number 4, scissors. Number 3, matches. Number 2, pens without a cap. Yep.

Oh yeah.

And number 1, takeout menus.

A lot of those in there. Multiple junk drawers. Where's my Chef Shen?

Yeah. I have a 2002 Marlins schedule magnet in there.

All right, this is what we should do. We should— I— the thing is, you guys won't actually do this. You'll edit it beforehand. I think we should send out on social media today, everybody should, a guided tour of their junk drawer. I'd rather show you my belly button.

I'll do that. I'll take the condoms out because I don't want to embarrass anybody. Paper clips is another thing. Yeah, some screws.

Screws?

Yeah, I got a lot of spare keys. A lot of them I don't know where they belong.

Chapstick.

I think one of them is for Boog Chompy's old apartment in New York City.

It's an old used chapstick that you won't actually use anymore.

No, I use it if I use it. I'm not gonna use somebody else's chapstick.

Ain't touching that chapstick.

A lot of cables. Where do these cables go?

I don't know where to put those leaflets that end up in your door from like the roofing company that has a little discount on it.

They're like, I might This one ends up in the junk drawer.

Push pins.

Double your junk. Uh, you guys were listening so poorly while sort of rummaging around in the junk, uh, junk drawers of your lives that you missed that Cody said that he keeps condoms in his—

No, I heard it.

There was no reaction to that.

Uh, everybody knows it.

Magnum.

Gotta be safe.

Uh, extra large.

I— That's what— That's what— That's what your inner voice just said. It just said magnums. But we got a huge hammer. You're so clearly lying that you don't know the name of the condom. Look at the size of my wrist. It's a good tell.

When I hear Magnum, I think Magnum P.I., the guy who's keeping Hawaii safe. And you know it.

Veiny. You're the— and you know it goes to veiny, or were you not listening to what it is that he was saying? Vascular.

I thought that had—

smaller balls though. I can hear Roy's laughter through soundproof glass. Don't make it right. Roy came in here pissed off. I did not think that the antidote to the things going on in America— he's pissed off because TMZ is chasing around Vrabel's wife, and he's pissed off because Trump wants His face and all your passports.

Yeah, we're going too far over here. Why are we chasing around Brady's wife like that?

She's just shopping. Now we've gone too far.

Oh yeah. Also, your mark is a trigger for Roy.

Oh my God, this man set the Panthers back 15 years.

We was here.

How about free tickets? Remember University of Miami? Listen to me, you better not— not your mark again. We already did that in this town. Don't do it again, University of Miami. I'm threatening you. I'm threatening my alma mater. The reputation is known. You don't have to do one conversation with him. Well, he'll do the business dance of snake oil. The reputation's known around here. Very few people have ever come through here and blazed guns that way and had less success.

There is one thing interesting happening with the pro-Yormark propaganda is a lot of people assume, well, he can bring in corporate deals, like he's a dealmaker. And at least 20 years ago, no, he wasn't.

Right.

No, he was historically bad at making corporate deals. And for whatever reason, that seems to be the driving force here. He presents very well and he has convinced people that he is some top-line dealmaker when in the history of sport, at least 20 years ago— people can grow, people can change— he was the antithesis of that.

Put his face in all our passports. Since we're celebrating dealmakers now in our passports. We're celebrating patriotism, Dan. Uh, I wanted to get to Roy's, uh, point here though about, uh, following around Vrabel's wife. TMZ—

I didn't know this.

Well, so there's a lot here, right? Because everyone's just really skipping past the paying for the photos part of this, which isn't journalism, okay? It's just the only two entities that have ever done that are the National Enquirer in America— National Enquirer and TMZ— and they've won. Like, whatever that is has won because the standard has been cheapened. Throughout. And so you may hurt for Vrabel's wife or kids that are involved in all of this that have to go to school. And of course nobody's thinking about them, but this is just a horror for everybody involved. And, uh, TMZ succeeds at doing this. They're willing to have a different standard that is cheapening, and it has worked. And no one cares about that. It seems to me that no one cares about the cheapened standards because no one cares about the paid photos. They're entitled to the information. entitled to their private lives, we've lowered the standard, the country has, on where and when we're willing to go to reward entities for shaming people. Like, if the internet exists to make a joke and dunk on people, all of us laughing at one person, that standard has seeped into what is now passable news coverage on what it is that we're doing.

