Transcript of Reacting To Kevin Durant & Aaron Rodgers: "They Are Historic Losers" | Hour 2 (feat. David Dennis Jr.) New

This is the Dan Levatorre Show with the Stugatz Podcast. So we have two series getting started tonight. We have Game 1 Knicks and Sixers this evening, and also Game 1— is it, uh, is, is it the Wolves and Spurs tonight? Thank you, Tony. Wolves and Spurs.

By the way, Ant questionable, already been cleared for basketball-related activities.

Okay, so we're gonna see him soon.

So there's a chance that we may see him tonight, may see him Game 2.

Alright, uh, Madison Square Garden's gonna be a fun environment tonight. I mean, I know the Knicks don't get much love here, nor should they, but I do like watching the games at Madison Square Garden.

Isn't the answer, by the way, to the mystery, or the one that I have asked about, why, um, Miamians hate Boston, isn't it in part because so many snowbirds from New York City are here? Isn't the percentage of New Yorkers way higher than Bostonians down here?

Much higher.

—That probably is part of the reason, right? —No, it—

they're racist.

—Yeah, that's a good reason to hate them! —And so like the reaction to the stuff that we do is always outsized because of the tinge and sometimes overt racism. —Hating the racist is a good reason to hate! —No, we were on WEI once. Like, I know how it goes. I know what the mentions were like. I know what the on-air host said. And so like, we hate them. Not just because their teams were immensely hateable, but because of how they talk about us and to us. You got it?

You get it? I do get it. Do you like Boston? Interesting. I don't think— what I don't think is, obviously, maybe I personify this, I don't think most of America knows that there is— Boston, New England at large, the paradox of that region of the country is, of course, it's also the home of the Kennedys.

And so that It's more of a casual racism, which is why they don't dwell on it. They just don't know why they hate Miami. There's just something about it. And something about it is—

I get it. It's the home of the WASPs and everything else up in New England. I don't perceive that Bostonians have directed more, you know, sort of hate or otherwise at Miami than they have at the rest of the country.

I think what you're trying to say, tell me if I'm wrong, is that nationally —people don't think of Miami-Boston as a rivalry.

Yeah, that's the bottom line. That's what I'm getting at, I guess.

Yeah. Let's bring aboard David Dennis Jr., senior writer for ESPN's Andscape. He's the author of the award-winning The Movement Made Us: A Father, a Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride. David Dennis Jr. is also my pal. Good to see you, David. David, what is your number one hate-watch in sports these days? I did some unbelievable hate-watching this weekend. I was rewarded every single night. The Bruins season ended Friday, the Celtics season ended Saturday, the Lightning season ended Sunday. I'm on cloud nine. Who's your top hate watch these days?

Well, first of all, I want to say thanks for leading me in with the Boston is racist. This does really great things for my race-baiting persona on the internet. This has been great to sort of lead into that. Happy to join you guys. Happy to talk about all this stuff. Hate watching. Let's see, for me, being in Atlanta as a Saints fan, it is really cool to walk the streets and see the pain that Atlanta fans feel on a day-to-day basis. Like, that is really something that I love to experience. So it kind of trickles over sometimes. Like, I am sort of agnostic about basketball teams, but I will say that walking around State Farm Arena and seeing people in Falcons uniforms while their team was losing by 50 points in the first half was— it sort of brought a tear to my eye to see people of Atlanta suffering.

But it's not as if you've had a ton of joy as a Saints fan. Like, you don't get to parade around, hey, look at me.

Oh, oh, I absolutely can.

Saints won a Super Bowl, and that— and the Saints were never expected to ever win a Super Bowl in the history of ever. We're riding on that for— as for, like, it's like when you have a guy who just kind of drinks through the semester and you still get an A, a higher score than the person who studies all the time. That's basically what happened with the Saints won the Super Bowl before the, before the Falcons. Like, we, when you drive through on the way to the Superdome, there is still a scoreboard that says, uh, 38-3 or whatever on, uh, that is there. Like that, 28-3, that is still there when you go to the Superdome. Like, there is so much joy in having won a Super Bowl and the folk, people in Atlanta not having that.

David, how many times or did you ever have the opportunity while they were still alive to fly Spirit Airlines? I flew—

I flew Spirit Airlines one time exactly. And shout out to— because in general, like in general, I don't want to make fun of like the sort of affordable thing that goes out of business because I feel like we need more of those. But I will say it was like a Greyhound in the air. It was kind of like being thrown in a paper plane. If I could just be in a paper plane and they threw me from Atlanta to Baltimore, that's kind of how it felt. Like you felt, you felt speed bumps in the air. I don't know how it felt like you were running over potholes and speed bumps, but somehow was able to do that. But shout out to Spirit. They should still be around. We should still have affordable flights 'cause now everybody's gonna raise the prices.

