Transcript of Kevin Durant, Ime Udoka, & The Rockets: Headed For Divorce? | Hour 1 New

This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

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

Excellent enthusiasm, Greg.

Thank you.

Really good.

And I really believe every minute of it.

So there's a lot of NBA to get to today. There's some really good storylines. We had some really good games. Is everyone okay with us getting to the most recent game, which was the end of the night, which was Rockets and Lakers? Not really, not really that game in particular, but the series and, and the storylines coming out of it. We good with starting with Rockets-Lakers?

Yeah.

Yes, a collective yes. Very good. Uh, the Rockets blew out the Lakers last night. I felt like it was gonna be a blowout one way or the other.

It's, it's the pride win. You know, it's like, hey, they're not gonna sweep us on our home floor. So they come out and they win big and then they go back. Remember Dallas did the same thing in the finals against Boston?

Yes.

They're getting drummed and then they were all talking.

But, but, but the conversation going into it was don't let Dallas get one more. Yeah, they got one more and the series went back to Dallas for Game 6. We might have something, you know, and it did not. They did not win the championship. I thought yesterday was going to be a blowout one way or the other. If it was the Rockets blowing out the Lakers, which is what happened. It's like, alright Lakers, we did what we came to do. We got the one. We're going back no matter what after this game, so we may as well win it at home for Game 5. But if it was the Lakers blowing out the Rockets, like, I was able to see a scenario where the Rockets quit, you know, where like it's middle third quarter, Lakers go on a run and go up by 14, 15, and the Rockets like, do we really want to go back to LA? You know, I felt like the Rockets could quit. They didn't.

Yeah, kind of like what Denver did, you mean, the other night?

Oh, so So the Rockets win. We are going to get a Game 5. No Kevin Durant again last night, but at least he was on the bench for Game 4. When he was not on the bench, I mean, really the story of this game was Game— this series is Game 3. Like, Game 3 was an all-time meltdown. You've never seen as bad a foul as Jayson Tate with that foul. Like, that's, that's, that's not an NBA play. It was unspeakably bad, that foul.

That's whenever I sit here all year long and I tell you guys about experience. And you go, "Oh, come on, you mean to tell me?" I'm like, that's it right there. That's it right there. That's a young team, been in the playoffs one time in their lives, last year, and they got beat, by the way. And this is them learning on the fly how it's easy to mess this up, 'cause playoff basketball is execution basketball. Same thing with Detroit. Everyone was fawning over Detroit all year long. And I was like, they're great. But they've got these flaws, and I kind of feel like these things might rear their head in the playoffs. What happened? They're rearing their head.

I mean, the, the Lakers were down 6 with 30 seconds left without the ball. They didn't have the ball. Yeah, without the ball with 30 seconds left, down 6. Terrible turnover, Jabari Smith, who— terrible look for him too, because there seems to be a weird dynamic with him and Durant. And then Jabari Smith is the one who throws the ball away inexplicably. He was under no pressure and and he throws the ball away. And then you had the Jayson Tate foul, and then you had, uh, Shepherd turn the ball over too. And, and, you know, it's a 3-pointer.

That photo— you guys see that photo of Shepherd with LeBron like lurking behind him? Yes, it's so— it's one of those perfect pictures. It reminds me like the Kawhi Leonard shot in the corner against Philly where it's that squad overhead. Yeah, that overhead shot, it's like it's just become iconic. I think that's going to be an iconic picture of like Reed Shepherd looking terrified and LeBron like a predator behind him.

I mean, look, I'm all over LeBron any opportunity I can get, but that shit was awesome at the end of Game 3. He hits the 3, like, it was so, so, so cool. They were obviously going to win. I do want to ask you though, I mean, Kevin Durant was not on the bench for Game 3. He at least was on the bench for Game 4. You also have after Game 3, in between the 2 games, Amen Thompson is asked, you know, any update on Durant? He's like, I really don't know. Which seems a little bit strange that, I mean, is there just no communication?

No, so there's a couple couple things. Number one, being on the bench, not being on the bench, a lot of times—

and they're at home, it's not like you're not on the bench on the road—

but depending on the injury, like sometimes sitting down stinks, right? It's just not comfortable. And it's more comfortable to— a lot of times guys will be in the back laid out on the table.

