Transcript of How Is The Kawhi Leonard Scandal Not a Bigger Deal? | Hour 1

Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen— nichts entspannt mich. Echt?

Mich entspannt meine Steuer total.

Steuer? Wie Finanzamt? Die Steuererklärung?

Ja, ich hab ganz locker über 1.000 € zurückbekommen.

Hast du geheime Connections oder Excel-Superkräfte?

Nö, nur die WISO Steuer App.

Wow, und das ist einfach?

Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch.

Ich fühl mich plötzlich so entspannt. Hol dir dein Geld zurück. Abgabefrist: 31. Juli.

Was?

Schaffst du ganz entspannt mit WISO Steuer.

Ach ja.

You are listening to the Dan Levitan Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App, now live in all 50 states.

This episode of the Dan Levitan Show is presented by DraftKings Sports. DraftKings, the crown is yours.

I have known Greg Cody almost as long as Chris Cody has known Greg Cody. And I do not have a lot of recollections in my past of your father, Chris, feeling something that resembles remorse. But for the last 24 hours, he has felt a genuine remorse that has caught me off guard about what I now believe to be a genuine catchphrase countdown controversy. Because he left here yesterday, he must have said it to me 4 or 5 times. Your dad can get obsessive-compulsive about certain things and just start ticking on them. Must have said to me 4 or 5 times yesterday, can you tell Zazz that I was just doing a bit by taking his catchphrase? Not the first one, not the first one.

The first one is not a bit.

The first one— that's what I'm talking about. Hey, that's what I'm talking about. Hey, that is, uh, Greg thinks that's his. But what he did yesterday, what he say he did purposely to bother you—

that's what I said yesterday.

That's right.

And he played it off as if he didn't. So we now got—

was that number 18 or 17.

Uh, number 18 was, uh, take a Lobo's Mint and put it under your pillow and dream big.

Of course.

Uh, and 17 was— what do you say— but it wasn't really.

That, that's literally what I said yesterday, that I knew, I knew your first one that you stole from me.

I didn't steal the first one.

Yeah, you did.

You stole it, okay? Subconsciously, like, you heard me say— it's like a comedian where, oh, you know, I got this great bit. No, no, you heard it somewhere else and now you think it's yours. That is what happened.

I've been saying that's what I'm talking about my whole life.

Respect your—

hey, that's That's what I'm talking about.

That's what I'm talking about. You stole it from me subconsciously.

Okay, you say it angrily.

Okay.

I say it joyously.

Hey, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. I know you took that.

Why so angry?

Watch your tone. I know you took that subconsciously. And I also know, I said it yesterday, you were effing with me by taking— what did he say? I knew that.

I said that.

So yes, you were right. Greg was wrong. He felt bad about that immorality.

And so now there is a new number 17.

Right.

But the controversy or the the mushrooming controversy is he won't tell us what it is here. He says you have to go to The Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody if you want to hear, uh, what is the new number 17.

And it's a good one.

Did you give that on your show on Monday? Yes, the real one.

The Greg Cody Show audience was aware that we were going to mess with you yesterday. A little inside joke.

I knew that audience.

So why, if it's already on yours, why can't we have it here?

What?

What?

It's a good one too.

The real number 17 is a good one.

Greg, Give us number 17 here. You, you, you felt bad about it. You did something bad to Zazz. It was an immorality. You denied when he accused you of it.

You're a liar.

That it was a bit.

You bothered me 4 or 5 times with it.

Number 17 is already on the Greg Cody Show featuring Greg Cody. It's already been released. Give us number 17 here. You can't tease me the way Chris is teasing me, saying it's a good one.

We're getting into the greatest of all the things you've ever invented in 70 years on this earth. We're getting into the prime, prime terrain. This is the end of the fireworks show. This is when you throw off all of the explosions.

We're, uh, in our third or fourth time approaching the top 10. I think this is the third or fourth time we've given you number 17.

Give us a Give us this 17, please, because Chris can't tease me that way.