Now you may recognize, you know, David Dennis Jr.'s maiden voyage on the Dan Le Batard Show here. You may recognize him from, you see him on television, maybe you've read him, and you may have also seen him on First Take recently where you said you don't eat any candy.

Oh, candy's disgusting. Can't get candy out of here. Out now. Now I want to make it— I want to make something very clear. Chocolate is different. There's chocolate. There's like Snickers, Butterfingers, M&M's. So that's not candy. That, that is like a chocolate. Like if it's, if it's in the Hershey metropolitan area, I will, I will eat it. Candy, the Skittles, Twizzlers, disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Get it out of my face. I hate it. It's something that I ate as a kid 'cause I felt like I should like it. Then I realized that I freed myself from the shackles of thinking that I should eat candy because that's what they tell kids to eat. It's all disgusting. Get it out of here.

Was there one candy flavor that really set you on your way down this dark path and out of fruit flavored? 'Cause really you've identified the two food groups, the chocolate flavors and then than the fruit flavors. And for me, the most off-putting fruit-flavored attempt to mimic a fruit is banana.

How say you? Yeah, yeah, same, same. I mean, I used to try Spree as a kid. Like, what is Spree? Like, what is that? That's just, it's disgusting. And then Now Laters, like, you know, when kids were like, oh, those are Now Laters. Now Laters are disgusting. They're disgusting. They're disgusting. Get it all out of here.

They don't seem like food even, really.

It's not even food. It's just pure, sugar nonsense. It's not even a flavor. Like, what is the flavor that you're actually ingesting when you're tasting these disgusting candies? Give me chocolate or give me nothing. Get it out of here. Well, what about when you go to the movie theater?

You don't get candy. Buncha Crunch.

No, you get M&M's or you get popcorn and you sneak in M&M's because I'm not paying $4.50 for a bag of M&M's. You sneak in M&M's and you pour them in the popcorn, shake up the popcorn. This guy knows what he's talking about. Yeah, that's how you do it. That's how you do it. I got Reese's Pieces, but same, same strategy, same idea, same idea. Popcorn and M&M's undefeated. Popcorn and chocolate undefeated. Get candy out of here. Why you— no, give me no candy. Sit there. What kind of grown man you gonna sit there watch Oppenheimer and eat Skittles? Come on now, like, be a man. Eat some— eat some— eat an adult thing.

Because Jolly Ranchers are very nice. I didn't appreciate your attack. It wasn't necessary to mention Spree, although we do agree that any candy, when you have multiple fruit flavors, you don't need both lemon and lime. I've heard and argued with people who say, "I actually like the lemon one," and I, I think you're not really living, you're just surviving if that's the case. What kind of weirdo are you that in a world that includes cherry and strawberry and otherwise, that your favorite is lemon? But why the double down on lemon and lime? That's a waste of time. That's a waste of space. How say you, David Dennis?

I agree, a waste of time. A, a lot of just, uh, redundancies there. Like, why is it— why do you need that? I don't understand why you need that. Jalen Brown, same— play the same position, trade one of them.

David, we brought up the movies, and this conversation came up over the weekend in my group chat about the idea of going to see the double feature. You go to see a movie, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna watch another movie while I'm here. Would you pay for the second movie ticket as well, or would you just Pay for the first one and then get another one on the house.

Okay, so this is the nomenclature here. What you're looking for is what we call plexing where I'm from. And so plexing, you go to a movie, you see another movie happening, you roll into it, you time it the right way. You go back in the day, you open the newspaper, see when the movie's going, go in, you go into the next one. Now, as a law-abiding citizen at my old age, I would go out there like Doomsday and Dune, right? Aren't they coming out the same day? I would have to like, you know, I'd make sure that I paid for those things, especially Doomsday. Fantastic Disney product that is coming out in movie theaters. If you had to pick one, I would pick Doomsday over Dune. But make sure you pay for those tickets.

I did the triple header one time, sneaking in, only paying for one movie and sneaking into the others. I can— I could tell you all three. I remember the three. What were they? You ready for this? Yeah. Assassins. Okay, Banderas. Yeah, Banderas and, uh, Stallone. Stallone, yeah, with the glasses. Okay, all right. Nick of Time.

Oh, great Walken monolog in that film.