What if you come out for the fourth quarter?

Sure, whatever. I'm just telling you why a guy is not on the bench doesn't mean like, oh, I hate my teammates, I think we suck. It's sometimes—

but you could understand the optics considering this situation.

I feel like Kevin Durant is always going to be fighting optics for the rest of his life because of not even bad decisions he's made, but decisions he's made and the way he's reacted to criticism. It's always going to be optics with him regardless of what he does. So that's one. Two, the rehab is— it's not like they rehab here and we're practicing, going to the shootaround here. Rehab is often the team's on the court I'm in the training room and then vice versa. And so, especially in a playoff scenario, those guys don't want to be thinking about anything other than our game plan. And when you got a great player who's hurt, you need everyone else to be of the mindset, we can't be waiting on him to come back. So we're double and tripling down on what we're prepping for here. I kept, what's Kevin? Kevin, are you feeling better?

You can't be me like, yeah, but if Spurs were asked over the last couple days, they're like, they're gonna give you something on Wemba Nyama, right? Like, hey, how's, uh, how's Wemby doing? They're probably not gonna say, I got no idea, right?

It's different because like concussion protocol isn't rehab. Concussion protocol is day one, you got to sit your ass right there, not doing anything. Day two, we're gonna have you on the, on the bike or whatever. Like, it's— there's, uh, a definite step through the process. And also Like, it's not like a physical injury rehab, which is a different scenario. I just think that with the Spurs, you know your guy is coming back. You know he's coming back. And so, hey, we do what we do until he comes back. Whereas in the case of the Rockets, I don't know if people realize how serious that injury was. He wasn't supposed to play Game 2. He forced it because he was worried. I mean, that dude plays. He worried about the optics. I think, uh, and he comes back and he probably made it— made it worse, to be honest with you. So I think there's just a different thing. But it's like, if this were any other player, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But the Lakers are missing Luka as well, and they don't know when he's going to be back. To me, that's so sort of comparable talent missing from each team. And, and that's why I give the Lakers a lot of credit that they were a higher seed by one game, but I think they were the betting underdog and teams up 3-0 and even 3-1 don't often lose.

Yeah, like, like 3-0 never loses.

Like the Lakers still look like they're going to advance to me. And that's remarkable without Luka.

Absolutely. But I think the difference is nobody's asking LeBron or any of those or DeAndre Ayton, hey, hey, how's Luka doing? Does he have anything about Luka? They probably wouldn't know either.

Well, that's because he's ruled out.

He's hurt.

But Durant was questionable though. That's why, that's why he's asked.

To me, like, all that language is just, it's just ridiculous.

But that means, that means there's a chance, at least that's what you're telling the media, is there's a chance he's gonna play, right? So there's a chance he's gonna play. You're trying to find out from the other players, dude, is, is there a chance you're gonna play? Yeah, like, like, you know, Dončić, we know he's not playing, you know, so that's why he doesn't get asked.

I know, but it's still a question of how soon is he going to be back, right? Like, like I don't think he's played since, what, April 2nd? He's been out almost a month.

He's been out a few weeks, yeah.

That's a long time. Yeah. And so, will he be— would he be back for a Game 5? I don't think they've ruled that out.

He hasn't done any on-court work. That's what McMahon—

I think best-case scenario is he would be available potentially to start the next series, which would be next weekend.

Okay. All the more remarkable to me that the Lakers look like they're going to win this first round. I give LeBron a lot of credit, man. He— notwithstanding the terrible game he had Sunday. He's been the story of the playoffs so far for me.

Is it a crazy— well, I don't think it's a crazy question, so I'm just going to ask it. Who has a better chance of returning to the Rockets next season?

That's a crazy question.

Kevin Durant or Yemi Udoka? Better chance of returning.

Better chance?

Better chance of returning. Durant or Udoka? Because I don't know that Udoka's a lock to return.

I think—

I've never heard— like, Udoka after Game 3, and yes, It was an all-time meltdown, and we, like, the way the Rockets fan probably looks at it right now, like, if we didn't have one of the worst playoff meltdowns of all time, we would be 2-2. And that's a fair way to look at it if you're a Rockets fan. So yes, it was an all-time meltdown, but I've never heard a coach talk about his players after a playoff game the way Udoka did.

