Transcript of Hour 1: Just The Tip (feat. Pablo Torre)

Sag mal, Nikola, hast du auch immer dieses Gefühl, bei der Steuererklärung mit einem Bein schon im Knast zu stehen?

Boah, nee, gar nicht. Wieso Steuer ist so die Steuer-App, mit der ich wirklich nichts falsch machen kann. Wow. Das heißt, damit ist alles sicher? Ja, genau. Wieso Steuer ist die Steuer-App, die dich versteht. Weil Steuer betrifft ja dein ganzes Leben. Arbeit, Kinder, Partner. Du kannst nichts falsch machen.

Stimmt. Nice.

Fühlt sich gar nicht wie Steuern an. Steuern erledigt? Safe. Mit Wieso Steuer? Jetzt kostenlos testen. This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stugats podcast.

It's crazy that they're just aliens now. But we knew that, Mike. No, we knew that. We already knew. But They're just saying it. You have Congress people just openly saying, get them out.

Not illegal alien.

No, no, no.

Space interventional beings.

The little green men, the Martians, the ones...

You've watched Independence Day. They're here. You just have a congressman being talked to on this side?

There's tanks of aliens somewhere, you think?

There was a congressman that said, There are five to six alien bases underwater that I know of. I believe them. Yeah, of course I believe them.

Why wouldn't you believe a congressman today.

Not even the congressman. Anybody who says it, Yeah, okay, sure. We've got aliens here in our midst.

They're living among us.

Dan rips the crust off a pizza and eats it.

That's huge alien behavior. In fact, all three guys in that studio, if you were to tell me that they were aliens, I'd be like, it checks out.

Most likely, though, who would be most likely? It's Dan.

I'll tell you the reason why. Dan is almost evolved enough. I think Greg and Zaz are done evolving.

I think my dad's the least, actually, in this game.

I just go back and listen to the way Dan eats pizza.

It's pretty easy.

Dan says things sometimes where I'm like, Wait a second, Why did he say that?

Dan always talks weird.

Yeah, he's an alien. The commissary, and it's like, No, it's the kitchen. Why did you come commissary?

Change the subject. They're on to us. The kitchen area, not the commissary.

You said the commissary one time.

The eating area is what you said.

That's also another weird thing that an alien would say.

In a couple of years' time, once our mission is carried out, they're all just going to be intergalactic space dust, and we will go back to our Lord next to the Nebula Galaxy. Our Lord, of course, is Mad Dog Ruso, which I believe everyone- I love the sound of it. If we told the audience that Wemby was an alien, we'd be like, Yeah, how did we not see that? Mad Dog Ruso is an alien. But before I get to Pablo Torre, because he's got another one of these reports, and it's newsy, and it's got a ton of stuff. I really don't know whether Aspiration is the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg, the iceberg. But I think it might be just the tip of the iceberg because he's got more crud in here. I thought Aspiration was the iceberg, and we just find tips, but there's more iceberg. Jeremy, what's the update we have on the pizza eating front? Because Juju admitted after the show, You guys are sitting here making fun of me, and amongst us, someone who tears off the crust before he eats pizza.

I was seething yesterday. I feel like I've never been as belligerent on air toward you, on air or off air, about anything, because I was like, This person is not from this planet. I said it on the air. Why would you even want to tear off the crust?

Again, take it up with Juju.

But forget that part of it. But I've seen Juju eat pizza. He's got an ally with Juju.

He's like, I'm good on this.

But forget that part.

They're telling us the aliens are here and we're just going on about our day.

I've seen Juju eat pizza. He doesn't rip off the crust.

I've seen him eat it. But I go home. I go home yesterday and I'm complaining to my wife because it's sticking with me. I am infuriated about the fact that Dan claims that there are humans on this Earth- And then touch the cheese and sauce. That rip off the crust before they eat pizza. Then my wife says to me, I do that sometimes. Oh, my God. There is. I told her it was a betrayal akin to murdering a member of my family. I was so furious about that. Then she says, Why have you never seen her do it? Because I said, Well, we've been together for 12 years. How? You don't do this. I've eaten pizza with you a hundred times. She says, Well, normally I would just do it by myself.