Can you do it? Let me look it up. It's a good scene. All right, you look it up. Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, it's a good scene. And the third one, Jade. Oh, it's a David Caruso. That's, that's the movie he left NYPD Blue 4 with Linda Fiorentino. Uh, was Nicolas Cage also in it? I think a small role.

No, that's— I know what you're thinking of. That's the boxing picture.

Oh, okay. But this was David Cage.

Snake Eyes was the boxing picture. So, so watch what I did back in the day. I'll never forget this. I went to go see one of those Superman movies, I think the one with Brandon Routh, right? Yeah. But I got there too early and I was like, I had 20 minutes to kill, so I said, oh, let me check out this movie. It's called The Breakup. And I sat there. Awful movie. What? Horrendous movie. One of my favorite movies of all time. Horrendous movie. You shut the hell up.

You shut the hell up, Zazz. You know what? Then you've never been in a real relationship.

That's a real relationship. That's what it's like. Horrendous movie.

Why would I want to do the dishes?

Exactly. What my baby wants, my baby gets.

The soundtrack is what spoils that picture. It would be better if it had a more of a romantic comedy vibe to it. It wasn't me.

It was the little guys with the big hearts.

David Dennis, um, I— is that— if I'm not mistaken, well, you were going into a story, so you would finish your story about seeing a double feature. No, it wasn't really double feature because you were ranting about strawberries earlier.

Yeah.

I don't even know what you're talking about. Bananas and stuff.

Let him finish.

So I went and I watched like the first 30 minutes of like, this movie's amazing, but Superman's about to start. So I'm like, fine. I went back and I watched Superman. I'm like, this movie sucks. It finished. I walked out. Guess what was starting? The Breakup. So I went back and I watched it.

The other night I was staying in. At least that was a plan. Then the text from my buddy Eagle Eye comes in. Mike, we've got the games on. I say, yeah. I grab a pack of Miller Lite, and immediately my plan's gone. Now it's playoff basketball. Every possession feels huge. Baseball's on another screen, and I, I somehow care about that too. Everybody's got takes flying. Nobody's watching just one thing, and we're all way more into it than we ever expected. It was one of those nights that you take a sip, you look around, and you think, yeah, This was the right move. That's why I reach for Miller Lite. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brewed for taste with simple ingredients. Just 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. The original light beer since 1975, and it still hits different. 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, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

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Limited time offer. Da Libertad! For weeks, months even, during the regular season, I wondered aloud what Kevin Stenlund did. And then about 3 weeks ago, it hit me. Stugats! He gives him one of these. And he gives them one of those.

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

David Dennis, if I'm not mistaken, over your right shoulder there, I see Vader. Is that— that is Vader. Right here? Right there. That's— yeah, that's— I think that's like, you don't know the power of the Force. If I— so this is not—

this is not Vader. This is This is, what was the Jedi from Obi-Wan, the black woman who was there that everybody hated because, you know, obvious reasons, that I got a figure of her. Really? She's over my shoulder.

That's not Kylo, I would have thought then Kylo Ren.

Or even Kylo Ren, it looks like it could be.

Not Kylo Ren, I have a Darth Maul to my left. Okay. But over here, yeah, I forgot what her name was.

Yeah, you don't even know homegirl's name.

Don't even know homegirl's name, don't know her name.

Darth Maul got cut in half. By Scott—

Yeah, I got Darth Maul— By Kenobi.

Darth Maul there. It's just Maul now. David Dennis. Drop the Darth, it's a lot cleaner.

With the Fourth upon us and Amin wearing his Stay on Target t-shirt that is grand, what is the best way to approach, if you were to see a triple feature or a quadruple feature even of Star Wars on May the Fourth, what is the correct way to watch it? Do you watch them in order, in chronological order? Do you take some movies just straight out of the mix? And jump in at Rogue One. Hold on, hold on.

While we're there, while we're zoomed in, that is a Michael Jordan autograph Upper Deck number to 5. Behold, behold. Got out of a pack. Got 12.

Bravo. Where do you live?

Get it. There we go. Don't even worry about it. Don't even worry about it. Live in Atlanta, huh? Okay. Don't even worry about it. Buckhead or? Putting up numbers when I'm breaking, baby. Putting up numbers. Trying to be— I'm trying to be a card influencer. So like zoom in on that, please. Trying to be one of those guys that break. Anyway, sorry. There was a question about Star Wars. Sorry.

I was just soliciting your thoughts on how best to watch it. And Zazz, if you have a good thought on this, take it away.

Zazz is not a movie guy. Don't ask Zazz.

That's not true. I'm a great movie guy. Just because I know that Breakup's a horrendous movie and you're offended for some reason doesn't make me any less of a movie guy. Go ahead.

