Transcript of The Fallout From Pat Riley's Miami Heat State Of The Union | Local Hour New

This is the Dan Levatorre Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

Look at the Talladega twins back there. They seem closer than they were before they were together this weekend and consumed all of Talladega together. We will cover that a little bit later, but I want to ask you, Zazz, what's more offensive to you inside of the sports journalism realm? That Greg Cody of the Miami Herald would have one reaction to the Dolphins' first-round pick and then a couple of days later when no games had been played, change his mind and apologize, or Tony going from calling the Orlando Magic a joke clown car of a franchise to 4 games later saying they're going to be in the Eastern Conference Finals.

I, I think, I think we give Tony, or at least we hold off on, on giving it to Tony over the Magic. You got to win 4 in the first round, Dan, not 3. Okay, if the Pistons come back and win this series then Tony would be absolutely right, because a joke of a franchise would blow a 3-1 lead. All right, so maybe he's actually, uh, prescient here.

Thank you.

He's not prescient when a team's winning shooting 32% and 38% because of how bad the Pistons are. Cade Cunningham having 24 turnovers in 3 games is something that hasn't been seen in the sport before. That's lunacy for their best player to be that bad. And then, and then all of a sudden you've got a Cane dunk that, uh, that Tony's also making an all-timer. He's putting it on the all-time former Heat all-time list of best dunks he's ever seen in game.

That might be one of the best dunks I've ever seen. Obviously we had the Vince Carter in-game where he jumps over the guy from France who's 7 feet tall, which was incredible. But as far as like catching a body— yeah, thank you, you're good with names by the way.

I know.

Well, that is a memorable one though. It's all we know about Fredrik Weiss is that Vince Carter jumped over the entirety of him.

We know something else, that the Knicks drafted him over Ron Artest and he never showed up.

Well, you know that. I believe most people, if I say Fredrik—

it's a good nugget.

It is a good nugget.

But what was the Knicks What's a better—

what's a better nugget is a human being jumped over a 7-footer and dunked during the Olympics, jumped over the entirety of a 7-footer.

Again, that's why I said that, you know, stands in the pantheon of great in-game dunks. But Jamal Kane caught a body, cranked it back, and then finished throughout. It was incredible.

So great in-game dunks, you're talking Vince Carter, uh, uh, Blake Griffin, Anthony Edwards, Jamal Kane.

I mean, again, take the names out of it. You want to put LeBron James there and he does exactly what he did, like it's an all-timer.

The same thing, the Jason Terry alley-oop where where, you know, LeBron dunks over him.

That's a great moment too.

Let's all relive that.

Yeah, but Wade on Barijão.

Oh, that's a good one too. Oh, his sneakers were facing up.

The thing you guys are doing though is they're all-time dunks, but they're also all-timers dunking. It really— I mean, it's just not allowed to be Jamal Kane.

It's early in his career, Dan. He's got a lot of time left.

But it's not allowed to be Jamal Kane. It can't be an all-time dunk if it's not an all-time dunker.

This guy's just trying to distract from the fact that he was taking a victory lap all year on Cade Cunningham.

Whoa.

We're talking about the Magic right now, please.

Well, let's talk about the Pistons because Amin got this right. They cannot shoot. And yesterday they were trusting Tobias Harris and Duncan Robinson a lot. And that's dangerous to do when 2/5 of your starting lineup is Tobias Harris and your two best guys have been terrible in this series, like your two all-stars have also been terrible. But the Magic winning that game, the Magic and the Raptors winning their games this weekend, did the Raptors shoot 11% from 3?

Did they shoot 32% from 3?

Terrible. And they shot 11.

How do you win those games? That's, that's all just length on the perimeter defending. You've got just athletes defending in Orlando and Toronto, and you can win a game shooting 32% that way.

Well, styles make fights, and Amin and I were talking just before we got going here. Suggs is, is a problem in terms of a point of attack defender. He is giving Detroit all they can handle. It seems as though Orlando is specially equipped for the Detroit Pistons.

