Transcript of Hour 1: Umbrellas Are For Losers (feat. Pablo Torre)

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This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stugats podcast.

Pablo.

He dropped another Pablo at five o'clock this morning. We'll get some of the details in a moment. One of my favorite moments at ESPN, I'm going to have to make a top five list at some point of my favorite moments at ESPN, but one of my favorites was Pablo Torre dressed as an Orca listening to Jesse Ventura as he talked Conspiracy Theories. And now Pablo has joined us, which I believe is one of the laziest costumes I've ever seen. He's supposed to be a mummy to pay for his punishment of losing last week, and all he's done is wrap himself in toilet paper. I see the mummy.

That's the punishment.

I like it.

Got another way to wrap yourself up.

How else is this supposedIt's supposed to be improved?

The whole body. If you're going to be a mummy, it's supposed to be the whole body.

The leader of the mind, Dano.

It's supposed to be a wrap that's not toilet paper. It's supposed to be like Ace Bandages.

You got two bucket punishments today, Dan. Be grateful.

When you were a kid and you wrapped yourself like a mummy, we always used toilet paper.

Historically so.

Thank you, Zaz.

So Pablo- Print media.

Print media, Dan. I thought you were a fan of print media. Pablo.

He dropped another Pablo at 5: 00 AM. He is now at this point harassing the Clipper's PR Department at 2: 00 in the morning. They cannot sleep because of what they have to wait for him to drop. So what is-I feel bad.

Can I just say, I feel bad for the Clipper's PR Department?

Leave it there. Yes, go ahead.

Yes, go ahead. I feel bad for the Clippers. If I can apologize to the Clippers communications Department. We send them detailed questions.

You can clear your face.

We send I've been asking them detailed questions the night before. They're the first ones to know what we're reporting. And yeah, it's just not an easy job. I mean that very sincerely, actually. It's just not an easy job they have. I don't think they have all the information, and they are out here trying to do their best. I feel genuinely bad as someone who interacts with PR people.

Can you come up with a new strategy for that toilet paper? You keep doing the same thing, and it keeps falling right in front of your face.

Now it's too much toilet paper. Not enough toilet paper, now it's too much toilet paper.

Do something different.

He's right. You keep just Moving it up, it falls down.

I got a bunch of questions, okay? Is one of them, is it two-ply?

I don't know if there's half-ply, but this feels like what that is.

It's cheap toilet paper on top of that. That is toilet paper that does not look like it would be comfortable to use.

There you go. No, we're good now.

We're good now. Let's talk about what it is that you reported this morning. But before we do that, let's check in with Billy Gill, who is presently doing something that Kawhi Leonard allegedly, reportedly never did. He is planting a tree in order to save the Earth. He is using both hands. Can we get a microphone out to him so that Billy can give us an update? Look, this seems like it's almost complete, Billy.

Yeah, roots in the ground, Dan, as they say in the planting community. We're pretty good here. I just got to fill this in, and then I got to attach the Velcro straps to make sure this thing grows straight. But this little guy here is going to live a long, healthy life, I think. Hey, Pablo, it's Billy.

That's a cool hat, Billy. It's a cool hat.

Thank you. It's a wrangler. Rose's grandfather gave her $100, and she spent it on a cowboy hat, and she brought it for me to wear today.

It's the American dream, as far as I can tell.

C crushing it, Danny. It's some good work. I believe he's from Guatemala, so maybe his American-Guatemalan dream.

The Guatemala dream is also worthy of our consideration. In the power ranking of dreams, the Guatemala dream doesn't get enough credit.

Pablo and Ted slow.

I'd like to clear this up. Excuse me, just a moment. I like to, for the record, say, I am not saying Guatemala and dreams are lesser than American dreams. Pretty sure that's what I heard. That's what I heard. How about you zip it up since you just said an idea came from your heart, which is impossible.

You don't know what's possible or not possible inside this body.

This soda drinker's body. Pablo, what did you report this morning?