Thai food.

Be careful. Be careful what your next phrase is, all I'm gonna say.

Okay. All right.

Awesome.

You want number 17?

Please.

Thai food.

I can't even do it.

Yeah, I've heard him say that all the time.

He's been thinking it.

You're making me so mad. You're making me so mad right now. You better say a different one, okay?

Thai food.

I don't know why you're saying it like that. Hey, Thai food.

That sounds like a hungry ghost.

A bit of a ghastly Thai food thing there, right?

A haunted Thai food.

Dan Marino. A haunted ghost Thai food.

He sounds like Zuul from Ghostbusters.

That's Zuul.

Chris, are you going to give me number 17? He's not going to give me number 17. Don't make me.

He's giving me a death stare right now.

It should come authentically out from your mouth.

Legit, I'll give it to you. Okay, 18, of course, put a Lobo's mint under your pillow and dream big.

Of course, of course.

The alternate to that is put a Lobo's mint under your pillow and dream.

This is Yeti and I correcting him. The saying has always been dream big, but on the show, Greg Cody Show, he goes, put a Lobo mint under your pillow and dream. And Yeti and I were like, it's dream big. So he's acting now Like, dream has always been—

he's got— he got his catchphrase wrong.

Correct.

No, I'm the—

we corrected him and he's like, no, it's both. It's not.

No, there are certain catchphrases that, that have A and B, you know, either is fine. One, one A. I don't think that's in any way true. It is true because I said it so.

Okay.

And I'm the catchphrase countdown king.

Okay.

And so give us number 17.

Number 17, quite a bit.

My entire life.

I mean, that is just I thought it'd be a top tenner.

It was a top tenner until a month ago.

It would have been in previous incarnations, it would have been, but the list keeps expanding.

And so I gotta say, in the 20-plus years of this show, and it's not even something that we created, we're clearly ripping off Greg's podcast here, but this is just dynamite.

It's really great.

Uh, uh, Zazz, I was wondering how you took the news, as somebody who can be precious about radio, radio things, uh, the news that Howard Stern is laying off 12 employees because Howard Stern is about to move into the phase of what's left of his career where he's doing one show a week. Now I'm assuming that he's still going to take the summers off, so Howard Stern is basically going to do 30 or 40 shows a year, and this is— this might as well be quitting quietly while staying, you know, contractually tied to what it is your library produces for satellite radio. It can It can be argued that Howard Stern is the reason satellite radio exists. It can be argued that he was first to the idea of some form of streaming long before it was popular. He just took his audience with him.

Yeah.

And put it behind a paywall and allowed satellite radio to be all of the things that satellite radio became. The idea that he's doing one show a week to his fans must be something that hurts because they're already mad that he takes the entire summer off. But this is the king doing whatever the king wants whenever and however he wants, because no one's ever had this deal in the history of media where he basically works whenever the bleep he pleases. And it's not very much.

You may remember it was a year ago. Also when he was taking his summer off, where it was thought that he's being pushed out. And then when he came back, it was this whole, ah, you know, none of that stuff was true, I just signed a new deal. And I don't know, pushed out would be the word that I would use, but clearly this is getting close to the end. I mean, look, I'm a huge admirer of Howard Stern. I listened to him every day for about 25 years. I started when I was 15 years old. I would have my little radio on the school bus with the headphone in, and I would listen every morning. My father introduced me to Howard Stern, and then I started listening on my own. I stopped about 5 years ago. From every single day I listen, I stopped about 5 years ago because the show just changed, you know, and it just— it wasn't for me anymore. And he changed, and that's okay. So—

Going around.

So for me, I— like, that was kind of the end for me.. But this really feels like we're getting to the end. He's in his 70s. He's in his 70s, and now we're just one show a day. So it's—

a week.

A week, I'm sorry. One show a week. It's a really huge deal. I mean, he's in the conversation of top 2 or 3 greatest radio hosts of all time, no matter the format.

I think you have to put it at the top.

Yeah.

