Transcript of The Big Suey: The Kawhi Laugh-Off

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Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to Nowhere, Fatface, and the Habitual Liar.

This episode of the Dan Lebitard show is presented by DravKings. Dravkings, the Crown is yours.

A couple of leftover stats from last night. Can you get me the stat of the day music here real quick? I've just got a couple of Dolphins stats from last night's game as the Dolphins fall to two and seven, and this entire season, halfway through, can be swept out to see as can all of the leaders and management and whatever remains of what you consider their top players.

2: 07.

Put it on the poll. Should it say in the standings, 2: 07? Start of the day, start of the day. It is the start of the day. Start of the Start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, this year's start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, this year's start of the day. So both Washington's who play for the Dolphins fumbled last night. It's not just that their quarterback leads the league in interceptions. The Ravens had caused all of four turnovers this season. They got three of them last night, but that is not the stat of the day. You guys know they rely on Achan way too much. They're going to break the entirety of what's left of his body. You know that you are frustrated by the number of bubble screens and quick passes at the line of scrimage. Do you guys want to guess Give me the total, Juju, if you do not mind, total scrimage yards for Achan last night, because I mentioned that the dolphins and time of possession and yardage were right there with the Raven wins all game and shouldn't have been down 14 to 6 in the first half, but five times they were inside of the 30, and they ended up with six points for the game.

108 yards from scrimmage, Denny.

Do you want Can you guys guess how many of those? Anybody want to guess how many Achan had in the second half while Derrick Henry was grinding the dolphins to dust after eight carries for 30 yards? Derrick Henry ends up with 100 and whatever yards he ends up with. You want to guess how many from scrimmage yards Achan had in the second half last night? Say 32. One.

He had 10 targets. He had 10 targets in the game.

One yard in the second half once the Ravens figured out, Okay, that's all they've got. They've only got that. They got the sideways pass.

That's it?

That's all you got to do. Man, that sucks, huh?

That's pretty terrible. That's not great. It's not a great situation. Chris Cody, can you tell me through that talking horses mask that is one of the laziest costumes I have ever seen. I love it. It's the best. Laisiest costume I've seen since I was in college, and I just wore a Miller light case on my head because I didn't have anything else. So I was a case of beer for Halloween.

I don't want to throw stones here, Dan, but when your wife leaves town, your costumes take a big dip, if we're going to be honest here.

Also, Dan, you'd be a keg, not a case.

That was on call for, man.

Also, does Chris look like a Chicago Bull right now? He does. He does. He does it on the bow, Dano. You know what he looks like?

The scarecrow. The scarecrow on Batman. From Batman begins.

I agree. If he were Chicago Bull.

Put it on the poll as well at Lebitard Show. Are you tired of your local show doing Halloween costumes on Halloween and then talking about their Halloween costumes all of Halloween. But can you get me the Hampton Farms nuttiest fan winner? Me?

All right. Yes, you.

Hit it.

All All right, guys. Congrats to this old guy who took his shirt off. He's this week's winner of the nuttiest fan. Get nutty with Hampton Farms, the official peanut of bowl season. Keep an eye out for Lucy Rodine at Ohio State. If you think you are your fans. Nuttiest fan.

Chris, I will tell you, you screwed it up in more ways than you know in that the joke of your mouth moving was covered by the read that you were doing, so we didn't even get the joke of the horse's mouth moving.

It's like an offensive coordinator trying to call plays, and they're covering his mouth. They're like, Wait a second.

I need to see what he's saying. It is not good when the only joke you have in your costume is your mouth moving, and what he triggers for you is a coach trying to disguise anyone seeing his mouth.

It's like, Call Shanaher.

Why were you guys so excited talking about a $20,000 robot? I don't know this story that you guys were talking about, nor do I know why you were so excited talking about this story. You don't know about this?

This is truly, we're finally in the future, Dan. Remember the movie, I, Robot? How they had domesticated robot servants helping people? Well, now, some company has made one, and it only costs about $20,000 or $500 a month.

But Dan, lest you know, okay, this is the future, but it's not here that fast. We still got some time before the robots take over the planet because of the fact that this a robot, 20 grand, it doesn't really do things that you need it to do. It's like half-ass robot. You're there and it's like, Oh, well, can you do this? And we're like, Not really.