I got Roy to be the lawyer in a a courtroom reenactment of an exclusively obtained deposition transcript in which Joe Sandberg, the man who has played guilty to wire fraud in the aspiration case, the man who has allegedly defrauded Steve Ballmer, was asked questions about Steve Ballmer. We had you, Dan, play Joe Sandberg. We had Roy, play the lawyer for Joe Sandberg. I don't think that's the biggest story in our story. It's just my favorite part that Roy is in the episode.

How about the biggest part of the story for people who are not quite interested in Roy's role, acting role in this particular episode?

Don't look at me. Roy crushed it. Yeah, there it is. Steve Ballmer invested $118 million in 18 months into Aspiration, him alongside the Clippers, alongside Team Ballmer, let's just call it. Dennis Wong, previously established owner, co-owner of the Clippers, Steve Ballmer's college roommate, the CFO of the Clippers. We have documentation from him in which it is clear that he signed off on the pre-purchase of $21 million in carbon credits, as Mark Cuban had hypothesized, actually. A lot of this episode is admittedly about what Mark Cuban said would have happened if Steve Balmer was absolutely guilty of capture convention. And then I just spent my life proving that actually he did the things that Mark Cuban hypothesized. So, yeah, a lot of carbon credit purchases. Two weeks before, in fact, they were due yet another Kawhi Leonard payment. So just a lot of that.

Zaz, why are you and Chris I don't know.

I'm a little embarrassed right now. Am I the only idiot that doesn't know what a carbon credit is?

You're watching it in the bottom right corner of your screen. Billy is creating a carbon credit. A carbon credit. Guys, it's a great question. So it's meaningless. Well, allegedly. A carbon credit, everything in the world, I mean, trees, you, me, we have carbon in us. Our activities emit carbon. And so what you do is you create something, you plant a tree whose very existence, of course, as a recycler of air, can actually take carbon out. That's what trees do. They put out oxygen, they take in carbon. And so a carbon credit is literally the planting of a tree. Would be the very five-second messy summary of a, frankly now increasingly scrutinized business that was at the core of aspiration in this episode, and Steve Ballmer's alleged circumvention of the NBA salary cap.

Am I going to have to fire the reaper for coming in here without a mask? Am I going to have to discipline- Peter, the mind, man.

That was not on...

Nothing was on the screen. And also was wearing a mask.

I don't think that the reaper- Was wearing a mask just because you saw the reaper's hair. I saw who the reaper was.

Stop owning everything. Not everyone This is who the reaper is. Maybe take some ownership of what you just did. It wasn't on camera. We were trying to move the show along.

Pablo, what would you tell people like Zazlo and Billy who are alleging that the league is not going to do anything, that Silver is not going actually punish the Clippers?

Yeah, I'm going to say this in the current form that I currently exist in, which is probably a miscalculation by me, because I think this question hinges on whether the NBA takes this reporting seriously. I mean that this is a story that has, frankly, astounded me in terms of just the interest from people. If you were to think about just the stories that I've looked into, I didn't expect this one to be as big. I don't think the NBA did either, frankly. And so I say all of that to say that the NBA is a wildly reactive organization. Keep in mind the salary caps, CBA, circumvention, the rules are not real laws. They are things adjudicated by the commissioner. And so the question the commissioner is going to ask himself is, how small can I make this problem before it becomes a problem for us? And every episode, this is the fourth episode we've done in an ongoing investigative series, just indicates that the scope of this is genuinely unprecedented in terms of how elaborate it is, in terms of the implications for what people should have known but did not act upon, allegedly. And so the question of how could the NBA escape this?