Alien.

Do it by myself. It isn't a long move. But why? Why would you keep the crust on your fingers? Don't get all dirty.

Insanity. We have verified intelligence from the Soviets that they had an interaction with beings that are not from this planet, and they turned into stone.

It turns out my wife's not from this planet.

Pablo Tori finds out, is still finding out, he had another 5: 00 AM drop that is haunting the Clippers. I really don't know what's the most interesting thing in here. I will ask Pablo, but here is some of the updating around some of the reporting we will say, allegedly, About all things because the Clippers are denying all things. There is a Jerry West voicemail in which he calls the Lakers a Shit Show, and the hints, the strong sniffs that Balmer was interested in Kauai as long back as 2017. There's more stuff here on how many side deals are beyond the aspiration deal. Pablo's again got emails, he's got contracts, he's got documents, he's got three separate lawsuits. Again, a lawsuit doesn't mean that it's proof, one of the lawsuits has been dismissed by a judge, but they have valuable information in there that suggests, among other things, that the Clippers had a side deal, allegedly, with Uncle Dennis to make sure that he got a percentage okayed by Lawrence Terrence Frank, again, alleged to hire Kawhi's trainer, which you're not allowed to do if you're trying to keep things above board on the salary cap.

So Uncle Dennis has an assortment of LLLCs, but I'll allow Pablo to come in here now. Thank you for joining us, Pablo. The episode is flying right now. Pablo Tori finds out because he's the only place any of this information is coming. I thought he was doing this story just because the All-Star Game is in Los Angeles. The Clippers are hosting it in Balmer. I thought it was a timeliness grab. No, there's a ton of new information inside of this. Pablo, what would you say is the most- What if we never talk to Pablo and we just keep talking? What is the most interesting thing in there?

Look, I want to start with a quote from, and thank you for having me, a quote from Michael Winger, who was the Clippers GM at the time, which I've confirmed from multiple sources inside the building, How many fucking side deals have we made with Kawhi? And so What does that mean? How many side deals are there? You get to the stuff that Dane was alluding to. And one of these things, by the way, is documentation that Aspiration is just the tip. It starts in 2017 when Kawhi was with the Spurs. And the question, as always, is what did Steve Ballmer know and when did he know it? Well, in 2017, when Uncle Dennis and the Spurs and Kawhi are having their falling out over medical disputes and personal information, they go and they get Randy Shelton, who was Kawhi's trainer, his personal Tim Grover, as he put it in the episode, in 2017. And they tell him, We're going to hire you if Kawhi comes to this team.

Tim Grover is Michael Jordan's trainer, famously. So just the guy who's working on Kawhi's body, forgive me for offering the context. No, it's it. But the most famous sports trainer there's been is Tim Grover, Michael Jordan's trainer.

Right. So I'll just take it chronologically because they recruit Kawhi in 2017. They hire this assistant GM, Mark Hughes, who was also a former San Diego State guy. They said Mark Hughes to talk allegedly to Randy Shelton more than a dozen times. They promised him a job. Lawrence Frank, allegedly, talks to Randy Shelton, promises him a job. And what is not so clear until now is that Uncle Dennis is being used as Randy Shelton's agent. And so we have Randy Sheldon's contract. There's this dispute going on in LA court. It's headed to private mediation right now. The Clippers, of course, deny everything. Randy Sheldon does the opposite. But we have this document that shows that Uncle Dennis is the representative, the listed representative on Randy Sheldon's contract on his extension now into 2021. And so what does that mean? It means that after the NBA investigated the Clippers and Uncle Dennis for capture convention and all this stuff in 2019, they were still directly doing business with a guy, I am told, in order to get him money directly via the commission on the trainer that they shouldn't have been talking to when he was a San Antonio Spur associated employee of Kawhi Leonard.

Are you guys following this? You basically have a trail that leads back to Ballmer trying to get to Kawhi since 2017. The most powerful sports owner there is, allegedly, trying to do everything inside of this to ignore what are understood rules of the sport because he doesn't have to respect rules of the sport if there are no legal consequences to not respecting rules of the sport. Again, all alleged.