But Roy's objecting to what she do, like, what Why are we taking pictures of her to make her famous, to make her life harder? And the answer is it works. TMZ has been rewarded for it. TMZ is one of the few modern media entities that can succeed in the cheapened standard, right?

I mean, Mike Vrabel is a public figure of the extreme, of the highest order. His wife shouldn't be. She didn't sign up for any of this.

But you can object with the line. The line's only going to keep moving, and you will either feed it or you won't, is what I'm saying. Like, you could be be appalled by this if you want, but it sells. It, it is the thing that has won. It works. If, if newspapers got left behind because they're throwing yesterday's news in your bushes and the internet is instant, the internet standard has won here. Because go look at what this does for numbers all over the internet, this story that's not being covered this way elsewhere, but people crave it. And something's gonna emerge that will give it to them. If it's not TMZ, it'll be someone else. Like, the cheap and standard will be fed. It's, it's a mirror. Like, you can only complain about that so much. They'll keep pushing the line to see, well, when won't you watch? When will you get outraged enough? What happened to the Murdochs after they got all their money is people got outraged because they were hacking phones and they let a family feel like, because they were hacking phones, that their dead daughter was still alive because messages were being retrieved.

And that's, that's what caused the Murdoch family after after they had made their money, breaking news all over the place that everybody was like, how'd they get that? Well, they, they broke the law. That, that's how they got that. And no one cares because we want the information. And that appetite is greedy. It is, it is endless. We want, we absolutely want this. So you can complain about it, but you're lonely on an island waving a flag as the ocean has rushed past you and swallowed the island.

Yeah, I don't complain about it. I think whatever Mike Vrabel has done in his private life on some level is newsworthy. And I hate to say it, but I think it is. But again, his wife in all this is, is a victim. So are his children. And they shouldn't—

You say it's newsworthy, but historically it hasn't been like that's not something you've read in sports very much of where you have coach is not faithful to his wife, allegedly.

You see it with players.

It's not— but we don't do a lot of this. You say it's newsworthy, I'm like, okay, give me all the examples of when coaches—

you know, I mean, this show did a lot of laughing at Rick Pitino and continues to.

Yeah, look, even like Erik Sproul started getting a divorce, it was in the news. We know about that because it was in the news.

Pitino wasn't the infidelity, Mike. It's 17 seconds of sex in a restaurant.

You dress up as Bobby Petrino.

That one was.

Our show has done a fair amount of laughing, and the reason why we're not laughing so much is this one hits closer to home.

But immorality and infidelity in marriage is not something the news covers. Like, unless Tiger Woods' wife is putting a golf club through the back of his car, and then the law is involved.

But it depends on your stature, right? Like, Mike Vrabel, by proxy of all this stuff, has opened his family to be collateral damage with TMZ. Like, that's what it is when you, when you do something like that and you are that noticeable, you open that door.

Alex Rodriguez, Madonna, all over the tabloids. So it is something that goes along with sports. Head over, take a jaunt across the pond and see all the scandals that have been with managers and players alike over there.

But this does— I'm going to keep stopping you guys on— in America, this has not been the kind of news story that engulfs a coach.

This is kind of unprecedented.

Well, but paid photos. To take pictures at long range that don't prove anything, and then the denials make everything worse. The moment it became news for the mainstream, the moment they started speaking about it in any way. If they don't address it, it's not news. Like, it's not something that classifies, passes the vetted standard of how it is that journalism journalism, right?

But it was embedded in the gambit because they were sitting on the photos and confronted them. And look, it's been reported that Robert Kraft tried to squash the story because they had lead time here. Within the story were statements, statements that you just said made it worse. Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game. You get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game into a special time, into a Miller Time.

That's right.

This happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time! Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down! Or letting your worst hitter bat first! Or like going for 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go! It wouldn't make any sense! So don't let the team down. When it comes to Jägermeister, drink it cold or don't drink it at all! Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister Likör, 35% alcohol by volume. Imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York. Dan Levitard. This is the quickest it goes. Hey, this is the quickest it goes.

