Transcript of Why Don't We Care More About The OKC Thunder? | Hour 2 New

This is the Dan Levator Show with the Stugatz Podcast. Talladega Twins in the house! It was Talladega weekend. Let's cover it in Gearhead. Gearhead is presented by Cuervo. For every lap, keep it fun, keep it Cuervo. And Tony and I most certainly did. Dan, it was a chaotic Talladega race. The big one happened. 24 cars caught up in the big wreck. We're talking Bubba Wallace, we're talking Joey Logano, we're talking Kyle Larson. Dan Chase Briscoe hit a guy. It was absolute chaos, but a fan favorite won his first Cup Series race. We have a packaged video to recap the weekend. Thank you, Cuervo. My man 10 Day Tony, boots on the ground here. I'm in Talladega. World famous Talladega Boulevard. Look at this. Initial impressions?

Incredible.

The track is huge.

The boulevard is like the size of Vermont.

You're going to get a real life lesson here in having a great time. It's one of my favorite things to do in sports. Thank you again to our friends at Cuervo. Cuervo. I want you to keep it Cuervo, folks, every lap. Keep it fun, keep it Cuervo. We are gonna go ahead and take that advice starting right now. Let's go, baby. Let me give you the tour inside. Come on in.

This is my first time in an RV ever.

Good news is you're in the main bedroom. Hey, uh, bad news is so am I. Shower's great, and over here the bunkmates. But let me introduce you to the crew. I'm excited.

I've only heard about these guys. I've never seen them, I've never met them.

Oh, they're, they're pumped and they're waiting. We have college Mike, you know him a little bit. The man, the myth, the legend. What's up, buddy? Mike. Over here we got NASCAR Nate. NASCAR Nate. NASCAR Nate over there. We got Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye over there. And over there, the Watermelon Man.

Where's the watermelon?

Oh, it's over there.

They're just warming up, getting the tires nice and warm. And before long, we're going to be seeing some cars turning left.

How high is the slant or the angle on the turn?

Over here at Talladega, You see at the very tippy top, you're looking at like an 80-degree—

Yeah, it's like a big, like a big drop or slant. Still trying to get my NASCAR terms right.

Yeah! That's what we do. We're about to sample some Cuervo right now. You excited? I hope I get some Devil's Reserve. A little spice in there. I want to know what makes it the world's fastest margarita.

You know what, me too.

We're going to find out. Come with us.

Vamos.

First up, Pink lemonade.

Pink lemonade.

When do you have that?

Oh, that's good. That is delicious. Strawberry morgue. You know the key ingredient in any margarita? You got to start it with a base layer of Cuervo. All right, let's see what this world's fastest margarita is all about. Thank you so much. All right, I'll tell you in a second. Here we go. They said you.

I don't know.

Wow. That margarita is fast. And the whole— For the love of the brave! Start your engines! It's for the Watermelon Man!

On a start and stop like this, how do you get back into your—

They put them in the grid like the positions that they were in the race.

Gotcha.

Okay. The Watermelon Man just slamming watermelons. You got the grill going. Nice. We got the Cuervo on ice. I was going to say it doesn't get much better than this, but Tony, it's going to get a lot better than this.

I'm excited, cuz like even just seeing this stuff, I was talking about like the speed and stuff, it's like you're telling me this is single A to like major leagues coming up Sunday.

Yeah, yeah. And our vibe right now, though immaculate, still a single A vibe. We're going to kick it up to the show real quick. All right, Tony, we're about halfway through our adventure. Cuervo's been with us seeing The entire time. The sun has gone down. The party has turned up.

This is Talladega mayhem.

It's mayhem.

It's like a tailgate meets a music festival meets Key West meets, I don't know, like, yeah, college camp. Like, it's insane.

They call it the Coachella of the South. Whole parts of the world that we haven't seen. There's literally a school bus to our left. We're having a great time. Thanks a lot to Whereabout for bringing Tony along. Let's see some more.

Let's go.

We are inching closer to the green flag here at Talladega. Tony, you see the iconic This is Talladega Grandstand behind you.

You can see the grandstands like from one stretch as far as the eye can see the other way. We got the cars literally right there.

We're on pit road. Pit road.