But the thing that I keep on juxtaposing this against, Dan, is the idea that Steve Ballmer in the present tense is saying now in this other lawsuit filed by 11 Aspiration Investors that he did thorough due diligence on Aspiration. And of course, we have documentation, the email chain, the privileged information with Ballmer's chief investment officer and his lawyers and Aspiration's lawyers that show that, oh, wait a minute, he did this in an insanely fast time frame at the founder of Aspirations Urging, and now Steve Ballmer says, that I did thorough due diligence, and still I got scammed, right? And so all of this is to show that when Steve Ballmer does thorough due diligence, he does it thoroughly. He does it years before it's even able to go get Kawhi lettered. And so then, you mentioned the voicemail, right? It takes us to another lawsuit that was filed. And this one got dismissed because Johnny Wilkes, who is the man who filed this suit, is the high school basketball teammate of Dennis Robertson, Uncle Dennis. And he was saying, I was promised two and a half million dollars by Jerry West to bring Kauai Leonard to the Clippers.

And of course, he didn't have a written contract. That's a through line in the story of Johnny Wilkes in this case. But here is the voicemail that Jerry West leaves Johnny Wilkes that illustrates How much of a full-court press of thorough due diligence the Clippers have been doing, this one from 2019.

I can't believe you got this.

This is Jerry calling. I really want to thank you a lot for trying to help. I heard this morning that everyone over in the Lakers camp think they're going to get him. I just find that hard to believe that he would want to go to that show where he would not even He wouldn't get his name in the paper, and he wouldn't be the face of the franchise, that's for sure. He might be the best player on the team, but I hope things are well. And well, again, I really, really appreciate everything you've done.

Jerry West as the logo and a Laker, calling the Lakers a shit show in the recruitment of Kawhi Leonard. It's like the fifth most interesting thing in this episode, if I had to rank it, and I found it super interesting.

Yeah. And we have text between Jerry West and Steve Volmer, who's being kept updated by Jerry West about all of this. This is Jerry West, by the way, texting Johnny Wilkes, the plug for Dennis Robertson, just wanted to thank you for your help. If he would go to the Lakers, he would be LeBron's caddy. So this is head-to-head Lakers versus Clippers. The Clippers to see this as existential. They need Kawhi Leonard to save... Doc Rivers would later say, If we didn't get Kawhi Leonard, we should just move the team to Seattle. And he said, I meant that. It was a joke, but I meant that. That's the stakes of this for the Clippers. That's why Steve Ballmer is putting all this money in. And Jerry West, by the way, who's a former, of course, executive with the Warriors, who was famed for his recruiting there, Dennis Wong, who was the co-owner of the Clippers, Steve Ballmer's college buddy, the loan limited partner he has on the team who's come up in this series before as another aspiration investor, a guy who was in on this whole scheme And so according to our reporting. He's the guy who says, We got to get Jerry West, and Jerry West is deployed to do this, okay?

And so it's Steve Ballmer, it's Lawrence Frank, and then this array of guys, Jerry West, Mark Hughes, they're reaching out to Johnny Wilkes, to Randy Sheldon. And it takes us, by the way, to the present tense, when four-year extension is the announcement for Lawrence Frank.

Can we stop there for a second, guys, and absorb that in the middle of this scandal. And Pablo is showing you the documentation that allegedly links Lawrence Frank very completely. It's meticulous. It's got addresses on it, on how it is that the circumvention is happening, how it is that Kawhi Leonard, out of nowhere, takes a $9 million discount. Lawrence Frank, after that disaster of a press conference before the season, signs an extension. And that could look like, Oh, I got to keep this guy on my side. He knows everything. I've got to keep paying this guy to make sure that he doesn't tell anybody anything that links me to anybody if I need a fall guy a few years from now.

And that's not abstract conjecture. That is NBA executives telling me they view Lawrence Frank's extension as, quote, unquote, Balmer hush money, as it seems like maybe someone with lots of money is trying to disrupt my Internet connection here. Do we have that, though, Dan, the Lawrence Frank presser? Because I just want to make clear. Lawrence Frank got asked this stuff once. No one else wants to talk about this, but he got asked about it at Media Day, and here was what he said about the rules.