I can't really do that. I'm not particularly eager to get to the future when we all realized, do you realize how flippant we were laughing about robots and AI when we were? We were all fooling around with it, and Robin Williams' family, and Martin Luther King's family and Stephen Hawking's family is saying, not funny when you put Stephen Hawking's on a skateboard, and they're offended by how real some of that stuff looks. Robin Williams's daughter was really upset about how her father's image is used.

Look, I agree with the family, it's 100%. I am 100% behind all the families who think that this is abhorrent. But have you seen some of them?

Yeah, it's funny. Have you seen some of them, Dan? No, but I'm just wondering. See, I'm wondering if this clip in the future, in which defend the robots have taken over and they didn't like how we made fun of them or how we underestimated them.

Robots are going to be mad at us.

Will they do dishes? That's what I'm saying, Chris.

They do dishes. Let's see. They do laundry. Well, he's trying to... Okay. Can you grab it there, buddy? Hold on. We've all been there. He's trying to close the dishwasher right now. What? He's got the bend down good, though.

Mate, the stallionese.

Pull it up. Yeah, here we go. Pull it up. Pull it up. There we go, buddy.

There are some things you can bend your back. It's like, keep your back straight when you lift something up. There are some things that you can have a little tilt in your back for.

So you guys are laughing because clearly, the robot-He's been taught how to lift, and it's just not helping him here. The robot's not as fast as we are yet at closing a dishwasher, but better at squats.

Yeah. Strong squat. Yeah. Good form on the squat. You got to keep your back. You got to sit on the heel.

Push up. So you guys aren't afraid yet?

Not yet, Dan.

Dan, I want these robots to do my I'm wondering. That's why I sit around in a bathrobe all day with Tidepods in the background.

I would whip that robot back. I would destroy that robot if we had to fight.

That was Kawhi's laugh. Sorry, Dan.

You're The horse does a better Kawhi laugh.

Why? He can call him a horse. The horse does a better-He has horns. The horse does a better Kawhi laugh than Juju.

The mouth moving.

If you I don't remember that was just Kawhi laughing at not knowing where someone was seated. An outburst of laughter saying, I can't even see where you're seated as Roy Scampers because you can't do your own job today. Here, let me help him. Because you decided, Roy tries to Scamper to see if he can find the Kawhi Leonard laugh to support you so that we can make the music. You laugh, he laughs, you laugh, he laughs.

He just spelled laugh for us.

He's losing steam, guys.

I want to punish him. I want him to do what the rest of the show and have it haunt him all weekend.

The job requires judgment. All right.

He spent four me's. Jimmy Johnson was caught rapping at a tailgate.

Wrapping what?

He was wrapping Rich Homi Kwan.

Really? Yeah. Shout out to the boy. You haven't seen this, Tony. How old is Jimmy Johnson? He's 80 now. Is he over 80 years old? Obviously, a Miami Huracan's icon. I don't know. Would we put him on the University of Miami, Mount Rushmore, if I told you all personalities, all time, obviously, he'd be the only executive or coach who might get a consideration. But if I tell you Mount Rushmore, University of Miami, all time. Michael Irvin is going to be up there. Ray Lewis is going to be up there. Mike Ryan. You're going to get... Warren Sapp is going to get into the discussion. But I guess I got to put Jimmy Johnson on the top four, right? I have to say Jimmy Johnson as someone... Because it's enduring, right? It's not comes and goes. He's still is his feeling. Him around the program is a spirit, is a soul, is something that echoes for eternity.

Plus the big chill down in the keys, Dan, when you have that fishing tournament when all the UM guys of old and all the UM guys of new, all of a sudden Link up together with the Big Chill in Key Largo, and all the boys go out and fish all day and then come back and have some cold Miller lights. Daniel, that right there is family. That right there is University of Miami.

Before we play it, Juju, can you give us an appraisal? Because I haven't seen it. I've only heard about it. Obviously, Obviously, an 80-year-old man rapping. I'm going to go ahead and guess that he's 82 years old. I did not know that Jimmy Johnson was 82 years old.