But he, he's, that's who he is. He's, he's old school. He, he's another tell-it-how-it-is kind of guy. He doesn't sugarcoat. Actually, we were talking about this on the radio. I have a radio show on SiriusXM every Sunday, 10 AM to 1 PM Eastern, me and Jason Jackson. Jason Jackson from Nasty. But the combination, the comparison between how Ime Udoka spoke about his team after that loss versus how David Adelman talked about his team after their loss. Now their loss They were up for half. DiVincenzo's out for the year. Anthony Edwards, at that point we don't know the extent, but it looks like he's going to be gone forever too. So this is kind of like you're laid out to have this. All right, this is how we turn the series right here. And that was close. And now we've learned. And instead they get blown out by Ayo Dosunmu and Rudy Gobert. And so David Ottoman comes out in his press conference and they ask him, The Denver media were really blunt. They were like, why did you guys quit in the second half? And David Altman keeps talking about, I thought we played really hard tonight and we had a great first half and there's a lot to learn from it.

And he just kept talking about the first half and just said, you know, turnovers. Said, well, we only had 10 turnovers, so I think that's actually really good. Yeah, 10 turnovers. 9 of them were in the second half. So I'm like, wait, what are you doing? He's like living in this alternate reality where it wasn't that bad of a loss. Whereas Ime Udoka is like, Well, he said something like, well, hey, being young is not an excuse anymore. Is it something along those lines? Basically the experience.

He said, I don't know if we're inexperienced or we're scared out there.

So like, you tell me what you'd rather have from your coach, a sugarcoating kind of—

I'm not saying one way or the other is better. I'm just saying I've never heard a coach talk the way Udoka did about his players after a playoff game. That's— I'm just acknowledging I have never heard—

they need to grow up, man. I'm with them. They need to grow up.

So which is it? Who has a better, better chance of returning, Durant or Udoka? Because like, I feel, I feel like they would totally— I'm sorry, you know, we're, we're reading body language, we're reading things that guys are saying, and we're certainly not there, but it does feel like that locker room doesn't like Durant. It feels like there is something rotten going on there.

I don't know where people get this from.

Are you being serious?

I— it's— yes, I'm being serious because My whole thing is this: this is all starting from an unsubstantiated story that he had a burner that people just ran with like as truth, and now every time a guy walks by, like, "Oh, they didn't hug, man. I think there might be something going on. Oh, do you see how he looked when Jabari turned it over? He doesn't like him." Like, no, it's just these are the regular disappointments or interactions.

So yes, you're right. It's a lot of connecting dots. It's a lot of circumstantial evidence. You know, you got the Durant-Burner thing, and guess what? Since then, he doesn't tweet anymore the way that he did. Okay, circumstantial evidence. You got the comments about Jabari Smith on the Burner, and then Jabari Smith a couple days ago, kind of critical about Durant, which is really weird for a really young player to speak about a legendary player the way that he was there. Circumstantial nonetheless. Durant not on the bench in Game 3. Mm, it's a little weird, but again, circumstan— like, it's a— and, and— based on recent history too. It's a lot. You're right. It's a lot of connecting dots and us trying to build a story that we don't know for sure is there.

And the, the seed, the poisonous seed from which this true tree grew is an unsubstantiated story. This isn't like The Athletic did a massive deep dive on it and now We can see these circumstances and say they kind of do start to paint a picture, but we're literally taking random plot points and looking at it and saying, if I squint, I could find a problem there.

You're right. You're right.

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, 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 two when you're down three 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 liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

Don Lebatard.

What do I got here? I got a Magnum condom. Um, we won't get that out.

That's shocking.

Stugatz.

Here's a picture of Christopher when he was like 3 years old.

Right next to the condom?

Yeah. As a little reminder. Never forget. This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stugatz.

People are looking for reasons not to like Durant. I think that's been the case a lot of his career.

Lean back.

He's just— he's polarizing for— and I'm not entirely sure why, but he's been polarizing his whole career.