We haven't learned anything more than we have back in September.

And to be honest with you, it doesn't impact anything we do.

We know it's out there.

We know at some point there'll be a decision made. We very much feel the same thing that we told you back in September, that we're on the right side of this. And then whenever they make the decision, they make the decision, but it really doesn't impact anything we do on a daily basis. So the part that I have not talked about yet until this part of the timeline, we're going back in time to 2017. We're also finally getting to the post-aspiration era. Aspiration, keep in mind, bankruptcy filing, right? They owe Kawhi Leonard $7 million, according to the paperwork that was filed with the government. He is a creditor. And so what's interesting is that Aspiration collapses. They owe him $7 million, and Kawhi Leonard signs this extension in January of '24. So January '24, he signs a sub-max extension. He leaves money on the table, Dan. That's what you were just alluding to. And the question is, why would this guy who has extracted money via Uncle Dennis as much as anyone has ever seen before in pro-sports, at every possible edge, why would he take a discount? And what we show in this episode is that perhaps, coincidentally, I guess, three new LLCs are created with Uncle Dennis as the representative, as the manager, the guy on the paperwork, in the week before that.

And And so our investigation, when you say Aspiration is just the start, this is what I mean. It is documentation and signals everywhere in a pattern, by the way, that starts with Randy Shelton, who started KL2 Performance LLC in 2017. Let's not forget that. That was the first of the KL2s, into now January of '24 with KL2RIFC, KL2RIFC Real Estate, LLC. And all of this stuff is signaling that this story, in many ways, is just starting. Can Can you believe that? If the NBA cares about it.

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Don Lebetard.

Greg, how's your birthday going so far?

I invented it.

It's going fantastic. My wife and I are staying home tonight. We're watching the debate on TV. We're going to do something special for dinner. It's a nice day for me so far.

Stugatz.

That sounds like not a super nice night, the debate.

Old people love that shit.

Yeah. That's exactly right. Old people do love that shit. I'm old now. I can't deny it anymore.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

Can you believe that part? Okay, just understand when Pablo is doing eight installments of this, this was the first episode where I was like, Wait a minute, the original story was shocking. Wait, this is going to get a lot worse than this? It's going to be more than just $48 million for a no-show job. It's also going to have Kawhi taking nine million in discounts that we can chronicle because God knows how many places some of this could have been existing if the world's richest sports owner is trying to conceal from everybody in a meticulous fashion that he's not going to play by the NBA's rules because how are you going to touch him if he can do it creatively? I really was shocked as I was listening to this to be like, wait a minute. Aspiration can't be the tip of the iceberg. It has to be the iceberg.

But here's the thing that keeps on happening to Steve Ballmer and Lawrence Frank, right? So they keep trusting people to keep a secret that they care about very, very deeply, which is NBA a rule-breaking. And so they trust Randy Shelton, who sews them in court. They trust Johnny Wilkes, who sews them in court. They trust Aspiration, which is now blown up, of course, in court. And there is one document here, right? So the question has always been, If you're going to play ahead the game here, who's the fall guy? And I think the order on the league is Lawrence Frank would be the guy who has a four-year extension. He has the alleged hush money. He has a payout if anything happens to him. But the question is, what touches Steve? And so at every step here, what I'm doing in 2017 and on is showing you Steve Ballmer was in the loop. He was authorizing this. Lawrence Frank, your president of basketball operations does not do things. He's rogue. He does it at your authorization. And so there is one document that I've been told about by multiple Aspiration sources, okay? And this is the part where it brings us back to Aspiration in the present tense, because there are two reasons why I'm in this prison of reporting.