I don't think it's top 2 or 3. I think it's the very top. I don't know who—

no matter the format.

I don't know who I'd put next to him in terms of groundbreaking on creating the different intimate community that specifically radio is, and then transitioned before anyone else into turning a radio show into a video product that was then, that helped e-entertainment television become more popular because all of a sudden his product was video.

He is older, but I don't know that I can cite any radio pioneer that has a bigger name associated with the product of radio than Howard Stern, I don't know who would be a close second.

Yeah, I mean, he, he really is the king of all media. Like you said, he made the E! Channel because they put his radio— a radio show on television. He likely saved satellite radio, helping Sirius and XM merge and become SiriusXM Radio. Number one in books, number one movie when it came out, and of course, for very many years, the number one radio show. You're right. King of all media, probably the greatest of all time.

I love Howard Stern. Uh, I, I think he's great, and I think he deserves to do this. He's older than me, which is a mind-blower because he looks like he's 15 years younger than me. But Howard Stern does— congratulations, Howard Stern, for cutting back to one day a week. Levittard over here is jealous. He wishes he could only do work one day a week.

No, I like what we do. Yeah, I like, I like what we do around here. I love working. I've always loved working. I don't want to be doing one show a week.

That's 30 shows a year.

Oh, come on.

You can take the entire summer off.

But I think, as someone who does one podcast a week—

It's a lot, right, Dad?

It's a lot. Like, I am—

And yours is how long?

Like an hour.

Okay.

Yeah, give or take.

Travis Kelce calls podcasting the hardest job in the world.

Well, that may be hyperbole, but I mean, the one he has is pretty difficult.

Right. No, good for Howard is my point, and I think his fans are gonna flock to him once a week. I don't think he's gonna lose anybody. If anything, they're gonna miss him for 4 days a week, and then they're gonna really look forward to that one day that he's broadcasting.

I do wonder, because, you know, like I said, the show lost me about 5 years ago, and I was every day, 25 years. I do wonder what the audience is like nowadays. Like, you may remember here locally, alright, like Neil Rodgers is a local icon, alright, was the greatest for a very long time.

Uncle Neil.

And then our rating system changed very late in his career, which was a little bit more of an accurate rating system as opposed to the diary where you write down what you listen to. It actually tracked what you listen to with electronic device, and we learned no one was listening to Neil Rodgers at the end.

It actually killed him.

Yeah, so I do wonder what his audience is like now.

Mike Ryan meant that literally, incidentally. He's not talking about the killing of Neil Rogers' career, he's talking about Neil Rogers soon thereafter ended up dying when it was revealed that the measurement system was flawed. But to Zazz's point, we had a chance 5 years ago with a very good offer from satellite radio that was trying to get somewhat younger than Howard Stern and Mad Dog, And it was among our choices before we chose DraftKings. And I did not want to test the loyalty of our audience by putting it behind a paywall, no matter how popular that paywall is. And I'll be curious to see how Pardon My Take and Bill Simmons, how all of them end up feeling about the move to Netflix because of the dangers involved of changing something that's this intimate and the patterns of it, changing it so much that that you then start charging your fans for something that was free for them. Like, there is a danger in that that really tests the loyalty of people.

But in this particular case, Howard Stern has made a ton of money doing this, and Satellite, uh, Sirius Satellite Radio has no regrets about paying him all that money because it worked very well for both parties involved.

But I do imagine that Howard Stern feels a little bit like he's shouting into a tin can sometimes now given what his relevance was as the king of all media. He's not the king of all media anymore.

Cannot be in the modern age. Not possible to be that when you're 70.

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Down, Levitar!

Can't trade Marino.

Nice hat.

It's what he's most known for.

It's not like I'm holding on to it.

Greg Cody.

Nice hat.

They were 9-2. But it's Marino. And then the next time we saw Marino after Greg Cody traded him, he threw for 5 touchdowns. And he was Can the Man on the COVID of Sports Illustrated.

You can't trade Marino.

Nice hat, asshole.