Well, I know why. I know, because he's, he's, I think he's put himself in the situation. So it starts with, number one, he signed his extension in Oklahoma City, said, I'm never leaving. And of course, a lot of guys say that and end up changing their mind and leave, right? That's number one. Number two, he did what many consider to be an unpopular decision. I understood it because I thought it had more to do with a style of play rather than I want to go to the best team in the league. He was a free agent. It was— that was his own volition. He could do that. So that was unpopular. And then my thing at the time was you got to follow the LeBron playbook, which is if you win, at some point they'll just stop talking about it and they'll just talk about you as that, right?

As a champion.

As a champion and as a member of that organization. But Durant won and obviously the first blowback is like, "Oh my God, C, da da da." And instead of him just saying, "Whatever, I'll just keep winning and you guys are just gonna have to get used to it," he was like responding back and like defending himself. And I said, "All you did there was you put gas on the fire, 'cause now they know they have a direct line to you. And so now they're gonna continue to push your buttons, not the red one, and get that reaction out of you, knowing that they can get reactions." And Durant's thing is like, "Well, why can't I use the internet like everyone else?" I'm like, "Buddy—" You're not everyone else.

That's it.

I'm like, that's— So these are the reasons why it just continues and it escalates, as opposed to like what LeBron did that first year. He was like, "I'm a villain," or whatever, and then they lost. And then the next year, he kind of like let that go and played and won and just kind of like, yeah, whatever. And at some point, people stopped being mad about him going to Miami. People don't even think about the vitriol of the decision anymore the way they did in those first— that first year afterward.

Well, sometimes you gotta embrace being the villain, right? I mean, the Big Three Heat did that.

But they did it for a year or two.

LeBron also said he didn't enjoy it.

Yeah, they changed their— yeah, Steve Martin. They did it and then they realized that's not us. We just have to be the fun-loving guys.

I mean, CJ McCollum shot down the whole villain angle right quick this series with the Knicks. Amin has refused to answer my question, so I'm gonna let Jeremy ask a similar question that I hope will get an answer. Go ahead.

Who's more likely to be on their team come next year, Kevin Durant or LeBron James?

Good question. So I have a theory that these playoffs— Greg said the number one storyline is LeBron, and, and I agree with you, it's a, it's a big deal. But also, I think that this— because I know how billionaires think when they— especially new billionaire— new owners, excuse me. They're very impressed by everything that happens. So I could see a scenario where this whole season they're like, look, we don't need this LeBron character. We got Luka, we got Austin Reeves. LeBron, hey, you can come back if you'll play for minimum or some, some very disrespectful kind of thing of like, we don't need you. And then those guys get hurt and LeBron turns back into LeBron and like, wow, what do we have here? Maybe we misjudged. And so I think This could have easily been LeBron's last season as a Laker, but literally in a very Dumb and Dumber way, and totally redeem yourself, 3 games is all it took, he's back in.

So the answer is Durant is less likely to return.

Well, that question was who's more likely to return, so, so the answer is LeBron.

So LeBron is more likely to return than Kevin Durant, meaning Kevin Durant is less likely to return, but maybe more likely than Ime Udoka.

That's where we're left here. I think so.

What do you think? Yep.

I, I think, I think it's tough to trade what you did for Durant, Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, who by the way is a winning player. Dylan Brooks, everywhere he goes the team is good and everywhere he leaves the team is less good. All right. Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, and the first round pick. That's, that's, that's a lot to give up after— to give up on Durant after one year. Right. That's a lot. Like, yes, it's a little bit of cutting your nose off to spite your face, but still the optics are horrible. If you get rid of him after just one year.

You want to talk about optics and billionaires, man? I know you guys talked about last week. We got to talk about this Portland dude, man. The owner of the Portland Trail Blazers. There's a big story that came on The Athletic of all these weird cost-cutting moves that he's been doing. Adam Silver defending it. But like, that's— hey, stinks. That's always their defense. Their defense is like, you're not cheap if you spent $10 billion to buy a team. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's not how it plays. I worked for a guy like that, right? At the time, he had paid the highest price for an NBA team in NBA history. The number of stories of this guy being ridiculously cheap. I'll give you one, Greg. Comes in and he's like, so Mike D'Antoni only plays like 7 players in his rotation, 7 to 8 players. He was a short rotation kind of guy. And the owner says, well, if we're only gonna play 7 to 8 guys, Why do we have 13 guys on our roster?