I'm a NASCAR guy now.

You're a NASCAR guy. I'm a NASCAR guy, dude. Left turns, baby. That's it. World's fastest margarita. And as you can see, fans are lining up to try to beat it. Tony and I, we're going to try our luck here.

Tony, are we racing against each other or are we racing against them?

Yes. 3, 2, 1. Mine's done. We got a winner here. If you ain't first, you're last. Exactly right, Ricky Bobby. Thank you. Thank you to Cuervo for opening my boys' eyes to this wonderful world of NASCAR. Certainly a weekend we will never forget. We're getting ready for the race. We're going to enjoy it and we'll check back with you once it's all said and done. Yes, sir. Now the only thing left is the racing. Yeah. Tony's first ever Talladega weekend has come to an end. Carson Josefvar, his first ever Cup Series win. An exciting race, lots of chaos, as Talladega often does, Tony.

What I thought coming into what today was, what this weekend was going to be, and what the experience that I had was, is completely different. Like, the wreck that called 24 cars, they were gone. All of a sudden there was another spin out. Josefvar goes from being a guy who was in the middle of the pack to leading after that. Like, it was an incredible week, an incredible weekend. The party was awesome, the race was even better.

Well, speaking of party, Carson Josefvar, we've seen him out on the boulevard before. I'm sure there's going to be a great party tonight in Talladega Boulevard. A polarizing young man, but an exciting driver. Congratulations to Carson Josefvar for his first—

Congrats to me for being here for your first race.

Yeah, dude, I can guarantee you Tony kept it fun. Kept it Cuervo the whole time.

NASCAR guy now.

Big.

I'm excited for the next one.

Loves the left turns. Thank you, Cuervo.

How was the RV, Tony? Did you enjoy the crowded RV?

It was— it wasn't crowded.

It was—

it was very nicely spaced out. I had never been inside an RV before.

Really? Yeah.

At all, period?

Ever.

Yeah.

My dad's not an RV guy, so like, where would I have been in an RV from? So it was cool. We had couches, we had chairs, we would watch the race, we threw on some of the NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs. We were watching golf, like everything split screen. We had food, we had drinks. It was an amazing—

You had the watermelon man.

The watermelon man!

He was there. Carson Josef winning was amazing because this is a guy that if you were to bet on one driver to start the big one, you'd bet Carson Josef. But also, if you could handpick a guy to win that race, it was Carson Josef. He's very young. He's 6'4". He wears a cowboy hat. He's an electric personality. All that was missing for the young man was him being aggressive at a superspeedway and winning his first Cup Series race. And he did so and pulled off an iconic celebration that's being compared to Dale, which is something he's often compared to because he's very aggressive. Check out this celebration, Dan.

Hanging out of the car.

He removed the wheel, then put it back on. You see—

no one's driving that.

No, he's driving, but he's 6'4".

It's a Waymo.

So he's got his foot on the pedal while he's driving. He does crash into the wall. Thank God he's all right. At one point, he tried to catch a beer that was flung onto the track, just narrowly missed it. But Carson Hosovar with an iconic celebration. NASCAR came out and said, don't worry, this is fun. We want to see more of it. Won't be banned, won't be fined. More of this. Thank you, Carson Hosovar.

You know who the MVP of the weekend was, though?

The Watermelon Man.

Not only the Watermelon Man. Can you tell me about the 70-year-old guy? Oh, so in one of the lower-tier races that they have on Saturday, there was like, what's it called? ARCA.

ARCA Racing.

Okay. There's undercards.

Yeah. Yeah. There were 3 races that whole weekend. There was a dude on the ARCA series that's, you know, in his 70s, and my man was just putt-putting along. He did. He's not going to ride that.

That lap, like 3 times.

Yeah.

He's not going to take a quiz.

They mentioned Waymo, and I don't know if you saw this, but a Miami police officer pulled over a Waymo this weekend and ended up in a situation where He's arguing with a conferenced-in human being who's not driving the car.

Driver wouldn't step out of the car.

The passenger's not getting out of the car, and the future has arrived where Miami police are now trying to arrest and hassle drivers who aren't there because we have driverless cars.

I have two questions which you may not have the answer to. Number one, did he know it was driverless? And number two, why did he pull it over?