I— look, I have to stop short of patting myself on the back on that one. If you had asked me, because remember I was telling— I don't know about these Pistons. They were number one. There was a time when they were number one in the league, better than the Thunder even. And I said, I don't know about these Pistons. I don't know. And I talked about experience, and Dan was like, you keep going back to experience, you like the old guys. I'm like, look, man, I just know that when it comes to execution basketball, you need people who know what they're doing. And one playoff trip where you give them— gave the Knicks a good fight That's not enough experience to overcome your lack of shooting, your lack of free throw shooting, and your turnover problem, and the fact that you have one player who makes all the plays. Now, had you said to me, I mean, you know who's going to do it to them? The Orlando Magic. I'd be like, come on, let's not be ridiculous. So that's where I stopped short. I'm not going to say I saw this coming from Orlando, but I definitely saw it coming to Detroit.

To the Jalen Suggs point, by the way, his stat line: 1 for 13 from the floor, 1 for 11 from 3, plus 17 for the game.

Yeah, but I told you about this. Charlotte had trouble getting the ball over half court on him. Like, he's, he's a problem defending the perimeter. But let's talk locally about what's happening in basketball here, because I don't know that I've ever reacted to a Pat Riley press conference that way. I was just wincing. I was wincing at the state of the franchise, and I was wincing at some of the things said. Now, I've been saying around here that that's a consortium of 5 that run the Miami Heat, that it's not just him, but him him saying himself last, uh, yesterday, I'm not final say. It's never been me as final say. Uh, it's just conveniently placed to, to be saying that when he's never said it. And the organization at large has benefited greatly from concealing that, from always making it about the mythology of Riley. But I would say now less than ever does he have what you would consider final say. It's always been 5 people talking, but when he gets out there does his annual press conference and says he's not retiring after a means spent yesterday wondering whether that would be a retirement press conference for Pat Riley at 81 years old.

When he gets into a back and forth with Barry Jackson on saying, I'm not trading Bam, there's no circumstance under which I am trading Bam. Uh, Zazz, how did you experience that press conference yesterday before we get to some of the sound from it?

It felt— well, the first thing I would say as far as it being convenient that he says he's never had final say I think, as I expected him to, he was responding to this back and forth that there's been on social media. Now, what is the timing of that? I don't know, because it's not really anything new as far as the dynamic with the team, but there has been this weird discussion on social, which we know Pat Riley's not monitoring himself. Somebody's bringing it to him. PR is bringing it to him, saying, hey, This is what people are talking about online right now. So that to me is why he addressed it the way that he did. But I found it to be a lot of the same old. There were a couple things that stood out to me that I didn't like, but, but for the most part, yeah, I thought it was very similar to the press conference last year.

When you say same old though, I would go old same. Like, what's happening here with Pat Riley at 81 years old? 81 years old. The court gets named after him. The Lakers are giving him a statue. He's getting all the things you get with the eulogy while he's still coaching. And I don't believe— or while he's still in management— I don't actually believe that there is a person or a group of people that you would put in charge of this that I would trust more than the 5 who are in charge of it. But recent results shake the faith. And when you don't make the playoffs, and that is the press conference, and it's an 81-year-old man doing it, and we've very rarely allowed people to age into this kind of age with grace. That's not something we really allow in sports. And so when I say— when I say I'm wincing, it's because the man up there knows what he's accomplished, knows what he's done, is secure in that knowledge, but things have moved fast the last 5 years, and the Orlandos are past them, and the Atlantas are past them, and the Torontos are past—

everyone who's trying to win is past them, literally.

Indiana is past them.

Well, it's the vantage point that they're watching all of this from is Pat Riley sitting there saying during that press conference, basically, what Orlando's doing, that could have been us. We didn't fear Detroit. OKC and the Spurs are in the other conference, so we thought we had enough to beat everyone in this conference.

He's never going to admit to fearing the Celtics in any way. And so when I say I'm wincing there, that press conference didn't show anything in the way of self-awareness.

It's the same sort of defiance on, I know who I am here, it's who I've always been, you can't take it from me, my status here is secure, it doesn't matter what any of you say, they can't get someone better than me to replace me.

