Transcript of Local Hour: The Furthest Thing From Elmo

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We've got a hungover Halloween crew that spent itself pre-Halloween. Juju Gatti appears to be the only one around here who's put some effort and some thought into his costume. Oh, come on. Nobody has put less thought into their costume than Roy Bellamy, who's sitting this out on religious grounds. I won't make too much fun of him, even though what he's doing is silly and has no effort. The judgment of Chris Cody is truly terrible because the executive producer job requires a judgment, but close thereafter, eye contact. I just heard you say, while wearing nothing but a mask and looking at the board in front of you, I heard you mutter, because you realize that if you're wearing that thing on your head and there's no other part of your costume, you're only doing something that impairs your judgment. And my ability to have communication with you. I've got hungover Cash Patel next to me who's head hurt from the amount that he crossed his eyes yesterday. Put it on the poll at Levitard show. Can you get a headache from crossing your eyes all day like Cash Patel? Because you seem like you're a mess.

You could bet on it. Excuse me.

Yeah, he's not in good shape, I mean, over here.

Dan, there's an old Cuban idiom that if you cross your eyes and a fly flies by you, then you can stay cross-side forever. I don't know if you knew that or not. Be careful, if you cross your eyes and a fly flies by, you stay like that.

When When you say it's an idiom, is there a way that you say it? Or is it ?

It's more of like an old wives' tale, the thing where don't take a shower during a lightning storm, stuff like that, that your grandparents tell you. Be careful because this could happen.

I never heard that one. So I got it right. You used idiom wrong. Yeah. Speaking of Cuban idioms. He still got it.

You still got it.

You can bet on it.

This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stugats podcast.

I'm not doing this with you for three hours, Chris. I'm not going to actively have you sabotage our show because you don't know where any of the buttons are because you're wearing the most half-ass costume that I've seen, I'd say, if everyone else around here weren't in such a half-ass way other than Juju, who's putting forth a genuine effort.

But my mouth moves when I talk. I think it's actually impressive and actually a cool costume. I think it's rude of you to judge my very detailed costume.

I lost my Wizards hat. You are right. It is funny, though, that the mouth does move. I underestimated. I didn't notice that before when you were looking down at the buttons and couldn't see them and we're talking. But the mouth moving does add to the costume, but you're not going to be able to do any other parts of the job that I need today for the next three hours.

I'd love to rip two like this.

Let's switch seats with Roy so that I can do the show. But let's go ahead and talk about the dolphins as well, because the trade deadline is Tuesday, and I suspect that they'll be shipping some people out of town, although I don't know who it is on this team that people would want. Jalen Phillips, who can't tackle. Who else on this team has a value as a trade asset that's going to bring anything back as they shut it down? Because last night- That guy, Paul.

They're not going to trade him. But you said you got to keep him.

Yeah, he's one of the guys you got to keep. A number of things happened yesterday. We've got the fighting on the sidelines, a midseason special when you're two and seven. We've got the quarterback continuing to say things that nobody wants to hear. Can you tell the producer, Roy, Chris, what the montage labeling is on Tua Sound? Because we have three sounds here from this collection of the season has gone in the toilet over the last month from to us saying things you don't usually hear from a quarterback. And the starting point on it is him saying, I'm half the player, Josh Josh Allen is. And it culminates with last night on a critical fourth and one, we got our coach enraged at us because we jumped off sides or we had a false start because the Baltimore crowd noise, always something that travels heavy. Come on. Travels heavy. The Baltimore crowd noise affected the home team. Let's just play the montage that begins with Josh Allen, him comparing himself to Josh Allen, and ends with Tua just blaming the Baltimore crowd for ruining the Dolphins game last night. That dude can do literally anything he wants.

Definitely different skillset for me.

I can't do half of what he does when it comes to running the ball and any of that. And then with how he can to just chuck a ball down the field with how far and the arm strength that he has, he's supreme when it comes to that.

I think with that, some of it has to do with being able to see guys, with their guys also up front and our guys, and I'm not the tallest guy in the back there either.