Stugatz.

Everybody, this is the quickest it goes. Yeah. This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz.

Is there a world where Brady is not the coach of the Patriots next season?

I don't feel like given the information that we have now, that that has been at risk. But I am telling you right now that the problem that he faces is not the immorality. It's to go from laughable to family counseling and what that does to your credibility as a leader. Like, it's his reaction to it that's the problem. I will tell you again, you know nothing of the personal lives of coaches, legends, people who are much more famous than Vrabel. Like, you just don't know. I'm telling you the stuff that you can say about, uh, legends that like Amin knows, for example, that would never be uttered on the show because it's, it's just not what we do. Unless you turn it all into gossip, unless you turn it all into the internet will be rewarded for this because they're talking about this in a way that ESPN won't or can't. And there are rewards in that because people do want that sugary candy.

Well, how much of a role does it play and this has been the case with a bunch of the situations that you've mentioned as well, Mike— that this became public. Like, it wasn't digging into his personal life. They have been photographed out in public.

That's what— that's how it becomes a story. And also, there's a reporter here, and that is extra salacious. But there have been plenty of coaches in that sport that have had something not quite similar with a reporter, but have had these things, and there are no photos of it.

Right.

It wasn't in public.

It goes away.

If, if Mike Vrabel is photographed with a female who is totally anonymous, nobody knows who she is, Mike Vrabel is not in as big a soap opera as he is now.

I don't think these photos were purchased. I don't think they get purchased under those circumstances. And I want to go back to the purchasing of the photographs because you guys keep going the next step on this, which is Well, he was photographed in public, yes, but the starting point is photographs were taken by somebody from a distance that were then paid for. And the reason I bring that up is because any of you in our audience right now, you good with the standard of journalism of I put a private investigator on you because I don't like you, I embarrass you, I then sell those photographs that embarrass you and, and sell those to a newspaper or a publication that publishes that. That's journalism. You good with that? Are you good with that? Somebody putting an actual hit on you and then money transacting because it's not about fairness and truth, it's a transaction.

No, it's super slimy.

Okay, but we keep getting to the last part without, it seems to me, do I have this wrong? No one's identifying the first part of this. Like, do you realize that the standard's cheapened and it's not whether about two people are immoral or not, it's about how we're covering this.

Yes, but no one seeing that on their timeline is saying this This isn't journalism. Yeah, that's not how people think. That's how journalists think.

I know, but that's how it dies. That's how the importance of it dies, and that's how the standard gets cheapened. Yes, agreed, agreed. Journalism is losing.

And I know that you mentioned, uh, a PI potentially. I've seen so many different reports, the most recent being that this was some random couple that spotted them and someone recognized, uh, what was happening.

I'm simple. That wasn't specific to them, and thank you for the correction. I'm just saying, are you good with that as a thing that happens? Because you're like, well, he's a public figure, they're public figures, that's public. Do any of you want to make it you here on, on somebody is— let's say somebody's health.

It does seem as though they, they benefited plenty from photos not being published. There was a photo from 6 years ago that people dug up only now. There was reportedly— I saw plenty of photos of Jay Glazer's pool party with 28 head coaches. Despite what Pablo said, like, we're going off of what Pablo said. There are no photos of Mike Vrabel and Diana Rossini's alleged pool party that happened just across the way. They've been out in front of cameras. They've been out at a casino. I saw a photo of that. So they, they have benefited over the years, apparently, of not having photos published.

Getting to the sports of the evening last night, uh, I really do hate watching the Boston Celtics on missing all of their threes. They missed their last 14 shots of the game. And I don't know what the danger is here. I don't want to be the one sounding the alarm on it because I do enjoy the playoffs and I enjoy basketball. But these games not being close unless the teams are shooting in the 30% and then the two teams that are looking like they'll be representing the conference are both teams that nobody wants to watch esthetically. Like, you're not going to make the games close and you're going to make Boston's really distorted everything where they're just gonna make more threes than you 4 out of 7 games, and on the 2 games that they can't shoot at all, they missed the last 14 shots last night, and then have us talking about Joel Embiid all of a sudden because he's a pretty important player if he can stay healthy. But the last part of that sentence cannot be extracted from the first part.