Frankly, it depends upon how much people care about the story because the journalism, I just can't stress this enough, despite what I am currently doing with you at this moment, the journalism could not be more serious in terms of how real the paperwork is. Documentation is the story of investigative journalism, and we have the documentation. When you don't have the documentation in the absence of, for instance, the note that says, I circumvented the Cap, signed Steve, with a heart emoji, you got to go to human sources, primary sources. I've given now an seemingly ongoing parade also of that. People who went on tape, people who are now signed, the CFO of the company, former CFO, the chief legal officer, the CTO, they're now on the record disputing the idea that Andre Cherny, the co founder of Joe Sandberg, of Aspiration. What he said, which is that this was not a no-show deal, that this was something that he doesn't remember the salary cap being involved in. Those three guys have cosigned their reporting. So I think it's just a matter of, are you a serious person? Are you a serious league? Even though you're being questioned by a person who is wrapped in half-fly toilet paper.

I think Adam Silver has given off the impression, which is not just an impression, it's a fact, that he works for the owners. He works at the pleasure of the owners. And if Mark Cuban is defending Steve Ballmer the way he is, even with all the evidence, the reporting in front of him, and he's not even an owner anymore, what makes you believe that the other active owners don't feel the same way.

Well, he's a 27. He correct me on this when I first interviewed him. He's a 27% owner of the Mavs, says. He's a minority owner of the Mavs still. But you're right. The question was last week when Adam Silver goes in front the Board of Governors in New York City at the St. Regis Hotel on Wednesday, with Tuesday committees happening before that, in which Steve Ballmer, by the way, is the chair of the Audit Committee. The chair of the Audit Committee of NBA Owners is the man under this investigation. And so the question of how do the other owners feel? I can tell you I've spoken to, I can say I've spoken to four who think that it's absurd that this is something that the NBA plans potentially on not punishing proportionate to the evidence. And it's about the evidence. It's not about me. It's about the evidence I have surfaced. And Dan, by the way, Dan added to the reporting on this in the episode in terms of an owner who said before that meeting, and during that meeting, Steve Ballmer gave us the sob story. I should be clear, the sob story can coexist with the scam story.

You keep on saying this. Two things can be true. You can be defrauded by the person you partnered with to to leave the NBA. That's why this is so cinematic. There is pain. There is suffering for Steve Ballmer. There's also the most unprecedented scheme, according to my reporting, in the history of salary capture convention.

Pablo, does there have to be punishment laid down on the Clippers and Steve Ballmer for all of this to make you feel like your reporting is validated?

I don't think it's about, frankly, not to sound like a politician. I think it's about the audience. It's about the fan base. It's about the presumption that when you watch sports, fair play as codified in the rules they call cardinal rules, that those things are being enforced. Adam Silver, in every statement he's given, and I've listened to all of them, talks about how he is a steward of integrity, not just brand integrity, but competitive integrity. I think the question I would have as somebody who cares about the sport, as a caretaker of the sport, is, does this undermine the legitimacy of our game? From a purely, what does this look like to everyone who wants to care about it, invest money in it, compete in it, buy teams in it. And then Zaz, you get all the other stuff, right? And the other stuff involves, by the way, yes, the economics of the league. So people may not realize this, but Capsule Convention is really meaningful to these owners I've been speaking to, not simply because It is a rule that they are trying not to break in this way that now, according to my reporting, Steve Ballmer has broken in this fantastical, over-the-top way.

The thing they care about is also the valuations of teams. So the economics of an NBA team, it's really premised on how much do you spend, and therefore, how much should this asset be valued? What Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in all of sports, one of the 10 richest people in the world, is proving that he's proving that he's spending so much more, again, $118 million in 18 months on Aspiration, with the timeline corroborating the payments of this crazy Kawhi Leonard $48 million deal, that's where it becomes comes, wait a minute. So maybe these things aren't exactly the streamlined financial instruments that the NBA would otherwise like them to be.

This episode is supported by FX's The Lowdown, starring Ethan Hawk. Allow us to introduce you to lead Raybon, a quirky journalist/ rare Bookstore owner/unofficial truth seeker who's always on the tail of his latest conspiracy. This time, his most recent exposé puts him head to head with a powerful family that rules Tulsa. Meaning only one thing, he must be onto something big. Fx is the low down. Premiere September 23rd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

Dan Lebetard.