Uh, he did not know it initially was driverless, and it just kept stopping in odd places. It was driving erratically.

I'm sorry, there's no way he didn't know it was driverless. It's a Waymo. It's got all these gadgets.

Not everyone knows what a Waymo looks like. Not everyone knows that that's a driverless car. Maybe they should, but not everyone does.

I mean, I mean, when I was in the Waymo a couple months ago, people were really confused while looking at it.

So he looks—

all right, hits the lights, it stops. He walks up big and bad, looks in, is like, yeah, there's no one in the driver's seat. Did you, did you jump out? Did you jump in the back? He's like, no, I'm just, I'm just driving. I'm going to South Beach.

We got suspect on the run between 4'9" and 6'10", Black.

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? 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 2 when you're down 3 with a second to go. It wouldn't make any sense. So don't let the team down when it comes to Jägermeister. Drink it cold or don't drink it at all! Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister Liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mast Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.

Dan Lebatard!

To us residents.

Oh wow! That's pretty good! It's in there!

Better!

You think I haven't been practicing?

Stugatz!

I didn't realize we had a Substitute complicated legacy jokes by Headquarter Toyota.

441 Powerline Road. Second down and 9.

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

The thing I wanted to ask you guys, and I don't know how you go about fixing what I'm about to say, okay? There's a general negativity sometimes that seeps into sports coverage that I think people have gotten so used to that they don't even notice. So the big stories of the basketball playoffs so far are: what's the matter with Jokic? What's the matter with the Pistons? How could the Knicks drop a game to Atlanta? Durant, did you see, uh, yeah, Durant. Did you see Boston lose that one game to Philadelphia? It's negative, negative, negative, negative. Meanwhile, quietly, OKC annihilates everything. How does that happen quietly? And how is that uninteresting compared to all the other talking storylines? Because the excellence is, if not being diminished, it's largely being ignored. That team has no competitors for a year and a half. Now, San Antonio played some regular season games that were a little bit confusing against them, but for a year and a half, that is a cement mixer that's just rolling through basketball, and it's doing so in a way that is largely uninteresting to people even though it's hugely dominant.

And I think it's unesthetically pleasing at this point. Like, people people are upset, like there's so much complaining when it comes to watching their games. A lot of people watch it, they don't like all the fouls, they certainly don't like Shea Gilgeous. Lou Dort has this reputation now that he's a dirty player. I think people are not interested in watching them right now.

Uh, I think you're incorrect about the why. The, the reason why people don't want to watch them is because they are too dominant. They're just— there's nothing wrong with them. There's no weakness They are inevitable, kind of like Thanos, where he's like, yo, you could do this a million times over, it's going to end up the same way. I was at a couple of the— I was at, excuse me, Game 3 on Saturday. And, you know, some of the Phoenix local guys were asking like, what do you think the Suns need to do? I said, there's nothing to do. There's nothing that you can do because they do everything so perfectly, so right, even if you're within range, and that's what happened that game. The Suns would get in range, like, okay, here come the Suns, and the Thunder just go pop, pop, pop, and all of a sudden it's like a 15-point lead.

But it's only like that this round for them. Like, this is the third straight year that they swept an opponent.

It— it—

like, they're not gonna have their way the rest of the—

well, but they win— they win by unusual margins though, Zez. When I'm talking about their dominance being somewhat inevitable, for about 18 months now, the winning margins are something that we don't generally see in that sport. You don't just run roughshod over everyone where none of the games are close, Dan.

And here's one of the issues, and I say issues in the most positive way. When we talk about a great defensive team, usually it's like, what's that made of? Well, it's usually made of like a guy who's really good in the paint and then a couple of guys on the perimeter are really good and maybe a backup guy. So you talk about like maybe 4 or 5 really good defensive players that create the backbone of the system that everyone else, all you got to do is be decent. All you got to do is adhere to our principles. Sending them the way we want guys to get sent, and we're gonna be a great defense. That's typically how it's been. Oklahoma City has 17 dudes on their roster and they all defend. Every single person who plays for the Thunder, they don't have a single guy comes in there like, he's a weak link. So when that's your starting point, when your starting point is everyone is excellent on ball and then they're smart and disciplined off ball, and all they do is create this chaos and this pressure, the only way you can beat their defense is if you are a quick decision team that moves the ball, reverses the defense, and then you got to be able to shoot.