Come with it, Chum. Come, come. You got to do the cut. You got to do what was the cut? You got to do like start with episode— you got to start with episode 4, 5. Go back to 3 and then you go 6. That's the only way to do it. 1, you don't really have to watch. Don't really have to watch 1. I agree. I think you don't need Jar Jar. Well, I think I would advocate for including Rogue One in there, though.

I would say—

yeah, I would say you got it. You got to watch Rogue One during the pandemic. I went through all of it. And then there's like 12, like animated episodes you got to watch. Like there's like probably like 12 across all of the— like there's a lot more than 12. Hold on now. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's like, like some that are essential when you like, uh, uh, Ahsoka, what was his name? Uh, like there are some with her that are essential. There's just like some essential animated episodes you got to watch too.

And can I just tell you real quick, David Dennis Jr., Tony is very offended that you are not remembering the names to some of these characters. I know, I'm sorry, I apologize.

I got the, uh, what's her name? Uh, you know her name, everybody hates her, but you know her name, right?

Everybody, she's featured next to Michael Jordan and you don't know her name.

Don't know her name. You got— you got— does anybody else know her name? Do y'all know her name?

We don't have a figurine of her.

Well, but it's still— it's— she's there.

She's there. It's important.

I can't zoom in now, Mike, so we can move on.

Now, Mike Ryan, uh, do you need me to set you up here to complete this scene from Nick of Time?

So I put a bullet in his eye, then I put two more in him just to make sure. Now, that was somebody that I loved. I loved him. But I got the call and I put him down like a sick animal. So if you have doubts about what's gonna happen if you don't deliver, let me tell you something. I'll make gravy out of your little girl.

It's a good movie. It's a good— that's a great scene. That's an excellent Christopher Walken. I loved him. That's a— that's an excellent job.

David Dennis, I don't know if you saw the Kentucky Derby. If you had a thoroughbred What would you name it?

I would name it Black Jedi from Obi-Wan's show.

Bit of a long one coming down the stretch, right? Unidentified— Real long coming down the stretch. Unidentified female Jedi, probably a Sith because she's wearing all black, but I don't know what her name is.

Can I tell you, David Dennis Jr. gave me some great advice. I do— Take it away. I do ESPN radio shows with David every now and then, and —And it was, I don't know, it was like a few months ago where my family was out of town, so I was a bachelor, I was by myself, and I didn't know what to do for the evening. It was like a Sunday night. And David Dennis Jr. gave me the great advice— you remember it, David— to take myself out on a date. Take yourself out? Can you explain here? Because I love this, and this is something that I will do any chance I get now.

You have an empty house, you take yourself out to a nice steakhouse and just enjoy yourself. Like if you, if you go with the missus, right, it's probably like $250, maybe $300 to go to a really nice steakhouse. You go by yourself, you're like $150 and you're out and you eat like a king. You eat like Your Majesty when you're there. It's cheaper. It's great. You could dress up if you want, plan to sit at the bar, like go to the bar so you don't have to like ask for a table or wait and everything. If they got a TV at the bar, that's even better. You just dine incredibly well, get an extra drink, maybe a dessert, because you don't have to worry about how much it costs because it's half the price. That is the thing to do every time you have an empty house. I'm on, I'm on the OpenTable resi. Let me see what's out there. Go sit at the bar, figure it out, because I got to get my points from OpenTable.

I went straight after doing the show with David, I went over to Steakhouse. There's a nice steakhouse right down the road for me. I got dressed up. Maybe I even put on a spritz of cologne. I don't know. I don't remember perfectly. And I went and I sat at the bar. I watched some sports. I ordered myself a drink. I got the big cube. You know, if you're by yourself, it doesn't even matter if you're by yourself, actually. I don't know why you would, you know, get a different kind of ice.

You get more dressed up to date yourself than your wife? Whatever. No, absolutely, absolutely.

It's yourself. It's yourself. You going out there, you put on a nice little, a nice little something. You want to feel a little cute, go out there. And then if the— if, if you get a little— if you get a little double look from the ladies, you come back home and you say, hey, you know, I was outside and, you know, ladies were coming.

Yeah, maybe Maybe I'm trying. Maybe I'm—

Remind her what you got. That's right.

Maybe I'll be Mr.

You're lucky to have a hot piece like this walking around the street by himself. Maybe I'm going to be Mr.

Steal Your Girl that night.

There you go. You never know. You never know. You know, that's all you got to get dressed up. You get dressed up to go by yourself. Of course. Why are you looking at me like that, Jeremy?

I just can't believe that you're more concerned about impressing yourself than your wife.