One is the bankruptcy filing of Aspiration, which revealed KL2 Aspire LLC. The other one is the fact that Joe Sandberg, the co founder of Aspiration, one of these guys that Steve Balmer trusted, who he realized later on, too late, I shouldn't have trusted this guy to deceive the NBA. That guy got arrested by the FBI and is awaiting sentencing. He's a hearing in April. And what I'm told by multiple Aspiration employees is that the reason Joe Sandberg got arrested The domino that tipped all of this stuff over, that started a federal investigation that finally got Steve Ballmer out of the aspiration business, was because there was at least one whistleblower inside the company who went directly to the federal government and submitted, presumably in writing, presumably under penalty of perjury, a complaint. And that complaint was the roadmap to get everybody else who committed criminal acts actually in trouble. And the question that has been raised to me over and over again- This is That's important. The thought is, did that whistleblower under penalty of perjury in writing mention Steve Ballmer and circumventing the NBA salary cap in writing? Did they put it into that complaint that started everything?

Because if that document exists, that is the closest thing you could ever have to a smoking gun on letterhead under government supervision. And if that exists somewhere, then the NBA cannot possibly say, This was a rogue President of Basketball Operations. This was from the very top with the richest man in sports.

Pablo, will anyone have the guts to ask the Commissioner about this at All-Star Weekend?

I don't think so. I don't. Look, I've been canvassing media members. Sadly, Dan, again, thank you, Dan, for paying for the reporting, for having me on the show. I have backchannel to lots of other people with shows, and And they don't want to touch it because they don't get it, because they think nothing is going to happen, because they're like, Wake me up when the punishment comes. And I'm like, The whole point here is to use journalism in public to hold accountability up as a goal for everybody to still strive for. Waiting for the NBA to punish this? You're waiting for the system that enabled it to punish itself. Why would anybody expect them to do anything they didn't have to do? And so All you can do, as I asked your question, is ask questions, but I don't think people really are in the mood for doing that. That's the shame of it.

Well, let me ask the group here because I don't know if it's a founding principle of Pablo Tori finds out necessarily, but it's certainly become one of its ideals as it's gone on. Pablo is tweeting that he's committed to using journalism to doing something that feels increasingly impossible, holding billionaires accountable. This is the richest one of all, but I do feel like the room is bored. I feel like room on the details of some of this, I feel like everyone is like, Oh, wake me up when there's a punishment.

I'm not the least bit bored, but it's very overwhelming. That's why other podcasts don't want to touch this because it's dense, it's complicated. But The thing that I can't get out of my mind is the idea that Steve Ballmer can't be the only billionaire owner in the NBA or in sports in general who has invented this-Yes, but this is really hard to prove, though.

Okay, let's Let's prove it once before we prove it with everyone. What this lays out, though, and this stuff is really, really difficult to document, imagine how hard it must be to show information that Steve Ballmer, with that power and that money, does not want seen by anybody, his fellow owner's least of all, because this isn't a crime. It's just a shame that will make him someone who wants to win so badly that he's willing to cheat, that he's willing to cheat in a way, allegedly, that Pablo's got not only receipts on, but timeline that is super, super incriminating in just appearances, in just optics. But It's really hard to pin down what would be identifiable proof the way he's laying it out, though. He's done an exceptional job. Samson and Amin have been exceptional, helping put the framework and the nuance around how it is that it really works in the Halls of Power because they've been close to these Halls of Power. What you're doing, Pablo, I think is so thick that it is hard to consume, but he's the only place that the information is coming from. I see people going there in hundreds of thousands because they do want it.

Why don't more want it? Why don't most want it?

Because the cost-benefit analysis, what you cost, what you risk, what you lose is you lose access, you lose the ability to be protected legally, potentially, depending on whether you know what you're talking about or not. You also lose favor with, frankly, the NBA itself, right? All-star Weekend is a party. I get it. I love the All-Star Weekend. It's the biggest holiday in the NBA calendar. To be the turd in the punch bowl is not what I want to be. It's why, by the way, Emina Hassen is here doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions. That's why David Samson, his eyes are degrading, and he has to get increasingly strong glasses because I'm forcing him like a lab rat to read documents, which he loves, but to do it on camera in front of everybody to see how people actually talk when presented with evidence. I mean, Dan, the thing about this story, the reason why this has been one of the most trafficked episodes we've done on the show so far is simply because people are realizing there is a way that the NBA media talks about this stuff in group chats, privately. They're out at bar, they all talk about it.