So being able to see, and then sometimes when that happens, you don't want to just throw it blindly. The Ravens fans, it maybe got a little muffled with my cadence and the crowd noise.

So we talked about that on the sideline after and got that corrected.

What does that mean, Things got muffled?

The Ravens fan got muffled by my cadence?

Was that just Lamar... Lamar Jackson is pretty important, huh? Was that just Lamar Jackson grew up in the neighborhood, and therefore, the Miami people who are Baltimore fans showed out? The numbers on Lamar Jackson are crazy. Against the Dolphins, all time, 18 TDs, one interception. That's five games. He had a passer rating of 143 last night and has a lot of games where he has basically... He's got more touch downs than incompletions or about as many touch downs as incompletions. It's a bit nuts how he changes them. Kyle Hamilton, too. Let's get to Tua, though, with the lukewarm. Just basically, they've got a half a season left, folks, and they're done with their quarterback, they're done with their quarterback. They're done with their coach. They're done filled with general indifference. Here is Tua trying to motivate the team beforehand. This would look really cool if they were six and one or seven and one, but it looks far less cool when they're two and seven.

And we got 60 minutes. 60 minutes tonight.

4 hours of pain.

4 hours of making that feel.

It sounds like a threat. We've got 60 more minutes of work we have to do this week. 4 hours.

I love how he just like, this game is good. It's 60 minutes, but it's going to take 4 hours. I know I'm saying 60, but I need more than 60 minutes of your time. I need 4 hours of your time because I know it's confusing. Even though it says 60, we're going to need a little bit longer than that because we have a half-time, we have I'm out. I hate this guy. I'm sorry.

Yeah, you've turned on him.

I can't with him anymore.

I just want to watch Chris talk the whole show. It's so funny looking at his mouth move up and down.

It's longer commercials on Thursday Night Football, too, so it's actually four and a half hours, probably. A normal one o'clock game on Sunday. Probably we can get under four hours, but a nationally televised game. We're going to need four hours and 15 minutes, and then you can take the rest of the night off.

Thank you. Sometimes you just run into Charlie Kohler.

Do you all think that... Because it's weird and it's going on over there in Arizona right now with Kyler Murray. I feel like Jacobi Brissett has proven himself to be maybe the better quarterback in that situation. So do you think the Dolphins could go after someone like Kyler Murray?

Well, Tony's out on Kyler Murray. And obviously, I think if I put that in front of the Dolphins fan base, they would love to have something like that, because one of the things that makes it so hopeless around here is, Tua leads the league in interceptions. He's clearly not the answer. If you need a quarterback, we know this, this is a problematic place to be as a franchise, But if your quarterback is not the answer, then he's the question. And if he's the question leading the league in interceptions, Gino Smith has 10 interceptions, and Tua last night throws one more interception. But they played in that game. They controlled the time of possession. They played the better first half. But you can't get inside the opponent's 30-yard line five times and end up at the end of the game, you've got six points.

On On top of that, it's the worst defense we've been talking about in the entire National Football League outside of the defense that plays on your team, and you have six points, and you're moving the ball here and there, but they're dominating you. You look around and saying, How is this happening to the worst team on defense in the league?

How are we doing on this historically bad defense? Are they just bad? Are they historically bad?

Well, every running back gets 100 yards on them, but I thought they locked down Derrick Henry. When Tony says, though, of the Ravens, Kyle Hamilton makes a pretty enormous difference on their team. Last year, they were worst past defense in the league the first half of the season and the best past defense of the league the second half of the season. So when you say that's a bad defense, you're not wrong because they allowed 44 to the Texans. They were allowing 35 a game. You're not wrong, but that will also not be the same defense that has been all season. And they got coming up, bangles, jets, browns, Vikings.

My Ravens stock is flying, Dan. If you want to buy some, it's expensive, but tomorrow's price is not today's price.