Like I told you, I could be Mr. Steal Your Girl that night.

Is that really the plan?

It's about other people's wives that he's interested in, right?

He's trying to turn the tables.

Okay, so you want to impress other people's wives.

More than—

than your own. Did you bring your tablet to dinner? Take a track here.

Like tablet time. I think tablet time.

Oh, that would be a great move to really sell it to the man in the mirror as a part of your dating yourself, is to send a drink to a table occupied by a couple. That would be— what a move that would be. That's for— this is for the lady from The Gentleman at the Bar.

I get it.

When she looks up at you, you're pointing at her like this. You give her this move while her her fellas looking, you just give her this move.

He's pointing at the camera.

I get it though.

You have Zazz who's always a cuck in his own relationship. How dare you. And so he's just trying to make other people the cuck.

How dare you. Oh, David Dennis Jr., I'm not going to explain that to you because it's hearsay.

He thinks you're a cuck, Zazz.

You got to tell him. Everybody knows if there's one thing everybody knows about me is that I'm never going to be a cuck. Stop sending me pictures of the empty hotel rooms. All right. Empty hotel chairs. That is not for me. I don't like that. All right, stop it. It's annoying already at this point.

We should define what a cuck is for the audience.

We all know.

They're very aware. Billy Crystal enters your bedroom. Yeah. You pull up a chair and you watch Billy Crystal.

I didn't watch. I left the room. I didn't want to see it. I left.

You can watch a clip of Scott Jennings talking to Adam Mokler for another example.

Billy Crystal. Uh, David, what did you make of Jalen Brown and the excuse machine the very next day after Game 7 when the Celtics choke away a 3-1 series lead, and he decides to do like a video game Twitch stream bullshit and essentially says that the NBA is rigged.

I applaud Jaylen Brown. I want to applaud Jaylen Brown for this one thing, is that I think we were getting too close to the Celtics being likable. Like, we were getting really, really dangerously close to like the Celtics being a really good story with Jayson Tatum coming back from his injury. Fighting through it. You had like your, your Pritchard, feisty gym rat, first, first to get there, last to leave type of guy. And then we were starting to like really kind of like this Celtics team. Jaylen Brown said, I'm doing this for the culture and I'm going to remind everybody why there are reasons to hate the Celtics. Thus I'm going to go on Twitch and do a Supruder film of flopping, and I'm going to admire myself blocking an Embiid shot. It was just such beautiful self-sabotage that now we have good reason to hate the Celtics again. It's beautiful. It was, it was to me a public service by Jaylen Brown to make the Celtics so hateable again. It was beautiful. Done. Beautifully done.

I want to bring up something else, NBA, that we, we haven't even talked about yet on this show here. David, did you see in The Athletic over the weekend, you know, once the Rockets were eliminated by the Lakers, which, by the way, I mean, how's— yes, I obviously have to raise my hand. I said the Lakers were not going to win. A-game. Classy, like Jerry Orbach at the end of Dirty Dancing.

When you're wrong, you say you're wrong. That's right.

Although I think Jerry Orbach was a good guy. He didn't want the creepy 35-year-old dancer dancing with his 16-year-old daughter. Grinding on her. Grinding on her. I think Jerry Orbach was the hero in that movie.

Nonetheless, Jerry Orbach also in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors.

How about that? Nonetheless, the Lakers eliminated the Rockets over the weekend, and The Athletic, David, reported that Kevin Durant's, you know, alleged, alleged burner account, that there was, quote, significant distraction that was never truly resolved, end quote, in the Rockets locker room. What do you make of that?

Well, yeah, that's, that's, it was clearly unresolved. You could see it on the court that it was unresolved. Like, Kevin Durant, you can do this with the Warriors and the Warriors will shrug it off and we're gonna go win a championship and it's gonna be fine. We kind of know Kevin Durant is— you can't do this with a bunch of young dudes, man. Like, you cannot do this with them and like talk crazy to them and have burner accounts. And like, it is going to impact that locker room, is going to impact how people treat you. And that team fell apart in large part because of how Kevin Durant was doing. Like, it absolutely makes sense.

Finally here, David Dennis Jr., have you— are you up to speed with Euphoria? Have you watched the most recent episode?

I didn't watch, uh, last night's episode of Euphoria. As you know, Zaz, me and Mina Kimes, we got, uh, Viewer Discretion. So we have our pod that we talk about shows. We're talking about Euphoria because the audience demanded it, and I feel like they owe us for making us endure, uh, this season of television of Euphoria. However, I've decided that Euphoria is— and Zaz, I know you're familiar with this movie. I know you're familiar with the movie Belly. Zaz, how many times have you seen Belly?