Like, did he want to have only the minimum of 8 guys? Uh-huh. Great.

And so they explained to him, well, first of all, there's a rule. You have a minimum roster amount. But it says, second of all, like, in practice, you got to have 10 on 10, 5 on 5 in practice. You got to have 10. And he says, why can't the coaches just do it? Whoa. That's awesome. Greg. Zillions of stories like this. We had our— when I was a video coordinator, all of our video, I mean, I'm talking about everything, it's like the Bible. It's more than that. It's like a chest of gold. It's all your video from the year, the season. Anytime the coach says, "Hey, what happened when we played against Chicago back in January?" Pull up every single time we ran a pick and roll against Chicago. It's all cut up. We've got it. We were saving it. On literal hard drives that we bought from Best Buy. Yeah. So like, if anything happens to the hard drive, we had to— there was a backup. Anything happens, if someone spills a Coke on it because they were stacked on top of each other, it's a wrap. We lost everything. So like, what do you need?

We need a server. We need a server. And this stuff lives on the cloud. And now all our coaches and our players can access it. They don't need to wait for us to upload it onto their devices. How much is that gonna cost? Good service is gonna cost you about $80, $90, $100 grand. Oh my God! Oh! Oh! We didn't get it! We ended up not getting it. They would not spend $100,000.

But Adam Silver will tell you, "No, look what he paid for the team." He paid $400 million for the team.

How could he be cheap?

I mean, I would expect that from somebody in the UFL, you know, in some secondary league. He's not a billionaire. He's a guy who does have to watch his money. But when you've got $10 billion, why are you nickel and diming?

That's why, like I was explaining to my wife the story about the Blazers owner, and, you know, it was all right if you don't travel these guys and you make them check out of the hotel, you know, over the course of the year, it's going to save about $1 million. It's like, oh, it's $1 million. Yeah, but like, this is the NBA.

It's— $1 million is nothing. And it's not— look, on a road trip, there are people who are certainly nonessential. Sometimes you get marketing partnerships. They'll go on the trip and they'll take, hey, you know, you know, whatever. Xerox is a big sponsor. We're going to take the guys from Xerox with us on the trip and they'll stay at the team hotel and we'll ride on the bus to the game and all that stuff that happens. Those are the people you can say, all right, 12:30, get your bags, get the hell up out of here. Right. Because we're trying to save money. But we talk about the masseuse, like essential staff, basically the masseuse, the trainers, the video coordinators, like, yeah, they need to be able to do their job. You are impacting their ability to do their job. And, and this is the thing I've seen, seen it written in a bunch of places. I don't know. But Roy, you're a hockey man. You're a hockey man.

I am a hockey man. Hockey man. Definitely hockey man.

You guys are all hockey men. There's like saying that in hockey, like, like word doesn't get around really well. What if something happens like to a team, it stays kind of in-house. Whereas in the NBA, like if something happens, like I could see that everyone knows, like if you tell 100 people something, 70 of them will have told someone else. So especially things like that, because players love nothing more than to complain. They complain, oh my God, man, our guys are da da da da da. And so when people say, why don't players go to certain places? Why? How? Why do they always struggle to get free agents? Or that's not a coincidence. A lot of times it's because guys have been talking and they're like, I'm not going there. LaMarcus Aldridge, when he was awful, a free agent. Yeah, it's his fault. LaMarcus Aldridge, when he left Portland, he was a free agent and it came down to San Antonio and Phoenix. And I went on SportsCenter and they asked me, well, where do you think he's going to go? And I said, well, let me put it to you this way. Let's say you're a great up-and-coming actor.

And you have two movie offers. One of them is directed by Steven Spielberg.

You use this analogy on ESPN? On ESPN.

One of them is directed by Steven Spielberg, and the other one is directed by Steven Seagal. Which movie are you taking? And the Suns got so upset that I— oh, you guys talking trash, you'll see. And I'm like, guys, you think that you can give a good presentation and that's it? He's just gonna go home and think about it? You know how many people he knows who have worked for the Suns or played for the Suns? They know the whole— right.

It's not news. You hear what Amin said on ESPN?