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Don Lebatard. No one else here is willing to do a Trump or a Biden.

That's not true, Dan.

Okay, Tony, you can- Man of a thousand impersonations. That's not bad, man. That's not terrible. Finally.

Pretty good.

Stugatz.

Yours is terrible.

You just got to get a little redder, a little pinker. You're right there, man. Yours is not. You're biting me. What do you mean?

Oh, his is good, Dan. That's actually not bad. This is good.

That's not terrible. That's not terrible. We got to come together.

A little Southern twang there.

A little George Bush in that one. This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugats. Put it on the poll @LevatarShow. Has there ever been an 82-year-old who raps well? Because I've got to think, even though hip hop is only 50 years old, I'm guessing that you guys are going to say that Kendrick and Jay-Z. They will, at 80, be able to still rap, correct? Absolutely. They won't seem ridiculous rapping at 82, will they?

That's not going to age poorly, is it? Right, because hip hop itself just turned 50 a couple of years ago, so that's what we got to remember. We We've never seen these 60, 70-year-old rappers, so we shouldn't laugh at them. They're pioneers.

But what would be your appraisal of how Jimmy Johnson did?

Oh, yeah. I think Jimmy Johnson gives off, Look, man, I did everything I wanted to do in life. Now I'm out here at this tailgate, man. Put on that coin, man. I got something for you all, boy. Come on, let go. Play it. Let's watch the tape.

I wish I could rap, but I can't rap, but I do love you.

I wish I could rap, but I You all see, Coat? Do it, do it, do it. Do it, do it, do it. I got it, I got it. I always had it. Go, go, go, to the U. Mom and daddy said they love me, but they love to you. Where's Melvin Brett? And I'm done. Enthusiasm is 90% of the effort. He tried to sell it. He's 82 years old. He came off as younger than 82.

Dan, he's doing adlibs, right? He's not wrapping the words. He's giving the hype to the crowd. Let's go, let's go.

He had the timing of when to go.

He did a little bit of call and response there. I told Tony this last night. I was happy to see this last night. I tried to pass the microphone around at Flanigan's, and Tony noticed fairly early as I gave the microphone erroneously to Dave Damoschek, that Tony needed to help the crowd and help me as somebody who cares about me. Tony went in and grabbed and did some crowd hype work as he was, as I was, profoundly disappointed by Cody's effort and Damoschek's effort and a general indifference about thanking our customers for loving us the way they do.

Well, Dan, the issue was, it's like when you grab a rebound, you're off on the break, you got to know where your spots are. You can't give the ball to the center crashing through if he's not a guy that can handle the ball. So you're getting the ball, you're getting off the rebound, you're All right, I'm going. You're Magic Johnson. All of a sudden, you pass over to Kareem, who's in the middle of the court like, Dave Damosheck, Hey, I'm in this DJ Laz is playing in the back of my Pitbull. Here's Dave Damosheck, and he's like, Hey, guys, Pittsburgh. All right.

Everyone's like, Who the fuck is this guy? He goes, What TV is the Penguin's game on?

Who the hell is this guy? A bad decision by me. That's the time that Damosheck decides to shut up. Our thanks to Jimmy Flanigan and the rest of the Flanigan's crew. I told him, and I will tell others, there are not a whole lot of things in Miami, a transient town, that I can say, Hey, you are an iconic thing in this market. You have been somebody who is around celebrations and good things in Miami for a long time. We are honored to partner with a group of people who don't do a whole lot of partnership because they don't lend that icon stuff casually or flippantly. When they throw a party, they surprise us with DJ Laz, and they go get... They know what in this town has some resonance. There aren't a lot of things. It's a transient town. So our thanks to Flanigan's for supporting us the way they do.

Shout out to Flanigan's, and also, shout out to the city of Kendall. I had no idea. What a wonderful part of town. All the years I've been coming to Miami, I had no idea of the immense amount of talent in the city of Kendall.

Now you get it. Unincorporated, by the way. No city. We have no mayor.

We have no rules, as you could I had an incredible speech prepared last night.

Oh, man, that was rough.

I had the wonderful speech prepared. I had written it. It took me all week to write. They gave me the microphone, and as soon as I was like, the music came up.