Yeah, the Ravens are going to fix. The Ravens are going to some of that stuff. I want to share with you guys something here, though, that happened to me last night, because I want to get your stories on this because clearly you have stories, okay? I've told you before that I accidentally, Stephanie, who works at a Mexican restaurant nearby, I accidentally texted Stephen A. Smith, my Mexican order, instead of Stephanie, because I've made this mistake absentmindedly when I don't have my glasses. I've told you the story of Aaron Andrews accidentally sending a text that she meant to go to a bougshambi that was funny and inappropriate that she instead sent to Marty Schattenheimer. I had it happen to me last night. Can you guys get the ridiculous video of me promoting our event last night? Thank you to everybody who came out. We're hung over from both the drinks and the feelings of all of that last night because it's a pretty unique thing that is the Intimate relationship that we have with our audience. Our thanks to Miller Light. Also the intimate relationship we have with our sponsors who were thrilled with the number of people who made that a really fun block party that included, as a surprise, DJ Laz.

That Chico's a pimp.

That was a surprise to everybody there when they heard the first syllabus of his voice and they're like, Wait a minute. Is that DJ Laz at a block party here? We have no shortage of famous DJs who come through this town, live in space, But DJ Laz is the biggest and the best we've ever had in this market, correct?

Easily. Dj Khaled is up there. Obviously, he's got more national fame because of... Hold on, let me cook.

He's talking about the local, the region, the regional DJ. Dj Khaled is a national DJ who happens to live in Miami.

He started local and then went national because of his ties with other rappers and musicians, whatever. Dj Laz kept it local, right? Power 96 went through the tough times in radio, made his own song, When you plump up for mi casa, y tu era mi mujer. When he played that, the place went crazy, Dano.. I want to I want to thank Miller Light.

I want to thank DraftKings because we have been moved by all of the people who helped us be independent, including all of those people who came out last night to thank us for an assortment of things. But here's what happened to me last night when I'm advertising the event, and I'm going to tell you that I sent this to two people, but I only meant to send it to one of the two people that I sent it to. This is obviously something I would never say in public. This is something that's got to be kept private between you and I, especially because I really love our sponsors. They're the reason we get to be independent. I'm hugely grateful to Flanigan's and Miller Light and DraftKings that we're having this enormous block party here in an hour at the Flanigan and Kendall. There are going to be a lot of people there, and it's going to be a lot of fun. But it's a bad idea the day before Halloween to have a costume thing. That's just not a good idea. These guys at work, these speakers, they think I like to dress up in costumes when it's my kid, but it's not.

My wife is an artist, and she likes doing costumes, and the only thing she likes better than costumes is me looking like a fool. So we go into the bathroom, and I have to spend an hour before work getting ready for these dumb things. And I do it because I love her, but I don't love this at all. But now she's out of town, and so I got to go to this thing, and I got to be in the experience to party. It's a block party. And nobody wants me to go. It's just Dan wearing my regular clothes. So what happens? I end up in this situation where I'm stuck wearing this shitty costume that nobody's going to like.

I look ridiculous.

I can't do my own costume. That's not something I'm going to do. Are you filming this? You can't even film this. Audio audience. I'm dressed as a pop tart there, poorly fitting pop tart. Bayly is our social media guy. And so I ended up sending that to former Ram and Lion Robert Bailey, former Hurricane. I haven't talked to him in 15 years, so he gets that from me. He's Drew Rosenhaus's right-hand man.

Did he reply?

Not yet. I can't.

Don't be waiting on that reply. Is it red? It's not happening.

Did he read it?

You laughing at me as the horse with Andrew Lux horse.

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Limited time offer. Don Libetard.

For five minutes, I was watching everyone just like, not letting you in, not letting you in.

So when I got up there, I had to say something, and I said it.

Cheaters never prosper. Stugatz. My buddy was saying, not today. Yeah, but you're- Not today. I think that was what he was adding. Yeah, that's so much better. I'm telling you, the response I got from this guy, what I said was amazing. He got him. Cheaters never prosper. This guy yelled as angry as he could, I ain't cheating.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

Bro, you were sweating so hard in that costume, bro.