It's the worst team to watch. They're just a math team. That's all they are. They're a math team. If they make more threes— did they make more threes last night? No. Okay. They lost the game before that. Did they make more threes? Yes.

Okay.

They won. Yeah. Like that's every— and it's not like that in the other games. It's only the Celtics. If they make more threes, they win. If they miss more threes, they lose. They're the worst team to watch. Knicks, Sixers, it's going to be a good series.

Funny enough, we would talk and lauded this, this team for like they're reinventing the game. They're just putting up more threes. 3 or 4 years ago, we were talking about them like they were the next generation.

No, they're the dullest team, the Celtics.

And now, 4 years later, after a championship from a hurt Mavs team that Luka carried on his back. With all that, it's like, all right, now we're tired of them when 3 years ago they were the next thing.

I will tell you what was honestly my experience last night. And I'm somebody who I haven't even told you guys this, but like in the '80s on network television, like the Sixers were a team that I loved before the Miami Heat even had a basketball team. Like I fell in love, you know, with Mo Cheeks as a player and Moses Malone and watching something like Sixers-Celtics back then.

I—

the child in me would have never imagined all of the distortions that would have to happen so that last night after the first quarter, Sixers are 3 for 13 from 3. The Celtics are like 1 for 9 from 3 and Bede's missing all his shots. I'm like, goodbye, no more interest in this. The Celtics are going to win that series because they're going to make more threes in one of these games. It doesn't matter whether they're at home or on the road.

You turned off the game?

Yes, turned it off. Turned it off after the first quarter because I was so disgusted by 3 for 13 and wide open. The 3 for 13, 1 for 9, and it's like 23-21 after the first quarter, and you can't even make the argument that it was good defense. It wasn't good defense. It's just make the threes, don't miss, don't make the threes. But what the Celtics are doing when he says they're playing with calculators in their hands— Brad Stevens is Executive of the Year 2 of the last 3 years because they've distorted the whole thing. If Tatum's healthy, you can't guard him. Like, he'll, he'll get his shots from out there and he'll take 30 of them and, you know, whatever. Like, it's not fun to watch, but you can't guard him from out there. You could throw all your Dortz at him, all your Caruso, anybody you want to. You can't guard Jayson Tatum. He's always gonna get his shot, uh, because, because how do you stop that length from getting those jumpers? But it was excruciating to watch for the one quarter that I watched it yesterday.

And they're kind of X-factor being Derrick White. When he's off, he's been bad this whole series. I He's like 7 for 30-something from 3, and it's like he's such an important piece to what they do because he's the one that glues everything together. You got Jason Tatum, you got Jaylen Brown playing a lot of one-on-one ball, spreading it out to shooters when they can. If Derrick White is not being assertive in the offense, it's like, oh, this is a big problem for the Celtics.

Everyone on the Celtics tip— I mean, this is the team you think is winning the Eastern Conference. I'm sorry, man. Like, I don't see it.

I see it. I know when I talk about the 3-point shot in basketball being an epidemic. I'm just the old guy harking for the good old days. But it is an epidemic, and there are easy ways to prevent it. And here's one, and I'm being serious here: you can't take more 3-point field goal attempts than you do 2-point field goal attempts. Okay? You have to take more 2s—

Well, teams don't do that.

That never happens.

You can't legislate the game like that, Greg.

That's a mess up. Stop interrupting us.

That never happens.

It happens a lot.

I mean, the Celtics last night took 50 2-point attempts and 39 3-point attempts.

OK, it doesn't happen.

But it does happen.

Greg, it doesn't happen very often. Getting back to Derrick White, he is 7 for 33 in the series from 3-point range. He's averaging 8 points a game, 29% from the field, 21% from 3. That's as bad as the Celtics can play, and they'll throw those stinkers out there. The thing I'd like to talk about for a second, though, is Joel Embiid, because this guy has been sort of playoff cursed. He is going to be one of these people who people say about, I don't know how much he cared, when last year he's playing through Bell's palsy in his face. Uh, the year before that he had orbital bone, uh, some orbital bone. Uh, this year he has an emergency appendectomy. Like, those sound very painful. Like, if you're a rather— a regular appendectomy is bad. An emergency one suggests that you were in a lot of pain and had to be taken to the hospital.