And the problem—

that's what Indiana did to bother them last year.

But it's just like the number of teams that are that disciplined offensively and they can shoot and they have a multitude of passers is very limited. And that's why there's an inevitability about this. The weird thing is the Thunder did what they did last year and we said, oh my God, these guys are going to win every championship until they have to break it up because of salary cap things. And then we started this year and they started amazing. And I said, oh my God, they're not going to lose a game. Then they went through a little rough patch.

I thought they were going to win 80.

80. They went through a little rough patch and then people started trying to find reasons why the Thunder weren't going to win. I'm like, what are you talking about? You're asking all these questions. Maybe the Pistons could— I'm like, what are y'all talking about? What are you watching that's not computing? And by the way, I've said all of these words and I have not mentioned who presumably will be a 2-time MVP. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is so amazing. He is so fun to watch in person because of his footwork, because of his IQ, his size. And it's like, the cool thing about him— and I'm a sucker for players like this, him, Steph Curry— it's when you can show me a guy, it's like, I'm not quicker than everybody, I'm not dunking on guys like Jamal Gayne, I'm just gonna beat you with my mind and footwork and skill level. It is so awesome to watch because it is the great equalizer. Oh, that guy has an 80-inch vertical and he's 6'9" with a 7'12" wingspan.

Okay, and yeah, and I think the thing we, we miss on SGA, which we haven't even brought up at least today, maybe you guys brought it up last week, um, he's missed 2 fourth quarter shots in like a month. Like, his numbers are insane. His efficiency is insane. I know everybody wants to talk about free throws and all that stuff, but like, once we get past the, the dumb-minded free throw conversation, you look at what he does on the court and it's like nobody can replicate what he does.

I watched him on Saturday go 15 of 18 from the field.

It's crazy.

And 2 of those 3 misses were 3-pointers. So he went, in essence, he went— what was it, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, 14.

You got it. 13 to 14.

So I've been—

Dan, wingspan is also 8 feet. Dan's an 8-foot wingspan.

I, I do want to point out something you guys were talking about last week, which is Dylan Brooks and animosity. And I wish I was in because I wanted to point out him and SGA grew up like they're, they're friends. They're buddies. Like, there's no part of it's like, ugh. And SGA talked about it last night. He's like, I love Dylan. I hope he continues to improve. There's no bad blood because these are guys that are basically brothers. They grew up together.

Well, but he called him flopping, flailing, and he made the accusations that are meant to diminish SGA. They are. And when Amin makes the point, says, and it's a good one, because what's special about them is their defense. Everything else is ancillary. What they smother you with is defense. When he says they have no weaknesses— Detroit yesterday, the way Orlando was attacking Duncan Robinson, just attacking him, just finding him wherever he is, because Detroit's putting him in because they want 3-point shooting, they want somebody who can make a shot from distance to stretch the floor. But on the other end, I'm hearing the announcers saying they might have to turn to Kevin Herter And I'm like, that's not a solution defensively. Like, if you think they're attacking Duncan Robinson, you don't bring in poor man's Duncan Robinson who does the exact same thing that Duncan Robinson does.

It feels a lot like, you know, not coincidentally, the last time an 8 beat a 1, which was 2023, and the Bucks were down 3-1 to Miami, and it was so apparent to everyone, it's like, Bucks are in big trouble. They are not going to win this series. And it kind of feels like that now, where the Pistons are in big trouble and they're not going to win this series.

The thing though that I want to talk about as it relates to the specifics of OKC— this is the best Piston season in 20-some-odd years. Like, you don't get bored with droning dominance. That's not a— that's not a thing. You don't get so bored by what someone is esthetically or dominantly that you're just bored by— OKC is going to just stay right up there. They're have any fluctuations. They're not going to go down. They're just going to be a team that we're looking at where Mike Ryan— nobody, nobody blinks. Like last week when Mike Ryan is saying Sam Presti's the best executive there's ever been, replaced Jerry West. No one around here blinked. How does that happen quietly?