It was so hot. Well, put it on the poll at Levitard's show. Do you hate Halloween because of how much the costumes make you sweat? Because I underestimated how hot that costume was. I saw you rip that costume off.

I was like, Oh, wow, he's tired of this thing already.

That thing was blazing hot, huh? Yeah, it was not in any way pleasant. Perhaps toasty? I have more dolphin thoughts, but I did want to talk about the heat last night with Cash Patel here, who's also hung over. I heard you guys talking moral victory today because Victor Wembenyama got a mere five blocks, and I really don't know where I'd put the over-under going into any game on Wembenyama for blocks. I think I'd put it at four and a I don't know how many blocks he's averaging, but if I'm going into a game, I'd bet the over on four and a half, so I think I'd put it somewhere closer. I think I'd put it at five.

Going into last night, he was averaging 4. 75 blocks per game and then added another five, all of which came in the second half, by the way.

What were your thoughts there as the heat were stymied offensively? They get 101 points. They keep the game close against an undefeated San Antonio team. This is a consensus, right? I mean, if victory After Wembenyama stays healthy, he's simply going to be the best player in the league before the end of the season if he's not already, correct?

The best player? I don't know about the best player. I think there's a lot of great players. Nikola Jokić, again, I'm telling you, he's never had it as easy as he has it right now. But certainly, look, before the year, someone said he's going to be a top five player. I said, I don't think he'd be top five. And now I'm like, Oh, yeah. He's going to be on the MVP ballot. He'll definitely be on the MVP ballot If he stays healthy and he keeps playing this way.

I'm having some trouble with the show because I got two guys in sunglasses and a guy on a horse's head, and I usually do this by eye contact, so I can't tell when you guys want to talk.

Well, back here, we were just discussing, if he's not the best player in the league, where is he I said he's either third or fourth because I would put Shay and Jokić ahead of him for sure. But then after that, you look at Yannis, and Tony said maybe Luka, but the impact on both ends of the floor, Wembenyama, what he does defensively to slow down teams, the defense that they have where these guards can just simply funnel everyone into the paint, his shot-blocking ability completely changes the game.

You look at the stats across the NBA, and it's like, Victor leads the NBA in rebounds. Victor leads the NBA in blocks. Victor is really close to leading the NBA in scoring. It's like you look at all those things and it's like, yeah, it's the first week of the season, first two weeks of the season. We'll see how everything pans out. But it's like this is now the runway for, okay, the next 10 to 12 years, he's just going to be the top of every stat sheet ever.

Right. And that, to me, equals best player in the league. I feel like he's the best player in the league right now. Give me somebody who can do what he do on both ends of the court, cross you up. He's the best player in the league right now if he stays healthy.

Where is the rest of your costume? I know there's a trees element to everything you're doing there with the clippers and aspirations. Aspiration.

It's about trees, right?

I think the place that I have to side with Juju on, and maybe this is a semantics discussion because, okay, you don't want to underestimate all the things Jokich is. Can easily average a triple double. Can, as Amin says, control the entire game going nine for 10. But if I tell you, when you mention Shay, that's an interesting one because age, obviously, they're comparable. But if you tell me right now, who do I want for the next 10 years? Next 10 years, Shay Gilgis Alexander or Viktor Wembenyama, the The only thing I think keeping people from selecting Viktor Wembenyama is I think he's going to get hurt. I think he's more likely to get hurt than Shay Gilgis Alexander. But when it comes to Jokić, if I tell anybody right now, who'd you rather have right now for your future, people are going to take Victor just because he's so much younger, just because you're going to be getting the next 10 years of him are going to be something that you're going to get him until he's 30 years old, and Jokić is going to be on the other side of 30.

Right. And that also equals to me best player in the league. I think that if we take away the possibility of injuries, a Magic Genie came around. There is nobody you want on your team. I mean, salute to Shay. I've seen him, but that was a game seven he went to with the Indiana Pacers. You feel me? So as great as he is, he has holes. And I think that Victor Wimbayama doesn't have as many.