You can't— we got to look into the Suns here. There ain't enough deodorant in the world to cover up that stench. And so what this guy is coming into Portland, he's creating a stench that did not exist before. People— Paul Allen was— he was Steve Ballmer before Steve Ballmer. He's the guy that like, hey, we pay for everything. And now all of a sudden you get this guy who comes in and he's saying the masseuse can't. And then you got Tiago Splitter before a pretty important game.

He offered him like a million-dollar extension, right?

That's that. There have been conflicting reports on that one. There are a lot of people say, oh, that's not true. But then they're, they're interviewing all these college coaches. I'm like, you know why you interview a college coach, right? They're cheaper because they're cheaper.

Yeah, of course. And when I say nickel and diming, it can't be overemphasized. How little $1 million means to a multibillionaire. He could give away $1 million a day for a year and it wouldn't bother his pocketbook.

Greg, I had a roommate.

Pocketbook. Yeah, people still carry pocketbooks, but mostly like women who are older than me.

Dude, you put on the poll, do people still carry pocketbooks?

His mom is the only person I ever heard use that saying. Where's my pocketbook?

It's true. It's true. You got me on that one.

Don Lebatard.

You don't remember the idea for the home run call?

I was probably like, "That kind of thing!" Something. Okay, no. The home run call was, "That kind of swing, that kind of thing!" Stugatz. Oh. It's a good call. Thank you. And plus, it doesn't matter who's hitting it. Like, you're not tailoring it to a particular name. Correct. You know, all that jazz. You know, you don't gotta do that. You just— Oh, that was a great call. That kind of swing, that kind of thing! This is the Don Lebatard Show.

With the Stugatz.

Greg, I had a roommate, and, you know, I was living in Phoenix at the time, and in the summertime it gets hot, the AC bill's high, so the power bill's high. And so my roommate's like, "Oh my God, like, this— we gotta do something." I'm like, "Yeah, no, you're right. We should get this in line." And then, like, the next day he was yelling at me because I left the kitchen light on. And I said, buddy, I could leave that thing on 24 hours a day and it's going to add up to roughly $2 extra for the year on our power bill, right? Meanwhile, you're cranking this thing down to 68.

Can you imagine saying that to your wife?

My, my dad used to do that to me. Like, when I'm a 12-year-old in the kitchen, if I am looking in the refrigerator too long, if the fridge door is open 30 seconds.

But can you imagine your response? This would be $2 more a year.

I know, but my dad doesn't want to hear that. He's like, shut— turn off that light, shut the door, shut the— you let all the cold out of the fridge though, man.

But, but the problem is there was something else that we were doing. Again, he was cranking it down to 68. That's what's doing it. So it's like, you can't say I'm going to save money and then attack things that are immaterial to the actual saving of money, right? So that's the one thing. You want to talk about nickel and diming, that's almost literal. I went to a game, I was a scout, went to a game and, you know, you do your thing and then you go back and you—

Suns were definitely flying you coach, right?

Coach? Horse and buggy probably. Coach like that, like the Old West. So I submit my receipts, get flagged. Yo, your expense report, like what's that? "Uh, this item right here, you don't have a receipt for this." And I said, "The $5 lemonade?" From the guy who was like, "Lemonade! Lemonade!" You want me to say, "Sir, can you— I need a receipt for this." You want me to do that? They denied the expense report. $5. A $5 lemonade. When I tell you, they absolutely don't let anyone ever tell you, "Oh, he spent some billion dollars! He's not cheap! How could he be cheap?" 'Cause our thing with Robert was like, oh, he's in the luxury tax every year. Like, I don't care. You can be cheap and rich at the same time. And this dude, that's a cheapskate. Yeah.

And Adam Silver, again, not reading the room when it comes to stuff like this, will tell you that he can't possibly be cheap. They just paid whatever it was for the team. And he then also called it, uh, uh, his, his way of running the team right now, it's scrappy. He described it scrappy.