Well, I mean, Sam Presti's been around for a long time, and he's done like— he's multiple incarnations of this Thunder team alone, let alone what he did in San Antonio as a guy in their front office there. But, but then I think when people say bored, it's— I think it's a couple things. I wonder if Oklahoma— if it was the Seattle Sonics and not the Oklahoma City Thunder, would we be bored? Like, part of that, part of it is Oklahoma, just Oklahoma automatically people fall asleep. Number 2 is also this is a very secretive organization. I think their PR people do a great job, they're really nice, but they don't share a lot. In terms of letting people in. Like, as opposed to, let's say, the Golden State Warriors, where their PR department is renowned for like giving access and you can talk and do features on our guys. San— I mean, Oklahoma City, not so much. They're a little bit more closer to the vest, so that kind of prevents the kind of storytelling around their players, around their guys, that makes people get excited. And then number 3, I think like there's something about defensive dominance.

That people don't like. It's not like don't like as in it's bad, but just like it makes people like that say this is boring.

We've heard the tropes about Oklahoma City as a market as to why this team isn't interesting. Plenty interesting when they had Durant, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook. Yeah, it's all about the personalities too. SGA is not that type of personality. And the front office and public relations, as Amin highlighted, isn't about putting them out there all that much.

But I would say it's the job of the media to cover the best the best, and it doesn't matter whether they give you storylines or not. That's nicer, but since when did we become a league where the media just talks about stories and not excellence?

I mean, for a while.

I'll refer you back— I'll refer you back to Pablo's segment. What are we incentivized by, right? So you're right, Oklahoma City is the best team, right? Oklahoma City is a team that is dominant, and it feels like it's going to be great for quite a while. How many national writers are assigned to cover the Thunder year-long? Spoiler alert: none. Everyone who's a national writer is following it. So I just was in Phoenix again, and I saw Tim McMahon.

He's the one guy.

Tim McMahon lives in Dallas. Tim McMahon is a national writer, but it's like, "Okay, now it's the playoffs. I'll be following the Thunder." But he doesn't live in Oklahoma City. He's not there every day the way that Ethan Strauss and Marcus Thompson and all these guys in Golden State were, or Windy and Tom Habersstroh. Kevin Arnovitz were down here when the Heat were great, right? They just don't have it. For The Athletic, Joel Lorenzi, who used to be their beat writer for the Thunder, but he's moved to Chicago, he's coming back now for to do playoffs. So it's like, why? You say, why? How's this possible? It's a great team. Why wouldn't ESPN and The Athletic and all these places have someone embedded at all times with this greatness, this historical greatness? And the reality is this: when they post stories about the Oklahoma City Thunder, people don't don't click. They don't click. They don't want to read about these choir boys that play hard. They want to read about, oh my God, did Kevin Durant quit on his team? Oh my God, is— is— are the Knicks gonna choke again? Like, these are— someone stole Jokic's underwear.

That's just— by the way, that's the dumbest story because in the story it says, nope, he just misplaced it. But everyone just ran with someone stole it. Maybe it was Jaden McDaniels, but for a moment they thought it was stolen. For a moment.

All right.

Paragraph 3.

Until it was found, it was stolen.

Uh, it would be hard to embezzle what I imagine something that size, uh, quietly. To me, it would be like you're running out with a tapestry of some sort. Like, I— what size waist do you imagine that Jokic is?

80.

Um, the, the underwear being stolen, uh, was a funny story yesterday. Jokic in general having trouble with Gobert is interesting because it's the only human being I've ever seen him have trouble against. I don't think any of you have ever seen him have trouble against anybody except what Minnesota offers. But let's, let's talk for a second about what Amin is saying there. Over the last 15 years of gossip and stardom, the NBA has always been a star league. They live now with the consequences of the fact that they've given their players a lot of stardom, and that power has turned into something that is off-putting in a lot of cases with many fans. But I do think it's interesting that after 15 years of, you gotta have 3 guys, 3 stars, the most interesting OKC team is Westbrook, Durant, and Harden, even though it never won anything. We've come from 15 years of you gotta have 3 guys to all of a sudden the model's back to what it was before 2010. LeBron formed the 3 guys because he couldn't get past Pierce, Garnett, and Allen. The Big Three was first in Boston, and that represents 20 years of basketball, and now this team is back to what teams used to look like, which is we've got one star and then everyone else works around the one star.