He's got holes. He's got holes in different area.

I feel like I can make a little bit of an argument for Jokuj because of the fact that his game is going to age, like Tim Duncan's game, where it's like, he's going to be 40 years old, be throwing behind the back passes and throwing stuff between the guy's legs and still getting that bump and little bunny hook, turnaround shots, his three-pointer. Yeah, defensively, obviously, he leaves a lot to be desired. But offensively, that game will age like no other game.

He does perhaps the best job of any of the superstars in the league of making making other players better. I'm not saying that Wembenyama can't, but when you are a hub the way Jokuj is, where there's not too many guys in the league who can do that, that has value beyond anything. I know people like to say, Well, he plays offense and he plays defense. Ipso facto, that means he's the best player. But the reality is, if I'm... And by the way, Jokish is not a bad defender anymore. He's not elite, but he's decent. But let's say he's a plus one on defense.

Their defensive metrics are good with him on the court.

But don't forget, last play-off, he was being guarded by Alex Caruso.

But that was a tough match. That's what O'Kasey wanted.

And guess who that wouldn't be tough for? Victor Wim Benyama. I don't know. No, no, no.

Hold on. No, no, no. It's not like Caruso locked him up. That's not what happened. It was a decision they wanted because they said, When he's doing all of this and helping everybody else out, that kills us. So we got to force him to be in a situation where he has to say, I got to score. I got a 6-3 guy on me or whatever, however tall Caruso is. But my point is, if Jokić is a plus one on defense, he's a plus a million on offense. And so even though when Minyama could say, I'm going to plus 1,000 on the events. I'm going to plus 1,000 on our events. Together, that's selling as much as the impact offensively that Jokuj is.

The thing that was really interesting to watch in last night's game with the heat in particular is that Wemby's patience offense offensively. He's clearly a guy who now is... He's not chucking threes. He's really trying to establish himself to dominate the paint, but he's hitting a big three late in the game because he had the window to do it. He was really just setting up his teammates throughout the game, especially early, because Bamet Abayo actually was bothering him defensively. So he was like, All right, I'll set up all these other guys. And really, he feels like an underrated passer. He's not Jokuj. He's not close to Jokuj in terms of setting up his teammates, in terms of passing the But this early in his career to watch that development from last year to this year as a playmaker for the rest of his teammates, with all these young guards, by the way, between Harper and Vassell and Castle. This team is built for the future around Victor Wembenyama in an unbelievable way.

De Aaron Fox.

Well, we were having a conversation before the show of like, I'll take your, I'm worried about Tyler Hero, and if he's going to disrupt things for the heat, and I will raise you tenfold with, I'm a little worried about De Aaron Fox coming back and messing with what's going on with these young guards and their flow. Not that De Aaron Fox is a great offensive player, but he needs the ball in his hands a lot. And what Castle and Vassell, and particularly Dylan Harper, are able to do with their patience and playmaking around Victor Wembenyama, it sets up a really interesting future here for San Antonio because they paid De'Aaron Fox already. That's the difference here. Tyler is in the spot where he wants to prove that he can be a piece of what this Miami Heat offense is doing moving forward. He has to buy in. De'aaron Fox is a different situation. That's going to be really interesting to watch it play out with a 5-0 San Antonio Spurs team.

A number of things regarding Wembenyama. I'm convinced, obviously, that he's going to continue to grow his game. But is he also going to continue to physically grow? Because he grew over the summer And I'd be curious. I don't know where Amin went or whether he has bubble gut. He just ran out of the studio. But I'm curious to know how this is going to play out with Wembenyama making the game easier for those guards, because Shaquille O'Neill, when he started, could be forgiven for thinking that Anthony Hardaway was a wildly unique player who nobody else could duplicate. And I know Anthony Hardaway was great, but later in his career, Shaq also made that of Wade and Kobe Bryant. He turned those guys into legends, helped, and they would have been legends on their own, and Kobe won a championship on his own. But playing with Shaq was such a... A centrifical? What is it called? Centrifical. Centrifical. That's good, Tom.