Well, they're all emergency.

I was thinking if there was any other kind. Yeah, it's like, oh my—

oh, oh God!

It's not like, hey, let me get this preventative one. Usually like, what's that?

Oh! So that's the only time that—

It's only emergency surgery.

I think that's true, yeah.

The only time that you know there's a problem is when it's about to explode.

Is that right? Well, because I've been getting MRIs recently.

How many times do they tell you, man, you got a bad appendix?

It's not something I've actually considered before, right? Keeping an eye on that thing. Uh, put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Is there any other kind of appendectomy other than emergency appendectomy? But wait a minute, you guys are laughing at me for— okay, wait a minute.

Gonna get that preventative appendectomy.

Okay, take mine out.

Not a thing. What do you got for June?

It's like wisdom teeth.

Don Le Batard.

He has been great. He's made great hires.

I said all.

We've said— he said all that. Yeah, everyone has said everything. Everything you're saying, it's all been said. Okay, you got to understand one thing.

Stoogatz.

Me Maximum. That's right. Until I say it, it hasn't been said.

Boom.

Okay, understand that.

You're the mayor.

Until I say it, it hasn't been said. Me Maximum.

Me Maximum. Me Maximum. Me Maximum. This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stoogatz. Here's the thing though. If you guys are right, then every time I'm reading emergency appendectomy, It's redundant. Yeah.

You guys are saying ATM machine.

Okay, but there's no reason.

That's right.

There.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

I can be fully honest with you. Like, you may be right. There may be precautionary appendectomies. I have never heard of one. Every time I hear appendectomy, the word emergency is before it. It's an emergency when an organ explodes.

But appendectomy is sufficient is what I'm saying. It would appear that emergency appendectomy is something they're throwing in there to suggest an urgency that appendectomy by itself does not.

Can't eat after midnight tonight, I'm gonna get my appendix removed tomorrow.

Yeah, I think it's a lot like the collapsed lung, Dan.

Yeah.

It's not like, "Oh, you should watch out for that lung, it might collapse on you one day." Hanging on by a thread. Yeah, it's one of those things that, you know, when it happens, then you go.

Again, though, collapsed lung is not redundant. Collapsed lung. There are any number of things that can happen.

What about punctured lung?

Standardly, emergency appendectomy. But sometimes while they're rummaging around for some other stuff, they'll just go ahead and remove the appendix.

Yeah, that's another stuff.

Yeah, like when you're cut open, they realize, hey, this thing's about to burst.

It's like in the junk drawer.

Oh, it could be a healthy— it could be a healthy appendix that they remove because it's useless.

Okay.

You—

okay, question. What is the appendix for?

Append—

appending.

Let's look up the appendix app. The app.

Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Do you know what an appendix does? Also put it on the poll. Does an appendix do anything?

Why does it explode?

It acts according to Google AI, so take it with a grain of salt, as a safe house for beneficial gut bacteria, allowing them to repopulate the digestive system after illnesses like diarrhea or antibiotic make use.

So then what happens when you— sorry, Dan— when you remove it, that gut bacteria is just—

you got to build a new house.

They hang out.

They're all just chilling in there.

But then they got those probiotics. Yeah, that's probably what that's for.

Prebiotics too.

Oh, prebiotics.

Getting back to Embiid, a cursed basketball player. And I don't know if you guys know this. San Antonio wins rather uneventfully. I think San Antonio against OKC is going to decide your championship. Uh, but, uh, last night— this is, this is a fairly shocking thing to say, I think— the Spurs are winning their first playoff series since 2017. Like, this is one of the winningest franchises over the last 30 years, and they've done none of it over the last 10. So the, the Spurs are sitting there getting past the playoff round as we are talking about the failures of the Miami Heat. But the last time those two teams competed at the top of the mountain, it's been 8 years since the Spurs had anything that had a reasonable chance of advancing past the first round. So you have that game. The Sixers, no matter what you think of Maxey, will go nowhere if Maxey's their best player. Like, they just won't. It doesn't— and this is not— I am not disparaging Maxey by saying that. I'm saying they need Embiid for the process of those 7 years I was just talking about with the Spurs.