They could have been Orlando.

They chose not to be Orlando.

Orlando made a big move in the offseason and it was celebrated. Until like, you know, 3/4 of the way down the season where people were questioning it. But Orlando made the aggressive move that hurt. And I thought the real thing that struck with me was this is the first Pat Riley press conference where the media understood the assignment and tried to bring the fight to Pat a little bit. And I enjoyed that.

Can I just point out the hypocrisy? If they had been flipped, that the Heat had acquired Desmond Bane and the Magic had acquired Norman Powell, Mike would be saying the same thing right now. He'd be saying the same exact thing.

Desmond Bane as an acquisition for that many draft picks to be the 8th seed, like they thought they were getting a final piece. That's not a final—

yeah, I, I hear Amin's point, but I think the point that is made in this press conference is, look, to make a big trade in the NBA, not even for a franchise superstar, but for Bridges, for Rudy Gobert, uh, and for Bain, it took a lot of draft picks. These trades hurt everybody. When those trades were made, everybody kind of winced like, man, that's the rate for this? And the Miami Heat flatly don't do those.

That's been my biggest problem with the Heat. They don't want it to hurt.

Okay, Miami Heat do not want to do trades that have a little bit of risk in it for them.

We'll see where that goes. But not one of those trades has resulted in anything that is akin to what we've talked about being—

neither is what the Miami Heat's done. It hasn't resulted in anything.

All right. But the point Jeremy makes is not an irrelevant one. 5 draft picks, 5 first-round picks for Bridges hasn't amounted to anything. 5 first-round picks for Gobert hasn't amounted to anything. What was it? Was it 5 first-round picks for Bain? It hasn't amounted. 4 first-round picks for Bain hasn't amounted to anything.

If the Miami Heat traded that many draft picks for any of those 3 players, you would not like those trades. None of them.

You would like none of them. Exactly zero of them.

Yeah, I mean, go up to New York and ask people how they feel about Mikael Bridges. Like, that— like, you'd be skewering them, Mike. You'd be killing them right now.

They're all playing basketball right now, right? Like, Miami Heat aren't. But that's just Miami Heat's whole goal is to be playing basketball right now. That is the whole mantra. Let's compete. Let's try to win. These franchises went from trying to lose to trying to win, and they did it quickly and more effectively than the Miami Heat.

Yeah, like, I I would not like any of those trades, but those teams like— and I'm not talking about right now because they're playing. It's the first round. I mean, everyone— only one team's been eliminated so far and it's Phoenix last night. Those, those teams are contenders like that. Like they're in it, you know?

Yeah, but they're not in it because of those deals. Maybe Minnesota. Minnesota, I'll give you. But New York is not in it because they went out and got Mikal Bridges. They would have been in it anyway if they kept that, you know, Dante DiVincenzo and stayed the course or whatever.

Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game, into a special time, into a Miller Time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

It's Miller time!

Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Going for 2 when you're up by 5. Switching the zone when man isn't working. Oh, and building your new stadium in the state your team actually plays in. In sports, some things just make sense. You know what else makes sense? Drinking Jägermeister shots ice cold. Drinking it any other way would be like punting on first down! Or letting your worst hitter bat first! Or like going for two when you're down three with a second to go! It wouldn't make any sense!

So don't let the team down.

When it comes to Jägermeister, drink it cold or don't drink it at all! Jägermeister, damn, that's cold! Drink responsibly. Jägermeister Likör, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

Dan Lebatard.

You're a big disappointment, Paul Pierce. My— I'm only upset right now that I don't get to do this in person, Paul Pierce.

Hey, how disappointing is it to be a Miami fan right now?

Stugatz, brother. Actually, you make a really great point.

This is the Dan Lebatard Show with the Stugatz.

The thing that I want to say about this, because I know now, and we'll get to the contentious back back and forth with Pat Riley and Barry Jackson in a second. But I know now that all of us are in the easy position of seeing the predicament that the Heat are in, and all of us are saying, how could you not see this earlier? How could you not trade Jimmy Butler earlier? How could you not trade Norm Powell earlier?