Pablo leads all of podcasting in reading while smiling.

If you listen to ESPN Daily, he sounds like he's having the time of his life. Stugats. Coming up next, I'm going to tell you the Savannah Bananas are changing face. How do you know I'm smiling? That's how I find my vocal range. Sometimes I just say, Savannah Bananas. Savannah Bananas.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

Billy, you have your hand raised. What would you like to ask Pablo?

I have two questions. One, in terms of the story, what was the other 70 million for? So if it was funneled for Kawhi's 48, what was the other 70 for?

Yeah, it's a really good question. So the thing that people need to understand as we go through this is that Steve Ballmer invests money into Aspiration. Aspiration spends all of it virtually immediately. This is an enormous part of following the money and the sources that I spoke to, provided documentation. As well, by the way, as the documented financial filings, disclosure forms that all prove that everybody else saw what was happening seemingly except for Steve Ballmer. As in, Aspiration got tons of money, $300 million in the fall of 2021, $50 million from Steve Ballmer to Billy's question, in the fall of 2021. What happens after they get that money? They spend all of it before Kawhi Leonard's first payment in June of 2022 is due. And so the cycle here is Steve Ballmer puts in money, Aspiration asks for more money, right when Kawhi Leonard must be paid. And so when I speak to the alleged defrauding of Steve Ballmer, this is how it can coexist, is that he was trapped according to the sequence of events and according to what the timeline might suggest in this relationship in which he knew he had to support a company that was guarding the most embarrassing secret that he had.

And so they had leverage, according to the reporting, over him in that regard. Although, of course, the degree to which he knew and when he knew remains, frankly, a crucially important topic for my investigation and the government's.

Billy, Billy, hand-raised second question. Yeah.

Can you explain carbon credits to me? And are they similar to NFTs or crypto? How does this work? And how do I sell them?

You just made a carbon credit, Billy. You just made it.

Yeah, but what is it worth?

Well, it's worth... So typically, what you just did, people in the open market of carbon credits, they pay 5 to 10 cents for that, what you just did. It took me three hours. I know. Aspiration was charging a dollar. That's the margin of the carbon credits business. But your point, by the way, what the CFTC is looking into the federal agency, they regulate commodities, is whether a carbon credit is actually just a commodity, not unlike a stock. To your question is like, what is this? Is it an NFT? Is it a financial instrument? This is an active debate in government. Should we regulate these things like they are stocks? Because what they really are, according to all of the reporting I've done, they're a lot like widgets. They don't actually exist. It's the action of you planting that tree. This tree is real.

No, this tree exists. I can confirm that.

That's a lot more than...

How do I make money off of this is what I'm asking you. Cryptos are like 100,000. How much is this carbon credit going to get me?

Seems like we're not paying very well, Metalark Media, if he's been working for three hours and we're going to give him 10 cents. That seems-That's just the market rate. A low minimum wage here. I've got a bunch of questions. Like our internship. And we don't have a lot of time left. I would be flabbergasted and stunned, given the evidence that Pablo is providing, if the penalty wasn't hugely stiff, because you saw what happened with the Flategate. It's not as egregious as this. Whatever the hell it was isn't as egregious as this. The idea that you would have these rules and circumvent them this flagrantly, Zazlo, like this flagrantly. I just don't see a circumstance under which the penalty isn't enormous.

I'm totally with everything that Pablo is saying that you just said as well. I just don't have any faith in Adam Silver laying down the hammer. I mean, Pablo, he got up in front of everybody the other day and said he's never heard of aspiration. That wasn't taken out of context. Came right out of his mouth. Then a couple of days ago, he tells everybody, Oh, no, I meant I never heard of this scandal. That was bullshit.