I'm forever fascinated by the way laypeople look at basketball, because you guys are like, "Oh, the formula is get 3 guys." No, the formula is to build the best team possible. LeBron didn't go get 2— I need 3 to counteract Boston's 3. That wasn't his math. His math was, oh wow, I can play on this team and it's gonna be great, right? Remember, Miami's plan was like, hey, LeBron's probably not gonna come, it'll be Bosh and Wade. That was the plan. And LeBron was kind of like, fingers crossed, hope he comes here. And he did, and they changed everything. But the idea is, I'm trying to build the best team possible. Golden State didn't get Kevin Durant because they needed it to do— they get it because he was available and they could do it.

But you said Golden State had national writers, and it's because they had stardom. They had a bunch of guys, not one.

Wait, now Now, so I'm not talking about writing right now. I'm talking about roster construction. If you want to talk about writing and media, then I go back to what are the incentives? Is it the chicken or the egg? Do they get national writers covering them because they have stars, or is it because they're informed by the metrics, "Hey, people are really interested in this team, hence we'll get national writers there"? That's the conversation as far as coverage goes, but as far as roster construction No, Oklahoma City didn't go back to where it was because Jalen Williams is an All-Star and an All-NBA player, and he's just hurt this year, so he's not been eligible. And then Chet Holmgren is all-world defensively and an All-Star caliber player. So you could still, quote, call it a Big Three, or you could say they built a team with zero weaknesses. And if I build a team with zero weaknesses, would I have one star or two stars or four stars? It doesn't matter. What matters is when we play basketball Do we have playmaking? Yes. Do we have shooting? Yes. Do we have perimeter defense? Yes. Do we have interior defense?

Yes. Right? Those are checkboxes that we're looking for. And as long as we have all those things and versatile defense, obviously the ability to guard different size human beings, different skill human beings, as long as we have all those things, whether you want to tell me I got 1 star, 2 stars, 5 stars, 7 stars, no stars, that's all we're looking for.

Don Le Batard. Uh, Chris Cody does an impression, just be careful. Dangerous game here. 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 Lamar.

No, I don't want to play this game.

He's like, man, I could talk just like him.

This is who we're going to trust with this. I mean, you do it.

Let's let Amine do it, I think.

Stugatz!

I think you could do it, Chris, because you did a great Charles Barkley. You're 1 for 1 there.

Did no one just hear the segment we just did with Amine? We cannot be taking—

Amine's judgment is not the best.

—counsel from the local drunk on whether or not you should do the impersonation of a Black man stumbling over his words. Like, you don't see the bad judgment?

There was Mose and Moody. Moody Moses.

Moses Moody. It sounds worse. Be careful, man.

We gotta— like, 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's gonna do something racist by accident.

Carry the hell on, Dan. Rachel.

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

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stukacs.

Is the negativity something that makes hockey and McDavid, for example, the largest story of hockey's postseason because he's behind in that series? And we will look at the chokers. McDavid is now entering this rarefied air where you can put him in the Harden class of— wait a minute, is that something that gets turned off in the playoffs?

I think that there's something to what you're saying, but it's for mainstream attention. It's not perpetuated by the media that covers the sport as much. For whatever reason, I think Amin would actually like how the NHL beat writers are caretakers of the sport and don't really play so much with that nonsense. But it's how they would talk about hockey on First Take. It's what you're most familiar with with this sport. This is the driving narrative. McDavid, if he doesn't get it done now, the Panthers are out of the way. You're going to lose to Anaheim in the first round. Then you start also trafficking in, well, is he going to stay in Edmonton? Can he? They can't help him.

I feel like a 3-1 deficit in hockey is not as daunting as it is in basketball.

So we don't live and die by like, it will happen once he loses the series.