There's a delusion on the self-assessment with all of these franchises we're talking about. The Magic made a trade like they were a piece away. They're not. Minnesota made a trade like they're a piece away. They're not. The Knicks made a trade like They're a piece away, and I don't believe that trade is the one that brings them over the top. I don't think that any of those 3 trades are good trades.

I think there's a difference between all these things. Minnesota, they are— I mean, they are a championship-contending team. They've been to the conference finals twice in a row, and if it hadn't been a catastrophic couple of injuries, we'd be sitting here saying, you know what, I think they might do it a 3rd straight year.

Just because they haven't won a championship yet doesn't mean the trade didn't work.

Right, exactly. I think if you're Minnesota, worked exactly how they wanted it to. Remember, they are designed by the man who designed the Denver Nuggets. They are designed with the idea that we are going to stop— if we have to get to where we want to go, we got to go through that guy. So I wouldn't— and also Rudy Gobert is like a 3 or 4-time Defensive Player of the Year, guys. It's not because— because he doesn't average 35 a game doesn't mean like, oh, it's not worth it. No, but, but we're lumping them in with Desmond Bane, who respectfully, I like him, he's a good player. Has never won anything individually or as a team, and Mikal Bridges, who individually or as a team has never won anything. And that's the difference between those 3 deals. One was from a premium award-winning player, and the other 2 were good role players.

All 3 of the trades are bad because they've stopped trading that amount for anybody in the league. They've just stopped doing it.

They don't do it anymore. They did it with those 3, and then everybody stopped doing it after that.

How can you say it's bad when they've been as successful as they've been?

Yeah, what if they won? What if Minnesota wins something this year?

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You guys are saying as successful as they've been? The Heat of made the Finals twice the last 5 years. You guys keep telling me it's a failure. You guys keep telling me it's a failure. Now Minnesota's a giant success when the furthest they ever go is the Western Conference Finals? And a guy who gets played off the court, who's good to play against Jokic and no one else in the league in the playoffs, that, that's now the standard for success? Trade 5 first-round picks for Gobert is now the way we're doing it?

That's not, that's not the discussion. They made it to the Finals and they were very clearly still a piece away, and they chose— this is a cultural issue— they chose to not make those acquisitions because they stopped short of going all in, of being super aggressive, uh, of making a trade that hurts them.

My point is that the self-analysis and self-awareness of many of these teams is wrong. They all think they can do it.

They all feel like the self-assessment is, if we just get all our draft picks for Gobert, we're gonna win the championship.

And then you're not.

If we just get 3-point shooting from Bain, we'll be— we'll get better. We won't be an 8th seed anymore. If we just give up the— if we get the perimeter defense of Bridges, We'll stop the Celtics. We'll be able to— we'll be able to slow the Celtics. They've all been wrong.

I'm not trying to have a back and forth here. I'm saying that the Miami Heat were a piece away and they failed. Even while they were succeeding and making it to finals, they just couldn't secure the deal that put them over the top because culturally they don't want to make the move that hurts. And we are cherry-picking a bunch of teams that had to, be it their market or their position right now or just frustration with years of failure. They made moves that hurt. And they're all in the conversation right now. We'll see how it works out. The Miami Heat are in the position right now that they are because they flatly haven't made a move to improve their chances. Now hopefully it works out and they can get a superstar in this offseason, and that's what this whole press conference was about. But in a few short months, they went from reportedly at the deadline liking their team to very clearly not.

They, they don't want to make moves that hurt. They won't go above what they believe the value of player X's has been probably my major gripe over the last few years. But I would also say another huge gripe that I have, and we heard Pat Riley talk about this yesterday, they lack the foresight. All right. And meaning Pat thought it was a better idea, or them, the group, they thought it was a better idea to try and compete in the playoffs, which they ended up not making. And keeping Norman Powell, keeping Andrew Wiggins, when the prudent move really would have been selling high on Powell. Now, that would have hurt. It would have hurt to do that in the middle of the season, but it would have shown some foresight where, hey, this is actually a better move for our future. And that's been something really over the last 8, 9, 10 years we could talk about, where it's not being able to show the foresight, you know, with the contracts they've given to certain guys. Who have played well and then they signed to multi-year deals. Like, holy shit, we shouldn't have done that.