He's the process. Yes, he's the thing that you have to get in order for you to knock off the Celtics, and he misses half the games. And so he will be remembered, I think, as someone who did not care, when I think the guy has played through things that tell me he cares way too much and his body just keeps betraying him.

Yeah, 100%. Like, even we saw that in Kansas, right, when he was in college. He missed a bunch of time with the foot injury, got drafted. But with this whole thing and with the emergence of Tyrese Maxey and him being a legit all-star and potentially superstar in the years to come. Like, I think this is Maxie's team right now. I think Joel Embiid is the biggest X-factor in the NBA because when he's in there, he'll give you a smooth 39-9-7, and then you're like, oh my God, that guy's great. But then he'll also do the thing of him floating around the 3-point line and having 12-7.

If it's Maxie's team, it goes nowhere. It goes nowhere.

It was Maxie's team this year, and they're in the playoffs.

Yeah, but they're, they're in the playoffs And they're going to lose the team that makes more threes because they're not as good as Boston. Because basketball, for however much they distort it on the math, that Knicks game, that Hawks game is how that one goes throughout the history of time in Game 5 after 5 games when the higher seed is playing at home and the superstar has the superstar game.

No, you're right. It's, it's Maxie's team only because it's not Embiid's team.

Correct.

Like they wish it were Embiid's team.

But it can't be.

Which is why Embiid has to be your best player for them to go anywhere.

You say it can't be, it must be. But the thing that has— this guy, the way that he plays basketball, okay, if he were healthy, he would be one of the best players there's ever been if he were out there all of the time. He's trying to get out there, but every year in the playoffs he's wearing a mask. His face is shattered, uh, and this year it's an appendectomy. But when I talk about what the Spurs haven't done for 7 years, everything the Sixers have done for the last— how many? 12 years— has been about that guy playing in these games, playing like that in a game on the road at Boston because it's his team. And Maxie's how you build around him. Maxie is how you get the secondary player. Uh, if I'm not kidding you when I say I think that Embiid, uh, at his healthiest— and this is an oxymoron moron, but at his healthiest, that is a player that I can win a championship with if I could get him to stay on the court.

100%. Like, he's, he's a functional big in a way that we've rarely seen, where he can back to the basket, he can shoot threes, he can get to the hoop, he can shoot, he can drive, he can defend, he can do all those things. The problem is he can't stay on the floor, which is a major piece. Tyrese Maxey, Dan, runs the most miles of anybody in the NBA. So when you talk about the building of what the Philadelphia 76ers are, I think we're looking at it from two different paradigms where the one I'm looking at is if we can build everything around Maxie, Edgecombe, a lot of wings, a lot of defenders, Quentin Grimes, and then add the X factor of Joel Embiid when he's healthy and get him healthy for a playoff run. Like, that's how you build that team. You can't build it around Joel Embiid playing 65 games, if that.

Uh, Embiid was doubled right off the go last night. Uh, he wasn't even near the basket and they went and doubled him. And he says correctly, uh, quote, I feel pretty good about my chances of going one-on-one against anyone in this league. I don't think I can be stopped, uh, only by himself, only by his own body. It's, uh, it, it is interesting to me to see a player who's playing with a mask, who's, who's coming back early from an appendectomy, whether it was an emergency or not, gut receptacle, um, that this person is always playing some form of hurt, uh, damaged, and is going to have a reputation forevermore as someone who can't be counted on and doesn't care Well, that part I do think is justified, especially when you consider his resume, his laundry list of injuries.

The book on him is that he doesn't put himself in the best position physically because he doesn't take care of his body, and that's a preventative measure that could help. Uh, yes, there are some guys that take all the preventative measures in the world and they're just brittle. He happens to be brittle, and he also has a bad diet and is not a conditioning guy.

Yeah, he's one of those guys that that in the playoffs has had unbelievable moments like that one, but then has also had several series where late in games he's getting run off the floor because he's exhausted.