Look, the thing that we have in the episode as well is that, to Zaz's point. So Adam Silver, without any ambiguity, says, Frankly, I've never heard of Aspiration in any way. There's really no wiggle room around the clarity of what he says. He says he's never seen anything related to an engagement with the Clippers. He says that as well, or Kawhi Leonard. And then I get the contract, the actual contract for the $300 million founding sponsorship deal that the Clippers signed with Aspiration. And it says right there in the writing of it that these deals must be expressly approved and submitted to the NBA. And so in front of a stage earlier this week, Dan Roberts, the front office sports, asks Adam Silver about this thing I had just tweeted out. And then you get this statement, which if you go and watch the video, it does not, I think, fit into a plausible interpretation of what he had said before. So the question then is, why did Adam Silver say the first thing when he said it? Why wasn't he actually aligned with what he says the second time? These are important questions speaking to the credibility of how a league is governed, let alone the fact, by the way, that this whole company was seemingly vetted by apparently no one, including...

And I want to make this point again, and it's a serious one to some extent. The reason why fraudsters keep on using sports is because they expect that if you're up in the signage of an arena, if you're a founding sponsor, if you have the naming rights deal of a building, it means that sports, which is so flush with cash and lawyers and respectability, it must be true that sports has vetted you, and therefore you can trust them. We see this over and over and over again. You saw it with FTX in Miami. We see it now again with Aspiration. You saw it with Enron in Houston. It happens for a reason. And the question that the league now have to be asking themselves is, when do we actually fulfill the terms, the implicit terms, of this trust that America has given us? Because right now it's a one-way transaction, and a lot of people are getting scammed.

A lot of people are searching for what Pablo has on this story. I would also say to everybody listening to this, if you want to check out what Pablo has done with Semaphore or Ethan Strauss, you could get more explanations for what Pablo is trying to do in general with Pablo Torre finds out, selling old media basically to the internet and young people on the internet. One of the funny things about this story is the idea of people who can buy everything but can't get what it is that they want. The idea that Steve Ballmer couldn't get Kawhi Leonard to do the things that he needed Kawhi Leonard to do. Can you explain to me how much money Ballmer has more than the other owners, Pablo?

He could buy out everyone else. He's the He's the largest owner in all of sports, and it's not close. He has $150 billion. He is the boogie man when it comes to any contest in which money is the weapon. And what Steve Ballmer has done is, I think, live out, frankly, this parable about sports, in which sports has more than ever the richest people in the world interested. For reasons, by the way, that I just alluded to, but also because of sincere fandom. Steve Ballmer is a hardcore basketball fan. I interviewed him once when I was doing a story about Harvard basketball, and he told me about, and this was, of course, many moons ago now, he told me about how he was a scorekeeper, charting assists and rebounds. That's the hardcore basketball sicko he is. He's cared about youth teams. He's coached youth basketball. And so the question is, when you have everything, you have all of the money in the world. But the thing you want the most is something that because sports is governed by fair play and rules, you cannot simply buy. It's one of the few places left in civilization where you can't just buy the thing you want.

You have to earn You got to earn it. You got to win it in a fair competition. The only thing resembling meritocracy we have left, frankly. Steve Ballmer cannot do that because in the NBA, there's a bleeping salary cap. And even when you circumvent the salary cap, you might end up with the one super star who looks like Michael Jordan when he's healthy, but every other time you play with him or try to get him to play, he's a guy who seems to be rebelling against your mission, specifically. It is maddening. It is infuriating. And it's also why this story is, to me, one of the great parables of wealth in America through the lens of sports.

Thank you, Pablo, for your reporting and your work. It is tireless. It is exhaustive. Pablo Tori finds out is where you go. You mentioned, Pablo, that the words infuriated and everything else, and I'm looking at the reaper again. The reaper looks pissed off with everyone here for keeping him waiting. So thank you, Pablo. We will talk to you later. I appreciate the reporting. Billy is also It seems to be done there. Don L'Hippertard.

Football.

Football.

Football.

Football.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

Is the reaper indeed ready? Is the reaper ready to go?

The reaper seems very annoyed with us.

The reaper is annoyed, and I think he's annoyed because of how shitty Pablo's costume is.