Let's play the sound here of Pat Riley going back and forth with Barry Jackson on the subject of Bam Adebayo.

No, I wouldn't. And name 3 teams. Give me 3 teams.

Yeah.

So Atlanta.

Atlanta.

Okay.

There's Trae Young.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Who's next?

Indiana moved off Sabonis. They got Halliburton. And Toronto moved off Siakam.

And they're better with Ingram and the other pieces they've added.

They're not, bam. I don't think they are. Not, not in my opinion anyhow, especially with, with your franchise pillar, anchor maker, culture carrier, and a talented guy. Now I'm not, I'm not saying that these other players, you know, I think Atlanta's done an incredible job of, uh, it isn't just Trey, it's the moves they made, the players they got, uh, very quick, very athletic team playing with no center, by the way. No center. You know, they're all like 6'7", 6'8", but they've been very effective, you know. And, uh, I'm not saying that, you know, something would happen, but I want to build this around Bam. I think Mickey wants the same thing, and Nick and Andy and all of us want to. So I'm just going to give you a flat-out no. I wouldn't do that unless somebody gave me 8 picks and mamba ya. Bye.

Who's he?

I'm not going to make fun of anybody getting names wrong, but that is what happens with age. And he also said flatly, and he's not wrong, that Bam's better than all of those players that were mentioned. I do believe the fairest criticism, though, is just the general inconsistency of what do you mean you were going for it this year? Why didn't you trade for KD then? What are you holding on for the young players? For if you were going for it all this year.

So that's the tough part about these press conferences is that there are things that you can't say, right? So, Mike, you've been saying reportedly they like their team. I'm— this is— let everyone know how fair I am. You can stop saying reportedly. He said it yesterday. So that is official on the record. They made a decision not to make a move at the deadline. They like the team that they had at that time. Having said that, you can't say, 'I didn't want to make a deal for XYZ player because I'm saving myself for Giannis.' You can't say that one out loud. But that's the reality, is like, we know they're aggressive. We know all the reporting is that them, Minnesota, and the Knicks are the, the 3 teams that are really in the hunt for Giannis. And so you can't let the cat out of the bag, either strategically or even just rules-wise. I'm saving my nuts for a winter that's coming that's going to have Giannis Antetokounmpo in it.

The word that you heard the most at that press conference was flexibility.

So I say that every year.

No. So, so this is where things stand, right? Is the issue that we can all go back to is Jimmy Butler, right? They don't move off of Jimmy Butler early enough in the eyes of everyone in this room, myself included. But their strategy in their minds when they looked at their contracts going into last season was, all right, come 2027, we're going to have a massive amount of space and flexibility. That's the end of Jimmy. That's the end of all these other contracts. The moves they made in acquiring players for Jimmy kept that flexibility. They kept their picks, they kept their young players, all with the idea of acknowledging you don't necessarily acquire stars via free agency the same way as you did, but having all of that financial flexibility helps you in the trade market in bringing those stars in. Their view was always keep yourself in position for next offseason, and now they're in one where they have all of these expiring deals and can go from there. But that flexibility was the big piece in all of this.

They're going to reinvent it from here. This is unusual, though, because there's less faith in them to do it than at any time that I can remember this management team being in place from the very beginning.

30 years.

And, and you've got your mythical icon at the top of the franchise. People are reacting to him like he's Joe Biden. Like, that's not something that I've experienced before because I know what the resume of that human being is. And it is disrespectful to make him, uh, grandpa forgot how to play basketball when what Jeremy is saying is right. They've been trying to get themselves into position for Giannis, but I think at this point even that will feel like anticlimax given what's happened in the conference. Given what's happened in the conference, given how many people have passed you in the conference, you're going to be building your team around two guys that you don't totally want shooting threes. Bam is better than all of those people we discussed before— Siakam and Sabonis and Young. He's better. He's better because his defense is stalwart and he makes them a great team defensively just by being the center of it, no matter who else is with him.