Anyway, can I interject real fast? I love this basketball conversation, but the chat, the YouTube chat is playing a fun game regarding Jacob Jacob Rodriguez and his neck, trying to rename him based off his neck. Okay, now we have Neck Nurse, we have Richard Nexon. Okay, so basically we can keep playing that game and I'll intersperse it, but I just have seen the chat playing this, so I want to bring it to air. Nice. And we can—

Jacob Rodriguez, he's a Dolphins second round pick, linebacker, Texas Tech, who I'm in on. He's got a great mustache, uh, he's got a great— I mean, look at the neck on that guy. And, and Zach Thomas is like his mentor. Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's a great story. I'm way into that.

Monika Lewinsky.

Nicholas Batum. Okay, easy. Jeremy.

Nick Johnson. Did Jeremy— did, uh, did Dan curse Nikola Jokic? Sure seems like it.

On April 9th, Dan decided to finally lean all the way in and say Nikola Jokic is the— pardon me— greatest offensive player of all time, better than Michael Jordan in this postseason. He's had 3 of his 7 worst shooting performances of the entire season. He is headed toward a changing of his, his resume by a lot of people. I've seen Twitter accounts putting out—

that's a little much.

I understand. I agree with you. I think Nikola Jokic is one of the greats. He, to me, should have been MVP again this year. But you have people now because of a few tough games against Minnesota, a team that's playing really well.

He's going up against an all-time defensive player. Yeah.

And a guy who's, who's always defended him pretty well. But if they go out in the first round, people are, people are losing their minds, and it's because he's not having these efficient games that we're used to. He shot under 40% on 3 different occasions in the series, which is so the opposite of what he normally is. And this is all Dan's fault.

It's all Dan's fault. Love a jinx. And on top of it, his behavior after the last game was super Out of character.

Not out of character. Sore loser. Yes, very sore. Always been a sore loser.

Well, and here's also the thing which I think needs to be pointed out. Okay, so Jaden McDaniels, he laid the ball in with seconds remaining in a game that was decided and everybody was resigned to run the clock out. And Jokic sprinted 3/4 court to confront McDaniels in front of the Wolves bench. A little kerfuffle breaks out. Randle, Jokic ejected. They both received large fines. Thankfully enough, no, no suspensions. And I will tell you, Jaden McDaniels is punking the Nuggets so hard this entire series. It is an embarrassment what Jaden McDaniels has done to this Nuggets team. It was after Game 2, he names player by player the guys who are bad defenders on Denver. You never hear that. He tells you player name by player name who are terrible defenders. Then after Game 3, another Wolves victory, he goes on and on again telling you how we just love seeing, you know, uh, that, that name on their chest. It brings out the best in us. We don't care about them. And then after Game 4, he— and of course he did it— he lays the ball in, which we all know, unwritten rule, he lays the ball in and Jokic who clearly is totally in his head about Jaden McDaniels.

I don't even know that Jokic would have responded that way if it wasn't Jaden McDaniels. Like, if it was a different player for the Wolves, I'm not sure Jokic would have reacted the way that he did. But of course McDaniels, he's going to laid him because he hates the Nuggets, because this is a great rivalry. And not only does Jokic then get totally triggered and run across the floor, but McDaniels grabs Jokic by the jersey. Not the other way around. McDaniels grabs him by the jersey and laughs in his face. He has punked this Nuggets team so hard this series.

Yo, Jokic has— I don't have the exact stats in front of me— Jokic has about 50 technical fouls in his career. If I'm playing that team, if I'm playing Jokic, part of my whole strategy in defending him is to get in his head and make him get really angry, and you get a tee on him And then he goes out of control, and that's, that's the game plan on Jokic.

I'll tell you what the game plan is, Greg. Whoop his ass! That's what they did. They whooped their ass. And I'm trying to locate the Nuggets radio play-by-play because they lost their minds.

They were mad at McDaniels.

I like called him boneheaded. They called him a D-bag. It's not boneheaded at all. I'm like, no, smart. This is what I say years and years ago. Do you guys remember when LeBron played on the Cavs the first time around, and whenever they'd be up big, they would play Rick Astley, Never Gonna Give You Up. That was their, like, victory cigar. Yeah. And Danny Green at the time wasn't even— he wasn't even a rotation NBA player. He was just the guy that danced. That was his whole deal. Like, he's at the end of the bench, like, we're up 20, Danny, get up! And then he started dancing, and that was it, right? And I remember at the time, you know, I'm working for the Suns and talking with, like, Scouts and other guys, and they're like, oh, I hate that. They're so unclassy. I'm like, you don't like it? Don't lose.