Dj last Coolo. Hard Network out.

Hard Network out, your boy.

It was perfect timing.

It literally was. Juju was like, And another thing. I immediately I immediately grabbed the microphone back and accused DJ Lads of racism. Yes, you did.

In which he played it louder.

The thing that is... I don't know where I'd rank it in terms of most moving when we get to interact with the people who have, as I told many of you last night, just a super intimate relationship with their entertainment option. You can listen to anything. You can have a relationship with anything. But the fact that we're in your car with you, we're on your workouts with you, we're in some spaces where you might otherwise be alone creates a relationship that is, I believe, super unusual when you're spending two and three hours a day with us. Many of you bored at work or not loving your jobs very much, and we allow you a couple of hours to get away from your job when you're with us. Very high on the list of things that I find moving about what happened last night is people flying in to be with us in Kendall or taking these enormously long drives to be with us in Kendall and then furthermore, get introduced to, Oh, I'm from Kansas. This shit's crazy. The diversity you guys have here- You are not in Kansas anymore. Is crazy. And why are none of the people wearing very much clothes.

I remember Tony Kornheiser said this to me one time when he came back from Miami. He hates to fly, and he was just in a hotel lobby. He was in a hotel lobby, and he's like, Is no Why isn't anyone in your town dressed? Why isn't anyone wearing clothes? And I'm like, Tony, you're 50. How are you already 80? But it is because if you're from Kansas, that diversity is just not something that you're just not around that. So thank you. Thank you again to Flanigan's and for everyone who came out.

And the effort that all the staff made, dressing up. Oh, shout out to Daniela.

Everybody except for me. Yeah, Roy, for religious grounds, and again, I don't want to violate any of Roy's freedoms, but he's a sucker. I'm a sucker.

Did you just call him the S-word?

Oh, my God.

No, no. No one's calling you on an S-U.

A Halloween. I can call you a Halloween sucker. I'm offended, Dan. Well, I know. Is it on religious grounds or that I didn't go hard art? Yes. I mean, you are here, and in defending Perk, I find you to be largely alone because Kendrick Perkin exists to say inflammatory things. It's his whole role. He does not mind torching whatever basketball relationships he had in the past while being in public, a person who is really critical as a former player of other players, while having a Championship resume, but also a resume that statistically a lot of the players he criticizes can say, Well, who the hell for you to be telling me all this when you were a screen setter and a defensive player, but you are somebody who's a perk advocate because you love the wrestling elements of sports entertainment. And many broadcasters, most broadcasters, and certainly most former players are totally unwilling to do what Kendrick Perkins does. Yeah.

Let me do a regular voice because this is a serious defense I'm going to do of Perk. I think, first of all, Perk, like Shaq, is someone who plays a character on TV, and that character is easy to call dumb or slow-witted or whatever. And especially with a country accent, the way Perk talks, it's even easier to do that than it is for Shaq. But he's really smart. He watches a A lot of film. He's very well connected across different levels of basketball, youth, basketball, college, basketball. He's got great intel reports. What he was saying about Ja, obviously, he wasn't saying, I made you a star. He wasn't saying, Oh, I taught you how to play basketball, which is where everyone took the comment.

Let me just tell people as part of context, let me just explain to them what happened with Ja Morant so that they understand what it is that you're defending. Because Ja Morant was also... He also misinterpreted it. If you're saying it's misinterpreted, it seemed like Kendrick Perkins was saying to Tony Allen and Zack Randolph, the In the Mud podcast that I thought was made up. It is not made up.

Out the Mud. Excuse me?

That's a bad mistake. It's not In the Mud, it's Out the Mud. That's the opposite. That's the worst... I couldn't have done it a lot worse than that.

Stuck in mud, Dan.

The opposite of Elmo.

Yes, it is the opposite of Elmo to go In the Mud instead of Out the Mud. I feel really dumb.

He said basically, or it sounded like he said, that the reason that ESPN covered Ja Morant and the reason for Ja Morant's Fame and stature and stardom is Perk saying, I brought ESPN to Memphis, got Spent millions of dollars, he said, to get ESPN to support what Ja Morant is in Memphis and helped with creating his stardom.

Right.