The question is, like, if the, if the Heat strike out on Giannis in this offseason, then what's the conversation going into the next season? Because then the next offseason has a bunch of guys and now we're just perpetuating the same exact thing all over again with less and less attractive pieces.

Giannis and Bam loses to OKC and the Spurs quickly. And I just didn't think that that's where we would be as a franchise.

Yeah, I wanted, I wanted the franchise to be closer. I don't think you can look at this roster right now and say they're a Giannis away.

I—

that's crazy.

I think they're going to need to add more to the team and that's going to require some aggression. Now, it was over a decade ago, but when they felt like they had their franchise player, they went all in. And remember, Bosh and LeBron were actually trades. And if you look back at what they gave up for guys that essentially agreed to free agent deals, it's insane. So they have in the past made moves that have hurt. They just fell short in this window.

You always make that point and nobody remembers that. You make that point all the time that Bosh and LeBron, uh, were—

Riley brought it up again yesterday.

He's— as he should, because like, look at it, it put the Cavs in position to get LeBron right back, and it completely depleted the Miami Heat.

We were still paying off that deal when LeBron wasn't even on the team anymore.

And it was because at the last second, right as these guys are going to go on stage for their infamous press conference— not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7— they had to because those guys wanted the extra deals, deals that they ended up, uh, the extra years. And those guys ended up opting out of those extra years.

He gently nudged the agents under the bus yesterday. He's like, well, you know, we had to give up 4 first-round picks because, you know, their agents.

And I was like, oh wow. And even said, even though we knew they were going to opt out after 4, we, we had to give up extra picks so they could have the 5th and 6th year options.

Don Lebatard, all these high-paid analysts, I don't want to mention names, TNT, ESPN, you know. Oh yeah, they, they are dead. They cannot— they They're not going to make it, you know, even if they win in— if they lose in Miami.

I need to calm you down.

That's right. If they lose in Miami, they don't got a chance in Boston. Oh, they are going to have their ass, you know what, in Boston, you know.

Stugatz.

They were wrong. They were— are they going to lose their job?

No.

Are they going to get a cut in pay?

No.

What are they going to do? Keep predicting what is the obvious. They are going to say, oh, the Nuggets are going to win. Oh, Denver, the altitude. And you know what? They're not going to win at all. This is the Don Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

Uh, speaking of, uh, local leadership changes, the University of Miami athletic director job, uh, has come open, and that is a good job that has come open, and my shoulders sank when I saw one of those insipid— your marks is in position to just treat people poorly again as part of a leading of a sports franchise down here, as it's being talked about, that he's a front runner. And I'm like, you got to be shitting me. You can't put that guy in charge of something else down here in South Florida.

I was so, so, so disappointed. When I saw Michael Yormark's name is a front-runner. There are reports out there that UM has offered him the job of athletic director. Now, Mike says that that's not true, they have not offered it, okay? But at the very least, he is a front-runner to be the new athletic director. This man was the CEO and president of the Florida Panthers when you could make the case They were the most pathetic, embarrassing, incompetent franchise in all of pro sports. And on top of that, this, this is a nasty man. Like, he was a tyrant. The way that I was— I was Panthers studio host for the radio team for 2 seasons, okay? And that was during his time when he was there. So I had somewhat of a look what was going on there. And the way this man treated people in that building. People who worked their asses off. I'm not gonna name names, alright? People who worked their asses off for that team.

I think you can name the names of people who worked their asses off.

Fine, you worked your ass off. Fine, Randy Moller. Okay, I'll just say it, whatever. Whatever, alright? There's no one who takes more pride in their job and works harder than Randy Moller does with the Florida Panthers. And the way that I saw and heard this man Michael Yormark Treated some people like Molar. Holy shit. What a nasty man. And to have him as a front-runner?

You can't do it.

Oh, it's awful. It's awful if the Miami Hurricanes hire him.

You said awful twice, and the second time you looked at the camera.

That means I'm serious.

That's that you meant it. You can't do this, University of Miami.

You can't.