I know what a centrifical means. It's a fine, but it's a free new, by the way.

I know what centrifical means, but I don't think my brother Roy was up on that? Can you please explain it to him?

I took science in school. Okay, explain it, Roy. Go ahead. Floor's yours.

When you go around in a circle, for example, if you're in a car and you're going around in a circle, the force drags you towards the middle. That's a centrifugal force. Oh, shit. Somebody Google that. Shaq was so much of that. He just cave in your entire defense that the floor opens up for Anthony Hardaway, Dwyane Wade, and Kobe Bryant in a way that the game got much harder for them when Shaq was no longer doing that? How much is Wembeya going to do that for his guards as his game grows and as he becomes somebody? This is not a finished product. This is a product that will continue to improve. This is not as good as this is going to be. This is going to keep getting better.

What Dan is talking about is the process of gravity. Stars demand attention from defenses, making it for their co-stars to be stars in their own right. When you talk about Victor Yamayama. This is the guy that gives you gravity on both ends of the floor. His presence on the defensive end makes other players think twice about even attempting a shot. And that's the skillset that you don't see every day, Dan Lebitard.

Do you need some tea or something? I don't know what you just did.

Bravo. Guys, he's nailing it.

Some people are going to get this, and a lot of people aren't. And guess what? I'm okay with three people on the internet saying, Oh, shit. He did the thing from the internet.

I got nothing. I don't know what he's doing. It doesn't matter.

Spot on.

I'm going to give you analysis. It's just going to have a funny voice and a cadence that's like this.

Don Levertard.

It doesn't matter anywhere. We could do it in Buffalo or Baltimore, either.

He said you could do it where?

Anywhere. Oh, that's crazy. That's crazy.

That's crazy.

He said he could do it anywhere. That's crazy.

Murder. Tell him.

Stugatz.

I had no idea if Mena had that in his locker.

That might be his best. I'm not kidding. That's crazy, killer. It's two Americas dead. You don't get it?

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

But also, let's not forget how Victor Wimbayama spent his summer. He spent his summer with Goats. Kg, he spent his summer with Hakeem Olajuwon. With the monks. With the Monks, but went over to the ball-headed. Bro was actually making himself better while I don't know what everybody else was up to.

Juju, his love of the game is what separates him. He's not afraid of the grind. He's not looking for TikToks and Instagram reels. He's trying to further the game. And his love of the history of the game took him to find knowledge from places like Hakeem Olajuwon, who has a skill set that's similar to his as a big man with guard mobility, and Kevin Garnett, whose love and fire and passion for the game was unmatched.

It has an undercurrent of Elmo to it.

I promise you, this is the furthest thing from Elmo. Let's talk about some of the legends who made the way for Victor Wendayama to be who he is. Kevin Durant, the slim reaper. We gloss over his ability as someone who's clearly seven feet to make shots from the perimeter and attack. He's got the physical tools and the length, and he's gone up against all the toughest stars of the day. Also, Alexis, Texas, great physical tools, low pulse That's where I figured we were.

When you said furthest thing from Elmo, I was playing the game in my head.

You just went to porno.

What could be the furthest thing from Elmo?

Put it on the poll. Is porno, the furthest thing from Elmo?

It's got to be bottom five.

Well, top five furthest. Would it be bottom or top?

Depends on what porno you're watching.

I wish I could have seen your face turn red there when you got caught up in the air and got scared because I could see your fear behind the horse's moving mouth. Cool as a cucumber.

His arms turned red.

Moral victory. Moral victory. Zaz said yesterday was a buy-in game for the Miami Heat.

Dan, the Miami Heat went out there without Tyler Hero or Norman Powell. Those two scoring ability, their buddy get to the hole, make shots on the outside, would have greatly changed the outcome of that game.