What Perk is saying, and this also goes back to something that I always notice, is that there's There is an assumption that ESPN as a company knows best, and they always do the right thing. Here the assumption is, perk, Ja is exciting and they're winning. Of course, ESPN was going to go there. No, they weren't. No, they weren't because the people who make these decisions, and again, to do the whole show from somewhere, it's not like, Oh, logically, yes, this guy's a great player. We got to help promote for the game that we broadcast. They're like, really? Memphis is Ja Miranda? They don't know. They really don't know. So it does First Take people being forceful in the same way that First Take is doing shows from HBCUs. That's because people are saying, We have to do this, not because someone at ESPN is like, You know what we should do this week? We should go do an HBCU. So what Perk is saying is, yes, you You're a great player, and you're exciting, and you have millions of fans. But the idea that ESPN would do a show is because I was campaigning behind the scenes for that to happen.

And unless anybody think that I'm off when I say this, remember this. Last year, Oklahoma City Thunder were amazing from the year before. They weren't on Christmas Day, and everyone was like, How could the Thunder not be on Christmas Day? I was like, Because the broadcasters are the ones saying, Really?

Oklahoma?

I don't Now, they're on all the time because we know they're great. They win the championship. But it really takes sometimes individuals behind the scenes who are emphasizing and saying, No, you have to do this. Now, the part where Perk loses me is he does the whole like, Oh, you made me look bad. Man, it ain't John Moran's job to help you look good, Perk. That's neither here nor there. That's just the way things work. Your decision to pump up and hype up John Moran as a TV product is career-driven. It's not because he's your boy and you're doing him a favor. And so the way Perk was making his argument felt like a very personal level. I'm still cool with his dad, but I'm not cool with John. No, you did what you did because it was the right thing for your career and for the job itself to do the job, not necessarily because, Oh, I'm doing my boy a favor.

Can you explain the millions of dollars situations? What does he mean by that? I spent millions of dollars to get ESPN.

I did. He's saying it costs a lot to get a whole production crew. It doesn't cost millions. Maybe it does. Millions to get a crew of ESPN people out to Memphis to do stuff from Memphis. It costs plenty.

It costs a lot of money. It's not like merely Hey, a camera and a stick mic, and we're good. There's a lot of moving parts there.

Well, and Kendrick, getting that to happen. That's why we constantly talk about why it's important to have a diversity of thought and a diversity of people in these production rooms, right? Because you need people who are coming up with these ideas of, Hey, this is a place that nobody else is talking about, that there can be something interesting happening. It's why having Tony in a production room would get people down to Kendall, which is something that's really exciting and cool because nobody from Connecticut is thinking about that. And that's why having Kendrick Perkins around and going, Hey, this thing that's happening in Memphis, it's exciting and there's energy around it. So let's get our people out there to do something It's why it's so important to have so many different voices in the room.

Don Levatard. Chris Cody does an impression. Just be careful.

Dangerous game. This is a dangerous game.

I don't want to play this game.

No, he was saying, Man, I could do such a great Kendrick Perkins.

I don't want to play this game.

He's like, Man, I can talk to you.

I like him. This is who we're going This is who we're going to trust with this.

I mean, you do it. Let's let Amine do it, I think.

I think you could do it, Chris, because you did a great Charles Barkley. You're one for one there.

Did no one just hear the segment we just did with Amine?

We cannot be taking- Amine's judgment is not the best.

Council from the local drunk on whether or not you should do the impersonation of a black man stumbling over his words. You don't see the bad in that.

There was. Moody Moody, Moody Moody? Moody Moody?

It sounds worse. Be careful, man. We cannot do this. It's too close to the line. This is where the line is. Something legitimately funny can't be funny because we're scared our ginger is going to do something racist by accident.

Carry the hell on, Dan. Rachel.

Dan, the line is where we feel alive, though.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stukatz. Well, when you talk about diversity, I want to ask you this, Amine, because I know that Steven Jackson and Matt Barnes object to how Shannon Sharp did did his job on First Take or on Undisputed, where you're trafficking in the black-on-black crime of, I'm going to be loudly critical of other black people. Stephen A. Smith gets a lot of this, a lot of very strong objection to the idea of you need to do better when talking about other black people and being critical of other Black people because you two are a Black voice and leader that needs to be judicious about how it is that you take your criticism and turn it into profit. Kendrick Perkins is doing something that is objected to by other basketball people who say, your using your platform gained from being a guy who set screens and average four points a game, but was a champion, to be more critical of athletes than almost all other broadcasters in your position.