Come on. It's a tight Claim the Tennessee Titans.

Pablo, you did great.

Thank you, Pablo. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the money, Dan.

You should be thanking everyone here, including Billy, who's working for 10 cents for three hours because it's everybody's money that you're spending. The Dentec Bucket.

Oh, Dano.

We're ready to go. Put your mouthpieces in.

The Bucket is presented by Dentec's ultimate fantasy football punishment. Learn more and sign up your league at dentec.

Com. Finally, punishment is being paid around here. I got the Baltimore Ravens.

That has to be good. Monday Night Football against the Detroit Lion. So if you're Oh, I'm sorry. So four and a half point favorite. No, I'm putting it back. What? I'm scared of it. I think the lions are too good. Four and a half point favorite. You may not do better than me. What are you doing?

I got the Rams.

Congratulations.

You smoked them for a plus three and a half at eagles.

That's fine. Going to the E. Jalen hurts his stinks. You lost eight points in that transaction. It was a mistake. Mike Ryan, what are you doing?

I lost last week. I got to pay something off next week. La Chargers. We've got the Broncos. Three and a half point favorite. I'm going to keep it.

He's keeping it.

You're not going to do a lot better than a three or four point favorite. Maybe you can get Buffalo tonight, but there aren't the biggest spread other than Buffalo was seven and a half Green Bay at Cleveland.

And also Seattle at home against New Orleans.

Kill on.

I'm sorry, Roy. You got to put that back. Carolina is at home. Five and a half point dog against Atlanta.

Oh, shit. I got a death and a fine bucket. All right, that's good, but nobody's been paying fine.

No, there's no money. There you go. Automatic death. So just death for you. All right, good job.

I hate We'll get you some money.

Sorry. Who's at the bucket? But you get zero dollars. You can have Billy's 10 cents.

I got the bangles.

Now, you got Jake Browning against... Who's the backup for Minnesota?

At Minnesota.

Tyler Taylor. Carson Wents.

Carson Wents. No, Taylor is the Jets. What are you doing with Tyrod Taylor? He's the Jet back up.

I'm going to put that back.

A good guess, though, Zaz. I don't know if you just always gets that Tyrod Taylor is the backup.

At Washington, plus three and a half, I have the Raiders.

You put back a three and a half to get a three and a half.

All right, Zazlo or Dan, who's going here?

There's a chance that Zazla Daniels is held out of that camp. That's what it is. Marcus Schmer I got the jaguar.

The jags. Don't touch them at all. They're at home. Two and a half points, favorite against Houston. No, I got way up.

Owing to Houston. That's for a team. But that offense has been not fun to watch over the last two seasons.

You're tired of hearing me say pressure out the middle.

I'm very tired. He's been bad longer than he's been good.

I got the bangles. The bangles.

Green hour point dog. But you go up against Kirsten once. No, no, man.

Minnesota. The Jets I'm going to go ahead and put that back right there.

Plus six and a half at Tampa.

I'm throwing the throwbacks this week. Beautiful. Creamsicle throwbacks.

And Dan is stuck with... Oh, God. The biggest underdog. All right. Dan, you like dressing up, though. You're good. Who was that?

The Saints. The Saints. Just straight garbage. The Saints.

Is Billy going to the bucket? Are we picking for Billy?

Billy, are you going to the bucket? Why am I asking him? Let me pick for Billy. Let me pick for Billy.

You're on the show today. That means you go to the bucket. Yeah, Pablo, too.

No, no.

We got to pick for Bumble.

I'm going to pick for Pablo, too. No.

Is this Pablo or Billy?

This is for Billy. This is for Billy. The Commanders, the Commies.

That's a good one.

You want to keep the Commies? Minus three and a half at home against the Raiders. The Commies? He said no.

The bylaws. No.

I'm going to pick for you if you I don't make a pick. I don't care. You can keep the- The Bylaws state that you need to be in the studio.

That's not for you. You just need to be on the show.