Oh, but wait a minute, that's where you need Maxie. Like, that late in games, like, that's how you build a champion. Like, that late in games, that's how you make Maxie a superstar, real superstar, not someone playing as a 7 seed for the rest of his life because that's what his team is going to be if he's the leader of it. That's precisely what it is that San Antonio has in De'Aaron Fox. Like, they don't need Wemby to win the games at Well, they also have Stephon Castle and Vassell, and like, they have a laundry list of guys—

Sixth Man of the Year and Keldon Johnson. Like, they've built that team around Wemby, obviously, but they've done everything around him to keep the Wemby— non-Wemby minutes okay with the Luke Kornet signing. Like, they've put together an extremely, extremely good team. Um, it's just the Sixers have always had this thing of like, if we can build enough behind Embiid, we'll be okay. And like, it looked with the VJ Edge drafting, with Maxie stepping up, with Paul George being somewhat better, Quentin Grimes off the bench. Like, it's, it's there. They have it.

Mamba, yeah.

I have a 3-point update.

Did you hear that though? You didn't— what was that? You looked around the room as if you— what is this? Mamba, yeah.

Uh, somebody mispronouncing Wemba Nyama. Who's doing that?

Pat Riley.

Mamba.

Yeah.

Ouch, that had to hurt.

He said he'll only trade Bam if he gets 8 picks and Mamba.

Yeah, that would be— well, he's abbreviating the name. He's saving a syllable. I give Pat credit for that. He's saving his breath.

Back to the stats that would help our point.

Okay, and it does. You can bend stats, as you know. Okay, the 3-point— the percentage of 3-point attempts in the NBA has increased for an 11th consecutive season, and so have the percentages of games games where 3-point shots outnumbered 2-point shots. So I am being foresightful when I say that the NBA at some point needs to limit 3-point shots and that there's an easy way.

I don't want to change the rules, though, in the first round of the playoffs. No, no. I don't love doing that.

No, I agree with that.

No, but just, I don't love it as a conversation point. I think it's— you don't love sports enough if this is what you're doing.

But in Greg's defense, The Celtics in particular last year became the 4th team ever to take more 3s than they did 2s in the regular season.

Really?

Thank you, Billy.

That is my man right there.

Why Brad Stevens is Executive of the Year. You guys do understand. And Missoula, I will remind everyone listening to this that when Missoula got down 3-0 to the Miami Heat not that long ago, Everyone here thought that he might get fired, and everyone here, uh, wondered after that season if he was a good coach. And the reason he's a good coach, as these guys become more and more middle managers and Brad Stevens leaves the job, Mazzulla has, because he doesn't want to be a middle manager. He wants to be the guy who's actually the one with the power. The way that he wins Executive of the Year is by creating a distortion with the assets that he has that allows them to shoot from distance 40 and 50 times a game, and they're very good at it. And when, when you say they're playing with calculators and it's math, yes, 4 out of 7 games, because they're very good at it, because they've got very high draft picks, and Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum together, if they cave in your defense, the shooters are going to be over— going to be open for the rest of time.

Like, that's not going to stop. Is it good coaching, or did they just break the system? System, and they're now creating something that we're complaining about where they can beat OKC too if those are the 4 games that they make their 3s. It's less likely the way that OKC defends, but still, in 4 of 7 games, when you distill it to that small a thing, isn't that why Brad Stevens is your Executive of the Year and viewed as the guy who's the smartest in the league? And why Mike Bryan is saying of Sam Presti over of the Year. He needs to replace Jerry West as the logo because these architects have replaced the middle managers as the most important thing.

What you're, what you're saying is not wrong about Brad Stevens, but I think he wins Executive of the Year this year because they weren't supposed to be good. They traded away big pieces, they added other pieces, and they were really good.

But is that not a Missoula conversation of getting the most out of guys that were just okay and average, and then also not having your best player for an Achilles?

Or it's having two first-round picks, top of the draft guys cave in your defense and you can find 3 Struces now. You can find them wherever it is you go looking for Struces.

But that's the development of the entire franchise, right? Missoula has a big part to do.

They cut Struce. They got more—

they got a Peyton Pritchard.

Give me that Struce.

Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game, into a special time, into a Miller time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call ball and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.