All-star Weekend this weekend, you can guarantee they're going to be whispering about it, but they wouldn't dare take the effort to report it out and risk something in public. There are some exceptions here and there, and I welcome them to jump into the pool because the water has been warm for a while. But that's the difference. Do you want to know the truth or do you want to know what the apparatus is telling you you should stop asking questions about because is it really going to get punished anyway? That's the problem.

Let me ask the question of the group here because I am curious about this. Joe Rogan is one example, made an entire empire out of believing in conspiracies and it being profitable. Then presented with the Epstein actual one, now that's one that he doesn't quite believe in the way that he believes in all the ones that didn't have any proof. What What's happening here with this as a conspiracy? Because it is the rarest of things to have a reporter digging in on this documentation, contracts, emails, texts. It's hard work. So what's happening when the conspiracy is presented to you? Why wouldn't the entirety of the media grab that? Is it that much of a cabal? Is the whole thing that compromised that what Pablo is saying is true? I don't believe that that can be that NBA media is so interested in protecting its economy that it doesn't dare touch this. I believe NBA media looks at this and says, I can't do it. It's too much. It's too sprawling. I can't do the reporting on this. It's too hard to do the reporting.

I mean, most sports journalists are lazy because they think of what they're covering as the toy store. And Pablo is exactly right. This should be a much bigger story in the other media than it is. It should be the overarching searching story of an All-Star Weekend hosted by, of all teams, the LA Clippers. But it might not even be touched because we'd rather write the fun feature about Wemby.

I don't think it's lazy, though. I think it's just too hard to do.

It's too daunting.

It's too daunting. That's fair. I want to be fair about this, right? So the reason why we do this in fairness to every other media member in the NBA who's like, Look, I just want to cover the games, man. I want to talk about how all of this is shaping on the court, right? And I'm okay with that because on some level, that leaves this niche to me. That's why we are distinguished in comparison. The thing that I urge people to realize, though, is that this is like a true NBA crime story that is a conspiracy that's not a conspiracy. This is the story of someone for whom money is no object and rules prevent him, as the richest man in sports, a guy with $140, $150 billion, from just spending in the way that he thinks he should be able to spend. And there are rules against that. Do rules matter in the NBA? Do they matter in society? Do they matter in government? This is part of why I care about this stuff. It is because sports are a metaphor, but they're also reality. It's reality because the question of, and Greg is a good question that I've heard a lot, could there possibly be other owners who do something similar?

What I've always said is that this is a function of degree. No one has the ability to buy the rest of the NBA combined. This guy does. No one was the CEO of the foremost monopoly in America, Microsoft, when the American government's Antiprust Department was coming after them for monopolistic behavior and anticompetitive practices. That was Steve Ballmer. Steve Ballmer didn't give a shit about the rules around competition when it came to the actual federal laws. You think he cares about the NBA salary cap when he thinks that the whole might makes right great man theory of capitalism is, I have the most money, you're preventing me from being as deservedly great as I already am? Keep in mind, dude was punished for capture convention with DeAndre Jordan in 2015. That was another team sponsor, Lexus. Punished. 2019, investigated for capture convention with Kawhi Leonard related directly to some of the stuff we're talking about, which the NBA, apparently, either saw or didn't see, both of which are embarrassing, with Randy Shelton and with Johnny Wilkes. That's 2019. And now, of course, we come to the third Capsule Convention investigation in his tenure related to stuff that they already got cleared for because the NBA didn't really look into it that hard, or so it would seem.

And now, on top of that, you have Randy Shelton's lawsuit, you have Johnny Wilkes' lawsuit, and you have 11 Aspiration investors who are alleging that this dude aided and abetted fraud. And I'm not saying that he I'm merely saying, in totality, this is how documents shake loose. It could be really boring to read a bunch of documents, but I guarantee if you see the timeline unfold, and we will make a master timeline for everybody, I promise you in the next couple of weeks to make it very, very easy, as easy as we can. When you see it all in order, you realize this is an insult to your intelligence as a sports fan. And it's also really funny because they tried to get away with it. And that's the needle we're trying to thread.