This is the Dan Levitan Show.

A reminder again that the President of the United States paid more than $5 million yesterday to another of his alleged rape victims.

All right, language is a little bit better.

Uh, the Kawhi Leonard story continues to mutate, and now Adam Silver says that, uh, we will not be still having this investigation going on when the season starts. He has also said before, he's been quoted as saying before, as that thing has become a mess where Toronto— that's super weird, okay? Everything that happened there was super weird. Both him being traded out of nowhere to Toronto, and then all of a sudden Toronto saying, well, hold on a second, let's make sure we know what the ramifications are. I believe this latest reporting might explain what just happened with Toronto after trading, which is there's more than just the aspiration stuff. Allegedly there's more.

Adam Silver said, look, we have to stop this investigation at some point because you can investigate these things forever, and we will not.

Investigate this forever.

He has put a deadline on this. It's not even about getting all of the information anymore. He has said the most important thing is ending this before the season starts.

Some people have pointed out that 10 months is a ton of time for an investigation. Like, that's—

it's a crazy amount of time. But evidently there's more information here, more things happening than just the Pablo Torre reporting.

There's evidently other things they've now uncovered once it is that you start digging around in here. My question to the group is, what do you guys consider the biggest cheating sports scandal that there has ever been? Is it Lance Armstrong? Is it baseball and steroids? Uh, because the, the details on— when you're, when you're reading right now, I don't know if you guys are reading anything about the finances of how, uh, Rob Manfred is saying that he doesn't like how the Major League Players Association is framing the idea of a salary cap, and that sport is very obviously going to lock out over the idea of a salary cap. You have the Basketball Players Association saying, hey, this second apron is bullshit. Like, this second apron, this is not what they told us the second apron was going to be.

Salary cap is all of these entities, employers and employees, fighting over the money. You don't have another salary cap cheating scandal like the one that engulfs Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer in the history of finances in sports labor. So when it comes to strictly money, this would be the biggest sports cheating scandal around money that there's been that isn't doping or something else. But what do you guys consider the greatest of the sports scandals? I think Penn State is the greatest of the sports scandals because it involves kids.

Oh, so not cheating necessarily.

No, no, I'm talking about— I'm just making scandals over here, right?

Certainly in America. Certainly in America, I think that that's big. I mean, Nancy Kerrigan was immense.

No, I think Dan's the winner.

Yeah, no, I agree. In terms of like what happened on the field, Serie A had a huge controversy that saw Juventus stripped of championships, sent down to a lower division, and that was league-wide cheating, match fixing. The 1919 World Series, the Reds and White Sox, the White Sox gambling.

That was gambling issue, right?

Yeah, the '02 Fiesta Bowl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that too.

Yes, it is hard to disagree with what befell Joe Paterno. I would have to give you that one. But I would say overarching, I think the baseball steroid scandal where Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds are all hitting 70 home runs and we're saying, isn't that great? And then it turns out they all cheated and it's a big stain on the national pastime.

Now they were punished, but we don't really know if he had the actual little, you know, electric piece on his chest. But José Altuve with the Astros, like, if we knew if he actually had the thing on his chest, the wire—

Spygate, Deflategate, Bountygate. The NFL does such a great job of making that stuff go away. Not so much Deflategate because we had already had Spygate, but Spygate went away. It was masterful work by the league.

The Lance Armstrong one is big too because it was like he was so staunchly anti-steroids and going after people that did steroids, and you're like, oh, you were doing steroids the whole time.

I'm always so conflicted with Lance Armstrong. Strong. Yes, he obviously cheated, and he used his cheating to raise an unbelievable amount of money for cancer research. So I don't know, it's stupid bike riding. He raised money for cancer research. Like, I—

what about the other guy who was bike riding?

He had his life ruined.

How about that guy?

I know, I know about the Montreal Screwjob Survivor Series.

That's a big one. '97, Dan.