He's got the Cowboys. That's official. The Cowboys are one and a half point favorite against the bears.

If we're not going to start following the rules, then-He's got the cowboys. The bylaws state that you're supposed to be in the studio.

He's got the cowboy.

Pablo's got, Thank you for your service, Army, Navy, Air Force.

Navy's on a buy.

Navy's on a buy. There you go.

Congratulations to Pablo.

Because I have an extra week to prepare for Venezuela.

He gets rewarded. Billy, so close us out there from the undisclosed location. Give us all of the reports we need. That is a tree that you are now proud of.

That is a tree.

It looks like it is properly planted. It is straight. Was it hard to get it straight?

Well, I used this steak thing that then I Velcroed the tree to with plant Velcro. So hopefully this thing grows and we have some guava soon. Back to you, Dan.

How are you feeling in general about everything that you did out there? Ten cents of saving the Earth.

Yeah, I mean, I created some carbon credits, so good for us. This is our third tree that we planted, and We're doing it one tree at a time.

All right. Petering out. Back to you, Dan. He's tired from all of the manual labor.

I'm wet. It's annoying.

It's unpleasant.

This whole thing. Honestly, this work was worth three cents, and screw the environment. That's why I didn't want to do it. Why are you wasting so much time? Who cares? Exactly right. What a waste of everybody's time planting trees. Who cares?

All right. Good work. Way to save the Earth.

Can we get a shot of Danny one more time? No? All right.

No, that's enough of that. He is all wet. It's unpleasant to be wet. In general, the socks is the- I just got warm socks. It's delightful. Socks or underwear. Put it on the poll at Lebitard Show.

Wet socks are the worst.

What's the worst? Wet socks or wet underwear at Lebitard Show? Because those are your two choices.

If you're underwear, wet.

Really? Really? Okay. That's for Tony. That's sensual Chris Bermon. Is that who that was? Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Danny.

Why were your socks wet, Chris Cody?

Because it was pouring when I walked in this morning my hole. I did the thing. I need to have an umbrella in my car. What am I doing with my life if I don't have an umbrella in my car?

No. Damn near 40. No umbrella. In 40 years without an umbrella, got to keep marching on.

Embarrassing thing to do in public. I had a sweater in my backpack that was not water resistant. It was just like a cloth.

I couldn't tell you the last time I was outside, it was raining, and I said, Where's my umbrella?

I can't do that. Can you imagine? But when it's- But picture me-opening an umbrella and walking with it. No. No. No.

No. A wool sweater over me. So what? My shoes were wet. My socks were wet. I finally have one team.

I've never owned an umbrella in South Florida. Here we go. I just haven't.

Good on you. Good on you. What is wrong with you, people? What is wrong with you, people? Proud of you.

You're walking around outside with an umbrella like a Mary Poppins.

You have a boring rain. You have an umbrella at your house. You have an umbrella at your house. I'm going to text your wife.

That may be for other people.

She might have one.

I got news for you.

I've never owned an umbrella. I've never gone in my car and gone. I have an umbrella. I've never purchased an umbrella.

What are you, the Penguin?

It's like asking me if I've ever purchased a parasol.

I'll do. I'll literally put my head down and just keep marching on. Any red-blooded American man should.

Get a little wet, so what?

I have a computer with me.

I don't want it to get wet.

Look at these people with their umbrellas.

Look at that loser. Look at that loser.

Dork.

I'm not going to judge others for having an umbrella.

I I will.

I didn't know what Mike was talking about, but now I see that guy.

It looks like a loser. Ridiculous.

I wouldn't go that far. No, I would.

That's not far enough.

Really? You want to call somebody who's walking around with an umbrella?

Yeah, who wants to stay dry and opens up an umbrella. Ibrella? No. Look at these people, protecting their equipment. Can you imagine?