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Don Lebatard. Surely every time you're watching this, you recognize that your wife is laughing that she married Larry Larry David.

I do, yeah. One of the great characters in the history of television, in my humble opinion. To my credit, my personality- In my humble opinion, followed by to my credit.

To my credit.

It's amazing. My personality does predate Curve Your Enthusiasm. Stugatz.

Oh, wow.

I'm not going to say Larry David patterned himself after me.

All right, put it on the poll, please, Jude. You did Greg Cody, Copyright Being an Ashole long before Larry David.

This is the Dan Leventhal Show with the Stugats.

Going to the journalist element of it, it is more complicated for these local media members who cover individual teams when they go out to All Star Game to ask these questions because for them, they're looking for job security, right? In a media landscape that's shifting the way that it is, do you want to be the troublemaker? Do you want to be the person who's asking the tough questions when you're making your money off of the team that you cover, giving you information, and they're your sources? Now, they might be looking at you asking those questions as, who knows? Maybe they're trying to cover up similar types of things as we're talking about. All of these owners and all of these general managers are looking for potential shortcuts to win, do you really want to be the person that now potentially loses out on sources because of that? In this specific landscape where journalism already isn't being funded, why are you going to join the fray of the outcasts of the league?

It's more complicated. Pablo, the thing that I think, though, was most revelatory in an episode that has an assortment of revelations in it is tying all this back to 2017. Putting the scent out there of, Oh, the world's most powerful, rich sports owner has wanted something badly for eight years. Yeah, Jeremy was talking too long. It was way too long. We really enjoyed that. Yes, it was too long. We Yes, it's always too long. It's always too long.

I relate.

Thought you wanted us locked in, Dan.

That part, Dan, the whole this goes way back, and Steve Ballmer has every resource to do it. I mean, this is where the NBA, as an on-court thing, if you're a fan of the Spurs, let alone the Spurs front office, if you're a fan of the Raptors, let alone a member of the Raptors front office, you're watching. And I've heard from those camps already, you're watching this episode and you're thinking, how is there not some compensation that we are due because of how the Clippers did this? Because they sent emissaries out with one job years before this guy was a free agent when he was under contract, specifically. When I say it's like a mockery of the rules, I mean that both like, yes, this is textbook, like bad corporate behavior. It's It's also a mockery in the sense that it's really funny. All the characters here are ridiculous. They're ridiculous people. Randy Sheldon, the trainer, is talking about he wants to make Kawhi Leonard a human avatar, like the movie Avatar. Johnny Wilkes has this YouTube channel that no one's noticed in which he's offloaded all of these straps of evidence. And he's like, Uncle Dennis, a Sizeful T-Bate.

He's just a guy. All of these characters, Lawrence Frank is out here trying to not lie in public while effectively and demonstrably lying in public. And Steve Ballmer now is in hiding somewhere, and he's about to come out of his cave to say, Welcome to the Intuitome, the richest palace in the history of sports. Welcome to this place that was built in ways that no one should ever know about, because all of it hinged on, Can we get a superstar? Can we get Kawhi Leonard? And that brings us back to the fact that, Oh, yeah, Kawhi is there, too.

Don't Chris to cut up Jeremy's question, please. There was no question.

There was no question.

It was just me rambling. The thing about it, this is what I want you guys to do, all right? This is what I want you guys to imagine because I close my eyes sometimes when he's talking, and I imagine him strolling into the room, spinning a parasol. It's just how it always starts.

You sometimes look down and don't look at me while I'm talking. I close it.

I close my eyes because he can't just come in and ask the question. Look, I can be long-winded, okay? I can be, obviously, more so than ever these days. But it's always strolling in, spinning a parasol. Everyone's here to see me, right?

Oh, no. He knows how to speak.

Honestly, that question was toast before he asked it. We rattled him so much. They were staring at me already saying, If you think you're family?

Before I even started, Dan.

If you think this is the time and place for you to ask one of your questions, go right ahead.

Tony bailed. I saw Tony wanted to get in.

The room is bored.

Somebody, please.

No, my issue is that my window closed because Pablo ended up talking for another seven minutes after I wanted to say something.