Let's go. Your take is not as strong as that. Be more creative than this. What, you can't do it?

It's forbidden.

They forbid— more, more, more, more.

Do not hire the nasty man, University of Miami.

He's so nasty.

I, uh, I was an intern at the Florida Panthers when Michael Yormark was there, and I've been on record as my experience there. And oh yeah, his reputation isn't great. Dan said be more creative. Uh, those at the University of Miami who have influence that like Michael Yormark would say this is exactly that. This is them trying to be creative. You know, Michael Yormark's brother has done a good job with the Big 12, and they point to the Roc Nation thing. Michael Yormark's been angling for this position for quite some time. His seats are right next to mine. His daughter is a cheerleader at the university.

When you took me to the game, I saw him. He was— I pointed out, I go, there's Yormark right there. I didn't like that.

Yeah.

Hold on. Did you tell him he's a nasty man to his face?

No, I don't want to go near him. No, no, no, no. I don't want to go near him. I don't like it.

Right next to yours.

Well, not right next. Okay. Thank God I wasn't too close. I don't want any of that snake leaking on me.

I don't think you need to thank God that the snake oil salesman wasn't leaking on you. I don't think that's necessary to bother God with that.

Well, I thank God for what I choose.

God's like, uh, his secretary is like, uh, I got a Jonathan Zazzle on line too. All right, let's see what's going on. Hey, what's up, Zazzle?

Just want to thank you for, uh, you know, keeping your mic away from the hurricanes. That's all.

I do believe that there's going to be a full process here and other candidates are going to be considered. I, I—

so it's not true that he's been offered?

I I, I can't speak for someone that who doesn't have the final say, maybe posturing and really favoring this candidate, but he hasn't been offered the job by the person that is going to be making the call on this. And it's going to be Joe Echevarria that makes the call on this. And by all accounts, University of Miami is considering more than one candidate here. There is going to be a proper search.

Mike, what is the— give us the opposite side. What's the positives? What are championing him for?

So if you read the, uh, the Pete Thamel stuff, look, this is— Michael Yormark wants his name out there. This is how Michael Yormark operates. However, it probably lacks some self-awareness in thinking that people would, you know, receive this well because of all the stuff that he's done with Roc Nation and the Big 12 stuff. Kind of overlooked, and certain people at the University of Miami perhaps didn't know his history down here in the market. But they want somebody that is forward-thinking, that, uh, that doesn't really have a history in college football, because college football is changing. They don't want someone from a bygone era. They want someone to take this wherever it goes, because we know right now we're sitting in a very weird time for college football.

But there has to be someone else, right, Mike?

The argument—

the argument on his behalf—

there are a couple others—

that the Yormark name, uh, has an association that's good with business. He might argue that when he was a Florida Panthers executive was early on, and then he's learned a lot since then about how to be and has grown out of whatever his fear-soaked role was back then. This is somebody who's considered business ambitious in a city that always has trouble raising funds for anything, a program that has trouble raising funds.

Well, you mentioned the business. The business— I mean, his reputation in terms of how he treated people is one thing. Zazz spoke to that. But business-wise, in talking to people that were at the Florida Panthers, he left them in quite the lurch. There were a lot of trade-for-ticket deals that did not benefit the franchise at all. It was quite the mess to clean up. And I don't think we can overlook— it might be circumstantial, but, uh, the Florida Panthers franchise turned around when they purged that franchise.

Immediately left. They're one of the best franchises.

So are we looking at free Hurricanes?

Like, Hurricanes just giving away tickets now?

He, he presents very well. He has famous friends. DJ Khaled has been his guest at several games. The Roc Nation thing— the Roc Nation thing carries a lot of weight until you start pulling back the layers. In America, I think their most famous client is LaMelo Ball. You know, it's kind of like people think Roc Nation is bigger than it actually is, but it does carry weight. And I think that's what people want. They want Miami to be at the cutting edge. Now, Dan Radakovich wasn't that. Dan Radakovich was very much a legacy administrator. But people have all sorts of opinions on Dan. They had the results. Like, they, they did turn things around.

They brought him in.