No, I don't know what that movie is.

He's not a movie guy. I keep saying this.

All right, uh, Euphoria is basically White Belly. Like, it looks really nice, but it doesn't make any sense, and it's just a bunch of like really beautiful scenes that absolutely make no sense. It's just nonsense. That's basically what Euphoria is.

Did you guys cover DTF St. Louis? I don't think we've talked about it.

Did not cover DTF St. Louis. Did not. We sort of missed out on that. Watched a few episodes. It was a little unhinged, but did not watch it. I think that's—

I'll just say, long story short, that was a good call. I don't think you needed to indulge that series.

Oh, Weebey's in this movie, Belly. Yes.

Yes. Also DMX, Nas, T-Boz. Africa's far. Famous line. Like, this is Africa. Nas goes to Africa. Does not specify what part of Africa. He just goes to Africa. Spoiler alert.

They don't even show us. They don't even show us.

They don't show us. They don't show us.

I went to Africa and it was beautiful.

They went to— they showed Times Square where he was talking about Africa. He was like this. He's like, I went to Africa and it was the best place ever. We don't know where he went. And he just— he just fled to Africa. Method Man is in it. Ja Rule's on the soundtrack. Great soundtrack. It's just a classic. It's what we call a hood classic, Zazz. All right. I know you've seen a lot of hood classics.

I love the hood classics.

Guys, I know about hood classics.

You can also check David out. He hosts Andscape's digital NBA show Ball Up Top. It is available on Andscape's YouTube page. Excellent job, David. Good to see you, man. All right.

Catch you guys later. Thanks for having me. Dan Levitard.

I win in the margins. I'm like, I'm like— You're Moneyball of sex? I'm basically Scott Hatteberg.

Lot of fucking. Stugatz. Lot of walks, but I'm on base.

When it comes to sex, I'm Scott Hatteberg. Lot of foul tips. Other dudes, they can be Giambi. You know your role, you play well.

I know my role. This is the Dan Levitard Show with the Stugatz. I gotta catch up on Euphoria. I've never seen the show, but I gotta catch up on this past week's. As you are unbelievable.

Why? David says, I have a podcast with Mina Kimes where we review shows. Yeah. Damashek asks, have you guys reviewed DTF St. Louis? And your dumbass says, no, I don't think we talked about that. He's not asking you.

That's true, that's true. He's asking the guest. It's true.

Also, uh, sometimes you just gotta sit back in that chair. Yeah. And watch the action play out in front of you. Yeah. Are you looking at—

why are you eyeballing me like that?

I'm eyeballing Zazz. You are?

Because I feel like your eyes are shifting over. I was making a joke and I don't think Dave got it. Oh, okay. I missed that. I did miss the cuck joke. I'm sorry about that because I'm too anxious to ask this question. Which is the more fraught proposition among an all-time great in his sport? Kevin Durant coming into your locker room or Aaron Rodgers coming into your locker room? I think they're kind of the same guy, right?

No, they're not. It's Rodgers.

No, they're not remotely close. It's Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers is worse to have in the mix. Yes.

Because you can say a lot of things about Kevin Durant, but nobody question— nobody questions like his dedication to the game. Like, I understand what you have to deal with with Kevin Durant. And it's all hearsay about social media behavior and some stuff that's out in the open. But Kevin Durant loves ball and has never really impeded a certain team's chance to win.

I mean, I think Aaron Rodgers loves ball. I think he would make that deal.

Also, Kevin Durant's never walked in and said, you guys should be trying ivermectin or whatever. Like, there's a batshit crazy element to Aaron Rodgers that whatever you want to believe about Kevin Durant, I think a lot of that stuff is overblown or whatever, but even if you were to believe all of it's true, it's still fairly mundane stuff. It's just like, oh, so he likes to tweet. Whereas Aaron Rodgers is a guy who has problematic thoughts on life.

I hear you, but I also think with Kevin Durant, who I'm a big fan of and who I long argued is a top 10 all-time player and all of that, it is weird that there's plenty of evidence. I mean, how many NBA teams has he played on? What is, you know, in comparison to in different sports with free agency operate differently, but I mean, has any all-time great played for as many teams, has had to bounce around as much as Kevin Durant has? Moses Malone. Eh, not really. He got— he goes from the Rockets to the Sixers and dominates the Sixers, the Bullets.

Like, the guy played for a lot of teams.

I'm not talking about Steve Carlton at the, at the tail end of his career, bounces around and jumps in. He was an All-Star.

What are you talking about, Moses?