I don't think you're hearing that down 3-1 like you would in basketball. So Mike, you and Dan, you guys were both not here yesterday, but we talked about this, and also in the idea that hockey is a game that is followed not by a lot of casuals. Most people who are hockey fans are diehard hockey fans, so most media can cater to the majority of the audience by speaking more nuance. Basketball is a sport that invites a lot more casuals who don't watch all year long and then turn on TV and say, Yup, yup, see that's the reason why, whatever. So because of that, there's a lot more appetite for these low-hanging fruit salacious stories that are not necessarily nuanced or kind of measured. You can be first-takey about things with basketball in a way that you can't with hockey.

But it is weird though to see a player of this caliber who is unstoppable all of a sudden find it hard to get out of the first round against Anaheim. They struggled early in the playoffs last year too where it looked like they were going to get knocked out early. Not like this though. Not like this. I mentioned to you guys that I was in California watching when the Panthers played Anaheim. Anaheim scored 9 goals, and I was watching on a television where the sound wasn't up. So I kept thinking they were playing the same goal over and over again. And it was just that Anaheim was scoring like that again and again against the Panthers. But when you are the next Gretzky, it can't end in the first round against—

no goals this series yet, Mike.

For me, the story is he's been bad. No goals, right? You have to grade him on injury speculation. You have to grade him on— yeah, I mean, he did leave Game 1 with an injury, but that's the NHL playoffs, babe.

Like, yeah, that's not an excuse.

Yeah, you get back out there. The game that everyone was saying, well, they dropped this, he was hurt, he had the second most ice time for the Oilers there. He's out there, he's got to produce. For me, the story has been with Connor McDavid over these last few games because we're dating back to last postseason because the Panthers did a good job on him too. He has not been the same in the postseason. If they go down swinging and he's the best player, then I think the narrative goes more to you got to get out of Edmonton. Clearly what this, this franchise is not helping you get to where you need to go. But some of the responsibility points towards him like you have to be better. You're going to get knocked out by the Anaheim Ducks.

And wouldn't it be amazing that at the end of a long, illustrious career in journalism that Greg Cody's legacy would be he was the first one to know that dude was a fraud? How amazing would that be? It's like everything, this whole career, no one would remember anything else about Greg Cody except he was the guy everyone was saying Connor McJesus and, and he said Connor McCollum.

You hear that, White Hat? The McDavid thing is actually an interesting thing to support what you were saying about the NBA writers. What was the NHL community reaction to what Greg Cody was doing? Didn't like it. This guy's insane. What a kook. When those are storylines, those are the driving force behind LeBron is always viewed through this Michael Jordan prism and, oh, you can't win the big one. And Charles Barkley rings. It's totally different.

1 goal this series in Game 3 for McDavid. He's a -6 total for the series. He has not been a plus in any game. Put it on the poll.

Is that the NHL playoffs, babe? Yes or no? @LeBittardShow.

It's gonna be 100%. Heard that a couple of times on the RV.

I mean, Jokic, have you ever seen him look like this? Is this something something that you feel like you've seen over a 4-game stretch? Because I, I don't recognize, uh, him being inefficient. He's shook.

No, he's definitely struggled. Uh, I would say, we and Tony were talking about this a second ago, Draymond in 2022 locked his ass up en route to the, uh, the Warriors championship. Caruso last year, Caruso did a great job on him as well, just being physical and kind of taking his legs out from under for him. So I've seen him struggle, but yeah, the shooting, the missing of shots that he usually makes, that I've never seen for this extended amount of time.

I mean, this is the fourth year, third year in a row where he's had some trouble in the, uh, in the NBA playoffs. And are we starting to look at a point where we need to look at Jokic? It's like, all right, is it Jokic? Is it the team? Is it the supporting cast? Is it the coach? Like, what is going on in Denver that is not allowing this guy who has historic season after historic season after historic season to get to the NBA Finals.

I wish Greg were here because I'd lob him up for Nikola McOverrated. That's your take? I'm just saying, like, you could be— you could— someone can be the first on this island, much like Greg was the first on McOverrated. Dan says he's better than Michael Jordan. Well, Dan, I think you might want to revise that one.

I don't want to revise it just yet. He's won several MVPs in a row, and they're only going to take it away from this in this year because they're They're still going to win the series. You didn't win it last year either. Should have. The winning of one evidently isn't enough. OKC has won one, and I can't get anybody to talk about them. Not anywhere. Not anywhere do I see anything in the way of people talking about, hey, there's one team that just ransacked the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns, I understand it's not the same team, but they were a 1 seed a couple of years ago. Like, the staying up there is not that easy. Uh, Detroit is showing you how hard it is. Milwaukee is showing you how hard it is to stay up there.