Don't let them whoop your ass then. Jokic was angrier about that layup than he was losing the game.

Where was the fight? Where was that fight in the second half when Io Tsumu put his foot in your mouth, right? What? Where was all this fight? Yeah, that's right. I've tried to find the most disrespectful thing that was also PG-rated. 'Cause I don't wanna put something else in my mouth.

You did it. You did it.

But anyways, so now you wanna fight? Now you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna sprint." With no time left.

Yeah, come on, man. Get outta here. McDaniel's been popping off the whole series, and the only time you show any kind of force and you're mad at him is when the game is over because he laid the ball up.

The other part of this is people say, "Oh, it's disrespectful." It's like, newsflash, he doesn't respect them!

Yeah, damn right it's disrespectful. It's the playoffs and I hate you! That's the point! I don't like you!

There's no part of this where I'm gonna shake your hand afterward and we're gonna have a beer. No, I don't wanna hang out with you. You're not friends. We're not homies.

Nickelodeon. The New York Knicks. Need more of that. It's too— I've been saying for years, the NBA, too much hugging and kissing. Yes. Need more. I don't like you. Easy.

The kissing. Way too much kissing. They're making out at midcourt.

Oh, hugging and kissing each other. That's right. I don't like you.

And by the way, like this rivalry, it's not just because they played against each other 3 out of 4 last postseasons. There are also all sorts of people, obviously Tim Connolly, the president of the Timberwolves. Yep, he built the Nuggets. The reason why the Timberwolves do well against the Nuggets is because he literally constructed the bizarro Superman.

That's why he traded for Gobert.

Yeah, it's why everything they've done is with in mind that we've got to beat the best player in the world who plays in our division. That— so it's not a coincidence. Then you've got all these characters. David Adelman, the head coach of the Nuggets, started his career as an assistant in Minnesota. Bones Hyland who's a Minnesota Timberwolf, started his career as a Nugget and like basically forced his way out because like, I never play. And so you have all these characters. Jonathan Wallace, who's the assistant GM in Denver, was the— was in the front office with Minnesota before that. And before that, he was in Denver with Tim Connelly. So you got all of these kind of missed or cross lines or whatever. There's so much familiarity. And you know what they say about familiarity, Greg? What breeds contempt? Breeds contempt.

Everybody knows that. Oneka Okafor.

Oh, that's a good one. Nuggets are still going to win this series, right? With Anthony Edwards out and, and even like 2 games at home, you got—

look, you have no excuse. Even down 3-1, you have no excuse.

I wonder if they're favored to win the series.

That's a good question. What are our friends at DraftKings?

Look that up, Jeremy, on DraftKings. Can you look up on DraftKings if the Nuggets are favored still to win the series?

That would surprise me. Well, I'll be close.

Their best player is going to be out for the rest of the series and probably another series. And they got 2 home games. Yeah, the Nuggets have 2 home games and they shouldn't have lost Game 4. I'm not saying the way they played, absolutely should have lost, but on paper you can't lose to that team, right? So, but the idea that the Nuggets— I mean, the Timberwolves have to do this now again. Yeah, it's a little hard to believe. Phil Necro.

Are the Cavaliers in trouble? That game yesterday. I love a low-scoring NBA game. Oh, I do. I love it. Throwback. I love it. Those Heat-Knicks games from the '90s. Now, granted, some of those games were 72-71 final. I love that. But the reason those games were low-scoring is because they were wrestling. Yeah, it was a battle. Like the 3-point shot wasn't what it was. You were trying to get to the paint, you're trying to get to the rim as close to the basket as you possibly can, and it was a war. So the scores were low because it's just— it's so physical. That game yesterday, there was one point in the game where the teams were combined 8 for like 58 from 3. That game was low scoring because the teams were horrible. It was such bad basketball yesterday.

Going back to the odds for a second, so I can't find specifically in this series, but the Nuggets still have the 5th best odds to win the championship. The Wolves are 10th.

All right, so you got to figure they're favored to win the series still, right?

It's great. Amazing. That's Jack Nicklaus.

It's a good one. 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.