I need to stop what we're doing here and celebrate that Billy did indeed pay a punishment. It has been a long time since Billy paid a punishment, and I wish for the audience to see the last time that Billy paid a punishment because I think that this is one of the funniest things to ever happen on the show. We are talking the actor Rob Delaney. Rob Delaney is, at the time, promoting a book in which he is talking about the most serious of subject matter, the passing of his son. You're saying to yourself, How can that possibly be funny? Well, watch and listen. I don't know what your pain is exactly, right? I can't possibly know, even though you've written a book. But I I feel like I lost a son because I raised him.

Yeah, it's brutal. And I'm glad that you are talking about it. I'm so incredibly sorry. I'm glad that you're crying and that people can hear that because the pain truly is- There's an old-timey baseball player here, Rob.

Yes, thank you. I can't cry in front of these people. Do you know how weak it is? Do No, I'm a blubbering idiot, Rob. I need this to be funny. Look, there's an old-timey baseball player. Rob.

I know you feel weak, but at least you weren't holding an umbrella When it came off way worse. Man.

One of our best cuts ever to Billy there.

If you are just listening and not watching, you don't know how funny it is that in the middle of that, the camera panned Billy, who was dressed like a 1919 baseball player, wearing a ridiculously white fake mustache and staring down the camera. But that's funny for a number of reasons. The size of the hat is what's helping here so much because we simply haven't worn hats that way in a hundred years. In a hundred years. And so finally, some punishments got paid off around here. It's a time of great celebration. We finally... Now, Pablo, you got to admit, though, Pablo's mummy costume, he just went and got a roll of toilet paper. We can't make that that easy.

That's what that is. In fact, that's what it was the last time we did one of those.

How else should you mummify?

You want ace bandages? What do you want? You want to go to Stan Winston?

I want full body. Look, we have to respect the costumes. We have to respect that these are punishments.

For 20 straight Halloween Wien's, didn't you just put on a clown wig?

You will not question my costume integrity in public or in private.

Show us how it's done. Come in as a mummy.

I have shown you how it's done.

We'll see you as a mummy tomorrow, then?

It was a Rasa wig, which honestly doesn't scream ally anymore.

How about this? I got one. If the dolphins win tonight, we all show up as mummies.

Whatever.

You got to scrub those pictures from the internet, man.

That's not a good look. Although I guess it's fine now.

It is. Comedy is legal again.

That's a bet. If the dolphins win tonight, we all have to do the show tomorrow as mummies. How did I get involved in this? It's a bet.

Come on, man.

It's not a real thing.

It's going to be toilet paper though.

I don't want to do that. I had the opportunity to pick that. I'm like, No, this is hard. This is a punishment. I don't want to do that. Instead, I'm going thrifting.

Speaking of punishments, are you guys with Zazlo and Billy on the NBA is not going to do anything here? Because I just have not seen reporting like this done around a scandal because of how hard it is to get close to the rich people when they're trying to protect themselves from you seeing anything. They're very good at it. They have systems in place to make sure that they're very good at it. And the stories of the powerful people are falling apart in a way that Pablo is disentangling that is very embarrassing.

I am speaking only for myself here as someone that is watching this reporting come in in real-time, and I have not seen the NBA's investigation, which is still ongoing. I know what the Clippers have said earlier, but if I'm just Joe's sports fan, I have enough now to assume that anything that would explain the behavior would feel like a cover up to me because this is as dead to rights a salary cap circumnavigation that it ever has appeared in our sports landscape.

Certainly the media providing it for you as opposed to a league investigation, the Patriots Deflate Gate investigation. Ted Wells was paid $5 million for that. The state of the media right now, people can't afford to do that anymore. To spend that money to do something like this. Pablo's crew has done it cheap, but it is really exhaustive to spend seven months doing anything, and the media is crippled in a way that makes it damn near impossible to even try something like this, never mind succeed and execute.

This is the transparency that sports fans have always wanted with these investigations, where you just have to take a league's word for it, where the league with the Ted Wells investigation certainly had stuff to maintain. Their financial interests were certainly tied with the New England Patriots' dynasty.

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