Pablo Tori finds out is the podcast. Go. All the information is there. We haven't actually spoiled it. I did think the best thing in the episode, Amine has never been better with his impersonation.

Amin is incredible.

It's the best he's ever been with his impersonation.

Peek Amin is what you get in this episode, if nothing else. He has never been more expert and more on point as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

See you later, Pablo. Thank you. I love you guys.

Tony and I were Mezzador and Bane on the edge waiting for Jeremy to get this question.

Snap that ball, I swear to God. This is what I saw on the front end, though. I saw Tony was blocking with Jeremy. Tony turned sides in the middle. As soon as the ball was snapped, I saw Tony become a pass rusher. When he started the play as an offensive lineman, he was lined up next to Jeremy. He's like, I don't like my team anymore. Now I'm a pass rusher.

Yeah, I went, you go, and then, Oh, Mike has something, too. So, yeah, you guys go before me. I'll go on the back end of that. Nope. If you think your family?

You went on the back end, and then we got you.

It was like a 95 second- What applaud twist.

Meet the quarterback. It was a costume change. He started in the stance where he was going to drop back into pass blocking with Jeremy to protect the quarterback. He was like, Oh, he's a quarterback. He turned around, changed uniforms, ran on God.

Three-point stand-to, Dano. There were three logical endpoints. Once he was like, And journalism isn't being funded anyways. I'm like, oh.

Was looking for a yes-and from somebody. Oh, shit.

Why did he do that? I do I was cool for him, but not that time.

We've got a holy trinity between Pablo, me, and Jeremy of unlikable.

Again, I was likable until you guys positioned me as unlikable. The question was a minute long.

I was likable, too, until- Wasn't even We added an assortment of personalities that are in Stugats. Then it became less likable. Again, a holy trinity. Jeremy, you got to do work to be less likable than me and Pablo combined, because that was some real scolding of the NBA media we just did. And then you came in, they're all just protecting their jobs.

I have the question. Do we want to relive it?

Yes, please.

Do we have enough time?

Please. The journalist element of it, it is more complicated for these local media members who cover individual teams when they go out to All Star Game to ask these questions, because for them, they're looking for job security, right? In a media landscape that's shifting the way that it is, do you want to be the troublemaker? Do you want to be the person who's asking the tough questions when you're making your money off of the team that you cover, giving you information? Halfway through. They're your sources. Now, they might be looking at you asking those questions as, who knows? Maybe they're trying to cover up similar types of things as we're talking about. All of these owners and all of these general managers are looking for potential shortcuts to win. If you think that your family... Do you really want to be the person that now potentially loses out on sources because of that? Twenty seconds left. In this specific landscape where journalism already isn't being funded, why are you going to join the fray of the outcasts of the league? It's more complicated. Pablo, the thing- I'm going to go ahead and go make a song.

I'm going to go make a song. I'll be back at the end of the next hour. I'm going to go make another song for a sponsor.

You guys saw it. Just try to cut him off, man. Yeah, well, he was- You got a clock.

It's sharper than that.

What happened?

You let him go for a minute and a half. I eventually just cut him off before whatever the discount was. It was like, whatever he thinks the in the gymnastics routine as I came in and took him at the ankles just as he was hitting the palma horse. Like he's, I'm going to nail the disp out here.

Roy adjusted his seating the middle of it. I was like, Man, this room is getting muggy.

Cody's goatee is longer than it was when the question began.

Mike, you know I have one rule to live by, right?

Don't place parlays on multiple long shots. Don't say a game is one when it hasn't hit triple zero.

Always drink your Jägermeister ice cold. That's the rule. Everything else is merely a suggestion.

Everything else?

Everything else.

Wearing clean underwear every day?

Well, that's just a personal decision.

Brushing your teeth?

Obviously smart, but not a rule.

Never PP on an electric fence.

Okay, maybe there are two rules, but the one that is 100% that I insist on completely, Jägermeister must be drunk ice cold. Or don't drink it at all. Damn, that's cold. Exactly. You're finally starting to get it.

Drink responsibly. Jägermeister L'Core, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mass Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.