Late in the game, they desperately needed someone who could create their own shot. In the second half, half Having... Sorry, I got distracted by the comparison and preview. I don't know who that person is, but watching Amin be whoever this is is concerning for me.

But the-I want to know what you're dressed as.

I'm Edward Cullen. I'm the most dangerous creature on Earth.

I I don't see an aggressive-I don't see a fu man chew.

You look like somebody beat you up, and then you just showed up to work.

I do look like Edward Coleen got into a fight. But no, I have the skin of a killer, Bella. Yeah, he's a vampire. Come on, twilight. Do the vampire get beat up? I don't know. I sure look like I got beat up.

Speaking of beat up, let's talk about the players who came through and were able to take incredible amounts of abuse but still came through in the end. Michael Jordan told the story about throwing up in game five of the finals, but still came through in the end. Michael Jordan told the story about throwing up in game five of the finals, but still physically capable, and he showed up. That's the love of the game, Dan. It's just missing the day from this current generation.

I think that's such an easy criticism. You can't tell me that Kevin Durant, I don't know if he's today's generation, you can't tell me he doesn't love the game. Why do you think That's such an easy criticism to make on today's generation. You think that the young people playing today's game, you can hit them with the sweeping brush of they don't care about the game the way the old timers did?

I think it's obvious, Dan. When you watch some of the tape, as I do, at 3: 00 in the morning, you know some of these players are in it for the trappings, for the luxuries that come along with the game, and not for the game itself.

That's always been the case, though.

I think social media plays a big part in that. How today's athlete operates, he hears the criticism instantly. He sees the other people, what they're up to instantly. The private jets, he want to keep up with the Kardashian. I think all of that plays a role into why today's athlete seems a little more disinterested than the old school.

It's not It's just that, Juju. It's also the infatuation with being a brand. It's all the other things instead of focusing, making the main thing the main thing, as Eric Spolstra, Hall of Fame coach, likes to say.

You are fair. I think a lot of people have that criticism, but making a brand, it's not as if Michael Jordan wasn't also super interested in the making of a brand. Rarely has it been as overt, the making of a brand, than the guy who made a brand more than anybody in the history of sports.

Dan, we never felt like Michael Jordan was actively pursuing it. It was being done and it was being made, but we always felt like his focus was on the game at hand. When we talk about some of the modern players, there is an overt effort that's being made where they're telling you, Hey, I have to do this. This is good for my brand rather than, This is good for my game.

Yesterday, your eyes gave you a headache. If you do this for the remainder of the show, you're going to go home with a spent voice for the weekend. Jeremy explained to me, I've got South Beach Sessions next week. He explained to me that this glitter in this Wizard's beard, that this is considered in the theater game, the chlamedia of stage props, that I'm not going to be able to get rid of the glitter in my beard, and there are going to be some ramifications for me next week.

That's how we always referred to it in high school, the chlamedia of stage props. That's what glitter is when you put it in your hair. You're going to be finding that glitter for, I don't know, four to six months?

Why? Why STD as a reference to that?

Why? I'm no expert. I'm no expert or no doctor, but I think you can get rid of chlamedia.

Right, eventually.

Touche. Touche.

You were saying, Jeremy, before you got distracted by the joke that Amina is doing that you, me, and Chris, don't understand?

Well, when it comes to the heat offense, last night, what really happened was in the second half, in the third quarter, the pace and space that they've been doing offensively got jumbled up. Why? Because they couldn't get into the paint. They couldn't properly penetrate. When they couldn't do that, the issue for Miami was that they wanted to be able to distribute the ball and get guys open in the corner. But unfortunately, they didn't have the ability to do so because their spacing was all messed up. Why? Because of Victor Wembenyama's length.

You've got to be able to overcome that length, Dan, and the great players find a way. Now, when you're shorthanded, injuries happen. It happens, and you've got to find a way with the personnel that you have. I like that Simony Fantechio, who has never had a mustache, by the way, was aggressive out there and was making it from the outside. The perimeter game is so important in the game today, but you've got to find a way to counterbalance it with penetration at the hole.