That's crazy to me, right? Because everything I heard about Radakovich was that he wasn't very good as an athletic director, but but they did get results. I know that Pat Riley is good at what he does, but he did not get results the last couple of seasons. And now time waits for no one in sports. People are wildly impatient. And so I would just ask you, I mean, as we dissect the local leadership here, if you want the Miami Heat to be forward-thinking, ahead of the curve, unlike they've been the last couple of years, then you have to trade Bam, don't you?

Well, it depends. I'm with Pat in that, like, you gotta tell me what I'm getting for him. If you're telling me I'm getting a gajillion picks, or you're telling me I'm getting a young player that we all know is going to be incredible, sure. The problem is many of these scenarios don't involve that, right, when we're talking about these things. To me, the bigger issue is when he says there is zero scenario, zero scenario where we will opt in to being bad in order to tank and get a high pick. He said the day Mickey and Nick come in my office and say, let's, we're going to do this, is the day I quit. And he said that.

Let's hear, let's hear Pat Riley in his own words say we're not tanking.

I'm not going to tank, and I can't stand the word. And I know they're now talking about it in the NBA about how can we deal with tanking. I never heard that 15, 20 years go, you know, you know, there's a 65-game limit on awards. You're just sending out messages to players they don't have to play and they can still win something, you know? I mean, it doesn't make sense to me, but that's, that's the way it is today.

I was mentioning earlier, I mean, that the market has closed down on the idea of we give 4 first-round picks for Bain, 5 for Bridges, 5 for Gobert. But if Gobert is worth 5 and Bridges is worth 5 and Bain is worth 4, Bam's worth more than that, or Kevin Durant was worth 1.

Like, it's all kind of relative, so it's hard.

It's what they're worth to that team, right?

Exactly. That's all that matters. It's not like, you know, going to the market and saying, hey, how much for this can of Campbell's soup? Right. It's 99 cents here. Well, it's 69 cents over at Publix or whatever. It doesn't work that way. You can't price comparison. It's whatever the negotiation, and negotiation oftentimes comes down to leverage. One side has it, one side doesn't. The Knicks wanted Mikkel Bridges. The Nets knew that Mikkel Bridges wasn't like their centerpiece, but they knew, hey, those guys really want him. How much? 1?

No.

2?

No.

3?

No.

4?

No. 5?

Okay. And a couple of seconds. That's how that works. There was no one else. It wasn't a bidding war. It was just the Knicks were a dog, like a dog with a bone on this, and they wanted what they wanted.

Sazh, what do you do with Pat Riley, um, having the delusion— I'm gonna call of saying the only teams I feared were the Spurs and the Thunder when everyone in the conference is better than you.

Yeah, like, I obviously don't like that, but you're spot on when you say that it's doublespeak, because if you do feel that way, then why didn't you go all in and get that one big piece? Like, who cares about these assets and flexibility if you can get a guy like Durant and you think that there's no one in the Eastern Conference who you can't beat.

Well, that would have been a bad move, by the way. Durant, I believe all of those things.

I believe all of those things would have been short-sighted.

Were you just saying they should have done it?

No, no.

Like, that was a bad thing.

No, he's saying it's doublespeak to say that you're all in for right now.

That's a little unfair. I don't think the Durant move would have been bad. I don't.

I think the Durant move would have been what it's been in Houston. Not enough. Wow.

Top 14. That's great.

But not enough. Not enough.

Not good enough. You got to be better than the best. You can't have—

well, wait, we have Bam Adebayo.

So top 14 is good enough.

Uh, now, but when Jimmy Butler's top 2 team, that's not good enough, right? That's failure amid success, as you said.

No, the failure is not making the move.

Hey, it's Mike Ryan, and I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game, you get a text, hey, come over, you want to watch the game? And maybe you're like, ah, I don't know, I kind of just wanted to stay home. And then you think about it after your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make week, that regular hang, that regular midweek hang around the basketball game, into a special time, into a Miller time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a 6-pack of Miller Lite, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a missed call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah, this was the right call, and my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Lite. Great taste, 96 calories. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

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