I'm not saying- Critical of their play or critical of other issues?

Well, but- Well, John Marant.

John Marant is not a play thing. That wasn't about- Correct.

It was about behavior. But I want you to walk me through as someone who has to be, you have to walk this line. You have to make choices every time you're being critical of, do I want to be somebody who is a critic of my own culture? And how careful do I have to be when everyone else is already piling on Ja Morant? Ja Morant is already getting piled on for behavior, and so I want your assessment of this.

So the background, he's doing the Out the Mud podcast. That is a Memphis Grizzlies type podcast. Those guys were Memphis Grizzlies' icons, TA and Zeebo. It's not like he was doing our show, and then he said, You know what I'm going to talk about today? I'm going to talk about Ja Morant. There's a context to why he was talking about it, where he was talking about it. The criticism, again, what he said is that, Look, I vouched for you, in essence. I vouched for you with the worldwide leader. That means something. That doesn't mean I helped you play. That doesn't mean I helped you win. You did all that on your own. That doesn't mean I made you exciting or marketable or someone who should get a shoe deal. You did all that on your own. But there is a difference when that place comes to Memphis. He doesn't play in New York. He doesn't play He doesn't play down here in Miami where it's, Oh, yeah, let's do a roadshow there. It's a city nobody likes to go to. Let's be honest. That's what Perk is saying there. Again, my thing is when you make it personal, like, Oh, you let me down.

No, man, you're doing your job. You did a great job of doing your job, and leave it at that. When we talk about criticizing, whether it's Stephen A. Or Shannon, or Perk, or whoever, I think when the criticisms are nuanced and fair, I think people can accept that. The thing is about those on those shows is often there's no room for nuance, and a lot of it is theatrical and over the top. When you are basically blunting everything out, then people feel like, Wait a second, you're just profiting by talking about me in a bad way because that's what gets clicks and views and likes. I think that's a fair counterargument, but this idea that any of us who do this job, we're not allowed to criticize. What is the job? We're not cheerleaders. Your team has It's not a department that does that. Your personal team has people who do all the positive stuff. Our job is to explain to people what happened and what went wrong and what went right. In that course of that, some people are going to be held accountable. If it's fair, if we're not making stuff up, or we're not going overly personal with the criticisms, then I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

Yeah, I think that's what the problem was with this. He made it more personal than it should be. He said, I don't F with Ja Morant. It wasn't that he said, I don't like his play, or I don't like his decisions. He said, I don't F with that man. And so when you say that, it's hard to come back no matter what you say after that, it's like, Oh, it's smoke.

Well, when you mention smoke, the thing that I love about all the smoke is that those guys in their 40s can do everything they're doing without any of it looking inauthentic or preening because they are consistently consistently themselves, and it's why people do like them so much, because you know that all of that is authentic, not just their relationship, but everything they're doing. And those two guys specifically say of Shannon Sharp, no, I'm not doing it the way that you do it, where that access that you have is different than the access that we have, and we're going to stay in our lane over here, and we don't respect the way that you do it in your lane over there. There's just an undercurrent of everything that I'm talking about here that makes it complicated. Because I don't think that anybody would say of Matt Barnes and Steven Jackson that they're cheerleaders, but I also don't say that anyone would say of them that they're inauthentic.

I don't think so either. But again, their show is different. They have an interview show. If I'm bringing in I'm sitting down with Juju, we're not talking about Juju's career. We're going to ask Juju about fun stories. We're talking about hard times that he went through. It is an interview-based show. It is not an analysis of what's happening. Juju, your team's down 40, and you're over here doing the M1 mix tape stuff and turning over, just laughing and running back up court. There's a difference there in the nature of the show. And again, this goes back to Dan when I talked about people not understanding the different role, not having any nuance. People who conflate Stephen A. Smith, with Tim Legler, with Mike Breen. No, these are all different roles and different jobs, much like these shows are different shows. A debate show is about debating. It's really not about being nuanced. It's not about teaching you about the game, versus a studio show is more about teaching, and an interview show is more feature-driven, like, Hey, let's get to know these people.