Dan, did you notice that the group chat that you made fun of me for yesterday where I said Kalele Ware would be the next Victor Wemenyama as the title I changed this morning to Simony Fantechio will have his number retired? Did you notice that?

I didn't, Jeremy. I've learned to ignore most of what it is that you're commenting on when you do personal shows for me.

Well, you know, sometimes it's valuable.

Sometimes. That's your opinion.

Let's talk about... Wow. All right. Let's talk about Eric Spolstra's job so far with this Miami Heat offense. Missing a bona fide superstar talent, they have been able to four opponents by almost seven or eight points per 100 possessions. That's amazing, considering the personnel available to them.

I watch what it is that the heat always do in terms of creative evolution, and I pair it with what it is that the dolphins are and have been in this town. And it makes me better understand how I've gone in this market from watching the dolphins be the only thing that was excellent in sports for three decades, '70s, '80s, '90s, when they had Dan Moreno, to watching a football town taken away by the basketball team because of the stability more than anything. This is always interesting to me when it comes to organizational architecture and how much it matters to have stability. The idea that someone came out of the video room and is regarded by all the other NBA general managers as the most innovative of the coaches, the guy who will figure out, even though he had a terrible year last year, that will include forever in his dreams, the haunting of calling a time out he did not have at the end of a game against the Pistons, costing his team the game.

You were right about that. He's going to wake up one day in 10 years and be like, Time out. No, wait, no.

You guys don't understand. That person is so obsessive, compulsively driven about How do I figure out how to stay ahead of all of these other people who are trying to do what the NFL has done to Mike McDaniel, where it gets stripped bare because it's so survival of the fittest on where it is and how it is that you evolve, that you see the whole thing go from best offense in the league to everyone in leadership gets ravaged because you don't actually have stability tethering the core of everything that you're doing. What the Miami Heat are going to be? They're not going to be a champion, but they are going to give you hope, and they are going to have young pieces that other people want because their development is... I will not overstate this when I say it is second to none. You tell me who's second because I believe that you believe that they're second to none when it comes to, We will take Don Shula. The greatest compliment that I've heard in coaching was Bum Phillips saying of Don Shula, He'll take yourin and beat his and he'll take his in and beat your in.

It sounds like you're- Chef? But- Slerith? But Spoh is somebody… You can't answer my question on development, When it comes to just any player, you put Davian Mitchell here and he looks different than he looks anywhere else.

Dan, you're absolutely right. The Miami Heat. Actually, if you remember one of the earliest appearances I had on this show, we were talking them paying James Johnson and Deion Waiters and Asan Whiteside. I said, You are the organization that finds diamonds in the rough everywhere and polishes them with diamonds. Why would you go to Zales and pay market price? Just let them go and go find the next round. And that's what they've been doing. They found Max Struz. He got paid. He left. They found Ken McDonald. He got paid. He left. That's the formula. And so they do an incredible job, not only of scouting, but development and seeing the best in guys who are in the G League and the Minor Leagues and trying to come up. As far as other organizations that are great like them, I would put the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder. They consistently have a way of bringing up through their farm system players who develop and become rotational assets, and not because they were high draft picks or big names, but people that they found and made into big names.

Yeah, and I I think it's good that the NBA, where the people in charge, recognized that and made him the leader of all of us, the head coach of the Dream Team coming up. So it speaks for itself.

You mentioned, Max Struz has been a reasonable facsimile of what he was here. You I did mention gay Vincent, who has not been. The other thing about their development that is interesting is the grand majority of those people who leave here because they're paid never again look like what they looked like here. They don't look like that before they get and then they get paid and go somewhere else. Struce isn't the best example because he can make threes from wherever it is that he plays, and has been a reasonable facsimile. But when Tyler Johnson gets the $44 million from the organization that has not run well, And they try to recreate that, all of a sudden, you get a player who's not nearly the same thing. It is how and why the heat have taken this market from the dolphins in terms of hope, who are getting booed at home and have the Ravens fans making them have false starts at home.

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