I'm talking about in his prime. He is a Rocket star and then goes to the Sixers in his prime, is the missing piece.

Hold on, in his prime It's 2026. He was drafted in 2007. Like, you're giving him the ultimate—

No, but he's still really good.

I get he's really good, but we can't— like, I brought Moses Malone, he's like, oh, that was the tail end of his career. I was like, he was an All-Star. He was like, we're talking about prime of the career. I'm like, this is his 19th year. This guy's already played way more than Moses ever played. So like, we have to keep it in perspective that yeah, he's still great, that's awesome, but we can't act like, oh, he's some vagabond or something.

Well, and everything that you're talking about, right, is post-Golden State, because nobody was talking about Kevin Durant as like a problem child in Golden State. He just tried to leave. That means it's everything post-30 in his career, right? He joined Brooklyn, he was a 32-year-old. I don't think he was the problem in Brooklyn. We know what was going on there with all the different personalities. So now, all right, move him to Phoenix. He's 34, 35 years old when he's in Phoenix. Well, and even there, he's not really a problem child. It just doesn't work out.

But also, when he's on the Dubs and a part of a dynasty and arguably, with due— all due respect to Steph Curry— is the straw stirrer in that drink for a season or two. Uh, you know, the— his demise there, I'm fuzzy on even what happened.

Well, it wasn't a lot of fun. Like, it seems like basically he got there, they won a bunch, nobody gave him any credit for what he was doing there. He decided, I don't want to deal with all these crazy personalities and I'm gonna go do something else.

Let me go to Brooklyn.

James Harden, those were his guys.

You know, and I hate to get inside the mind of someone that I don't know, but the vibe I get is this guy is a basketball purist to the highest order. Meaning, he was playing a certain way in Oklahoma City, and it clearly wasn't working, it was never gonna work. He looks at Golden State, and everyone says, "Oh, you went to the best team." I'm like, no, he just went to the team where they played a style of basketball. He's like, "Oh, that intellectually stimulates me." He goes there, he does that, like Jeremy said, didn't get any credit despite being spectacular there. So now he's on to the next intellectual challenge.

But that's a weird little note that you're skipping over, which is he didn't get enough credit.

This dude sat at $100 million.

He's the, he's the best star on a— he's the biggest star on a dynasty. Like, I'm not getting enough credit here. That's the point. That sounds like Aaron Rodgers.

That's first of all, that's the point. He wasn't the biggest star. He may not even be the second biggest star. Remember they had the championship parade and it's like, yeah, well, Kevin, you weren't like— they were literally making jokes about it. Like on the—

I get it, but what you're talking about is his ego.

Oh, the other guy that you're trying to compare him to sat there at a press conference and shamed people and tried to lie about getting vaccinated.

Like, don't look at me for the defense of the other guy. I'm saying they're similar. You're trying to compare two different—

two different guys. Which was better? Trying to compare two different guys. Pretty well. Like, okay, Roger, Ivermectin's actually very good. Rodgers is on a different plane as far as kind of toxicity.

I think it is people who fancy themselves as pseudo-intellectual or a little bit smarter than they're getting credit for. Don't pigeonhole me as a dumb jock kind of vibes, right? Puff your chest up.

They're also both all-time great that you could argue both, even though Durant won 2, right?

They underachieved. That, right, and, and operate with an oddly brittle ego. I understand that Tom Brady and Michael Jordan played with a chip on their shoulder and manufactured manufactured reasons to, to have to work. I'm going to put it to this guy even though there was nothing there. The, the greats are able to do that. I'm just talking about these guys, like I say, seem a little fragile in terms of ego given all their greatness, right?

And so therefore, I mean, that's not a hot take. They're very fragile. I mean, you can tell from the social media behavior of, of Kevin Durant, who will— who's not afraid of the smoke. Like, he'll hop in people's DMs and take them to task. Not anymore though. That they've said, and we all know about Aaron's ego. Yeah, they're, they're, they're curious, but I don't like— where's the Jermichael Finley, Greg Jennings taking out Kevin Durant's character and just holding this huge grudge, a grudge because of the person that they were in the locker room?

You hear that about Aaron, though.

He also has teammates that absolutely love him. There is no Greg Jennings, no Jermichael Finley for Kevin Durant. At least I don't believe like—

there isn't. Well, then it's a complete misread. I feel like that there are guys around the league that are, that are sort of, that do look at KD as particular, not maybe as much as James Harden, that he's a particular sort of fit like you just said. I mean, 3 minutes ago that he was pursuing the right fit for himself, and in a way Aaron Rodgers sort of comes in and whoever the, the nominal offensive coordinator is gets overridden by Aaron Rodgers. That's part of the deal. Like If you have Aaron on the team, like, he's going to kind of call the shots on offense and you have to work out what the scheme is going to be with him. I assume that's kind of the case with Kevin Durant.