All important context, but when you do a debate show, you're going to end up in circumstances where As a black person, you're going to be offered a lot of singular judgments, case-by-case judgments. How critical do you want to be here of another black person? Are you going to pile on with everyone else when everyone else is already piling on? The daily nature of debate makes those decisions come up daily, and you have to be nuanced when you're making decisions between, do I separate, and can I be discerning enough to separate what my cultural responsibilities are from my job responsibilities? It's a decision that has to be made on every story that's coming across your desk that involves criticizing a black athlete.

Yeah, but again, I feel like it all depends. Again, if John Morant has a bad game, I'm not supposed... I don't understand because I'm Black and he's Black, I'm not supposed to say he had a bad game. I'm supposed to just go along with it.

I think the cultural stuff involves just keeping it respectful, keeping it respectful, keeping it about the basketball. We're not going to go and pile on and say the same thing that every other network is saying. If you're not going to provide, like you say, some nuance to the situation, the pile on is extra when it comes from a brother. But at the same time, what you do, I can talk about, like you say, if you have a bad game, bro, it was a bad game. If you got caught with guns, I'm sorry, bro. I got to talk about it.

The thing is, too, is Do people want nuance? It just feels like everybody wants clips. Everybody wants, Oh, I saw what Stephen A said, or what Shannon said, or what this person, or what Kam and Mase said. I see this in clips of 30 seconds on TikTok. Do people want the nuance behind it?

That's the crazy thing. Because, Tony, everyone claims, Oh. Remember the Russell Westbrook documentary? And I would say 40% of it was, you talk about the media, and it's just Steven A. Smith, Skip Bayliss, and Colin Coulhert, again and again and again. And I'm like, you complain about the media, but you're really talking about three very particular guys who do a particular type of show. I never heard nobody say, Oh, that Zack Lo. Part of it is because Zack Lo stuff is nuanced, but also part of it is because you all don't listen to it. If you are one of these athletes, you're like, Oh, where's the nuanced analysis? Oh, it's right here. I ain't listening to that shit. What do you want? Do you want the nuanced smart stuff? It's right here. If you're perception of media is just debate culture, then you're part of the problem.

When you talk about podcasts, I recommend strongly the Mina Kheim's podcast with Lenny. If you want a bombardment of useful information that will help you with your gambling edges, because when she sits down with either Dominic or Bill Barnwell, the amount of information that you are getting that explains to you how it is and why it is that the stealers are going to be able to throw to the tight ends against the Colts defense that isn't exceptional at much of anything, but is exceptionally unexceptional at covering tight ends. You will get some probability advantages that you will not get anywhere else in podcasts that I have heard. It is a ton of information that they are giving you that is super sophisticated, also giving you good information via podcast is Pablo Tori, though it is different. It is not gambling information. We have the origin story, the origin story of Pablo Tori, how he became what he became, how that podcast decided to take the lane of, I'm going to beat everyone else at having more thorough information than anyone else. Dave Damosheck and the Football America show that is on Mondays and Fridays. Damosheck still in Kendall right now talking about Bobby Brister and Tom Barroso.

Where was that when you handed him the mic?

Yeah, none of that. I got none of that when I handed him the microphone. But you guys are curious, how did Pablo become that guy? How did Pablo become the one who wants to have more information than everyone else? Here's the story at Ground Zero.

Did you, as an investigative reporter, watching The sixth Sense? How early in that movie did you go like, Oh, he's dead?

I was inspired to become an investigative journalist because I didn't see it coming, and I vowed to I never feel that embarrassment ever again. The origin story. We have a Pablo origin story. In science, M Night Shyamalan is the cave that Bane was raised in for me. I'm just like, Oh, it was water? The aliens didn't like water? I never got over that.

Like Spider-Man with his powers. I will never let bad deeds go unchecked again.

Damosheck was just crushing garlic rolls last night in Atlanta. Such bad breath.

Such bad breath.

I saw him like 10.

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