But Dan, do you want us to talk about AJ Mitchell coming off the bench? You want us to talk about Isaiah Joe not missing shots? Like, is that what you want? You want like hardcore Thunder talk, man?

I'd love to talk some AJ Mitchell. AJ Mitchell's good. That guy never played last year and now he's starting for them in the playoffs.

The thing that I think is worth mentioning with OKC is if you're bored talking about them now, what do you think it's going to feel like 4 years from now when all of these young players round into form and they get some of the guys back who haven't been totally healthy? Like, this is about the weakest as you're going to see them be, is it not?

Well, you can't keep everybody.

You can't keep everybody. It's probably gone. It's at some point. That's what the picks are for. Yeah, exactly. That's the guy I was watching, Jared McCain. I said, this isn't fair. Yeah, how did this guy— how did this guy get on their team, man? Like, that's not fair. But they have this war chest of draft picks, like Mike just said, that they can just continue to replace guys with guys who are rookie scale or affordable deals. Now the thing I'm interested in, I don't think it'll happen this this year. But San Antonio is set up the way their checking account and their saving account set up, their salaries cascade, so they're never gonna have to pay all those guys all at the same time, not for like 4 or 5 years from now. As a result, they're going to be able to be cost effective and keep adding talent. And we already saw this year, 4 out of 5 times they beat the breaks at the Oklahoma City Thunder. If they meet in the playoffs, I've got the Thunder easily because I think the experience part will rear But man, next year, 2 years from now, I don't know if I could say that.

I don't know what to do with regular season results. I know that I've only seen OKC look like that against San Antonio in 2 years. They haven't— even when they were losing to Indiana, it's not like it wasn't explainable how and why they were losing to Indiana. When you watch them play against San Antonio and they get throttled when no one throttles them, it makes me think that there are certain matchups that, that would apparently bother them in a way no other team in the league bothers them.

Some games without J Dub, some games without Chet, some games without Harden.

It was only one game that they were missing guys, the Thunder.

Like, they, they, they missed a ton of time this year.

No, I'm talking about the Spurs and the Thunder. Like, 3 of those 4 wins for San Antonio were legit wins.

I think with San Antonio there's a couple of things. Number 1, they have a lot of similarities and they got a bunch of guys— Castle and Vassell and, and, uh, Johnson. These guys are all great defensively, versatile. But then the other part is you could argue that Victor Wembenyama is better than anybody on the court, which is tough because Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the MVP and is going to be a 2-time MVP when it's all said and done by the end of this season. So to say that, but we also— it's like, we gotta acknowledge Victor Wembenyama is a game changer. Without him, the Spurs are a really good team, as Portland learned when he sat out, right? With them, they turn into something completely another level. But again, in a playoff scenario, in a playoff scenario, you still have to execute. And that lack of experience I think will bite them in the ass this season.

How did we feel about Riley?

With a 9-19 record, the Philadelphia Phillies have fired manager Rob Thompson. No! Don Mattingly takes over as the interim manager.

Yeah, good manager now.

He'll be here this weekend. So Dombrowski and the Phillies do what the Red Sox did. I want to hear Pat Riley trying to say Wemba Nyama again.

Wemba ya. It's tough.

Did go right by us. Wemba ya.

Minus 54 run differential, Dan. Wemba ya. They're really bad. Wemba ya.

What did the Eastern Conference do to Pat Riley?

Wemba ya. You're better than that. He said it, not us. Mamba ya. You ought to be ashamed.

Look how proud he is. He's so proud right now. That's not pride.

That is not pride you see on my face. That is the smile masking shame.

You, you, you can't be mispronouncing arguably the face of the league's name when people are questioning if you still got it. Mamba ya.

Are you, are you saying the game? Mamba ya.

You got to get that name right. Mambaia. That's why you go Wemby.

Excuse me?

That's Chris after he went down to New Orleans and had some mambaia. Not a soup. Is that jambalaya?

There's not a soup known as mambaia.

Mambaia. 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? 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 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.