Yeah, I mean, like, Golden State obviously was a big departure from how he was accustomed to playing as an iso player. And then I think everything after that has kind of been along the lines of like, I want to be able to dictate how we play offensively and how I play offensively. He'll point to his time in Phoenix of him kind of deferring to Booker and when Beal came in, deferring to Beal and like he tried to do what was best for the team. But I think it'd be accurate to say that if you have Kevin Durant, you're probably going to play a style of basketball that looks kind of like that, like give him the ball and get the hell out of his way, which is what Houston did, which is why Houston Rockets struggled so mightily against the Lakers, because most of their offense, including late-game situation, was give it to that guy. And now that guy is gone and they didn't really have any backup plans.

Well, and that brings me back to my original point, which I think is valid, is they're both great. And I don't just mean in terms of ego. Are they great? They win a lot, both of them, but it doesn't yield championships. So is it really worth it to chase these, these mercenary guys around? And they've positioned themselves both as mercenaries. And you just go through— it didn't really work out in Golden State, it didn't really work out in Phoenix, it didn't really work out in Green Bay. He forced his way out of there even though it was a good situation, which sounds kind of similar to the Golden State situation for Kevin Durant. And then he went somewhere else and that didn't really work out, and then he went somewhere Oh, but, but they won games, they won games, they're always kind of good, but it never yields any, any titles.

Well, I think, I think you kind of gloss over a lot of context there. So take Brooklyn for example. We look, oh, they didn't win anything. They also came like a sneaker size away from beating the Bucks, who—

yeah, but that wasn't the finals.

I know, but I get it. But that, that Nets team was great, and they tested the Bucks more than any other team in that entire playoffs. And so there's a world where Kevin Durant wears a smaller sneaker and they're the ones who win the championship that year. And then after that, you had a bunch of injuries and weird stuff that happened with Kyrie and all that stuff that had nothing to do with Kevin Durant. That's just— hey, well, I think the part that you—

that I would push back on it having nothing to do with Kevin Durant is that's where people point to me like, hey man, can you be like a little bit of a leader instead of totally a passenger in this spot? Like, he was asked about the Kyrie stuff when it was all going on. It's like, that's not my place to say anything. It's like, nah, maybe it kind of is.

So that's a That's a fair argument, but that's where I say not like Aaron Rodgers. Like Aaron Rodgers would have been like, right, doing so for better or for worse.

Oh, oh no, no, no, he would have— has it both ways. It's passive-aggressive. It's not my place. But then, right, I mean, it's the same thing. Like, how dare you have an opinion on me? Is, is his— Kevin Durant and Aaron Rodgers both play that game. How dare you put, to put my name in your mouth? Like, hey, uh, Daniel Day-Lewis, if you want to be a big-time A-list superstar, this is part of the deal. People are going to talk about you. And the resentment of people doing that makes them these brittle egos that— I, I don't want to be the best player on my team. I'm not—

uh, this is what I would say about Kevin Durant. What Kevin doesn't like is when people make kind of leaps from the facts that we know, the things that they don't know So for instance, Kevin Durant's not a good leader, right? He would say, how do you know that? Have you been in our locker room? Have you been in our practice? You don't know that. There's nothing, you're just making a kind of like a circumstantial argument to that. His thing is like, you wanna criticize me? Criticize the game. Like the shot that I missed, the pass that I threw away, well like criticize my play, but don't come up with stories about like, oh yeah, he really secretly hates his teammates, which I think that's a fair argument Having said that, I do agree with you that when you sit in that throne, there really doesn't get to be rules about what we do say and don't say about you, other than obviously personal attacks like what's happening in your personal life.

Really large range between the media score and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for Belly. Media score, 23%. Audience score 87%.

That's how you know it's a hood classic. The hood loves it. That's very—

I should see this. I should watch Belly.

I think it's a cultural, like, you need to experience the opening sequence. It's one of the greatest opening scenes in movie history. Really?

Yeah. What's the lore behind the opening scene?

That, that they blew the entire budget on the opening scene. That, like, uh, we did this obviously on Cinephobe, but there's that. And also, what's Cinephobe? Oh, that's the podcast where we review movies that are poorly rated on Rotten Tomatoes and try to ascertain where they're actually rated, or maybe they get a fair shake. It's me, Zach Harper, and Anthony Mays.

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