The thing that's making me laugh about what you guys are saying, because Spygate is the criminal, not the crime. Spygate is the sport, not the crime. It's because football matters so much and because the Patriots were winning the championship. As, uh, whatever you think of the definition of cheating, Spygate to me feels like it pales in the face of— what do you mean the world's richest sports owner decided he just wasn't going to pay attention to the salary cap rules?

Like, I think in terms of flagrant— Spygate, I think all NFL coaches are trying to get some kind of spy advantage. I don't think all NBA owners are this flagrantly saying, "Yeah, I don't care about your rules at all. I'm going to do something so secret over here." The part that to me, I just don't get why it's not landing more with people. I know Bomber's super rich. Cheating with tens of millions of dollars? Since when is— since when are people okay with that? Tens of millions of dollars allegedly involved with— yeah, Kawhi didn't have to show up for a job, they just offered him. Wouldn't you guys love to have just audio of what those conversations were like? Yeah, not gonna go plant trees, don't want to do anything, just pay me tens of millions of dollars around your rules. To me, it is completely nuts. That this scandal doesn't have everyone agitated the same way all those other scandals do, because as I put this in the class of all those other scandals, people are not talking about it that way.

It's at least in part because the rest of the media is not covering it the way that it covered all of those things.

It's Pablo Torre covering it over here, but a 10-month investigation is asinine. Like, do you know how much they have to have uncovered by now if they've spent 10 months with a law firm doing this?

How much do you think it's because of a lack of understanding? Like, usually when we talk about cheating, like Spygate, oh wow, they were recording practices. All right. Like, everybody understands what that means. How much is it a lack of understanding? We're talking about salary cap minutia. Like, do you think that that's part of the reason that there's not this uproar?

I don't, because it's tens of millions of dollars.

It's not hard to understand.

I think it's two things from there. I think, one, look at the context of the time. 1, all of those things happened when we were still surprised by scandal. The news cycle of the last decade has really shifted the way that we all look at, at different types of scandals, whether it's in politics or now sports. And 2, they didn't win anything. Look back at every other one of these scandals. Lance Armstrong was a winner. The Astros won the World Series. The Patriots were a team that was perennially winning. And so in turn, fan bases felt cheated. Kawhi and the Clippers have won absolutely nothing, and so people don't feel impacted about it by the same way.

I think that's a very good point. It is. It is a very good point. And also, I think—

Good job, Jeremy!

I think a lot of people are withholding their outrage to see what the investigation determines.

Zazz often says Adam Silver is a nothing. There is a lot of financial fair play rules that are skirted over in Europe, up in the Premier League. Real Madrid and Barça, big offenders over there. And what happens is all the other clubs get really pissed off because it's unfair. This rule is in place to protect the other teams. What's one thing that you're not hearing around this scandal?

Owners complain.

The other owners. Yeah, Adam Silver has that shit buttoned up. Now we can have theories as to why that is, because all the other owners maybe don't want people looking into stuff like this. But that is what is missing here.

You don't have the story being advanced because you don't have other owners complaining to reporters, "This is unfair." Both good points on why those distinctions are being made between the scandals, 'cause it's not just the winning and it's not just that owners aren't giving voice to this, but it's not the only thing. You are letting the entirety of the media off the hook because, uh, they didn't need other owners complaining about the Patriots to do Spygate. The Patriots were winning and so there was jealousy about all of that, but the media doesn't need help to cover scandal, doesn't need others to provide the content when there is scandal.

But that's what Jeremy said, like, it's important. The Clippers aren't winning. There were aggrieved parties. Spygate happened in a Super Bowl.

Well, you say the Clippers aren't winning, and I'm gonna say that that's a bit relative, okay?

The Clippers were a laughingstock franchise my entire lifetime, and what they won is the Kawhi Leonard sweepstakes. And how they won it, when they won it, we were talking about that. Holy shit, that's one of the most seismic things we've ever seen happen in free agency.

They saved the league. Remember, that was the narrative, because Kawhi was gonna go to the Lakers and that ruined basketball potentially.

You can't tell me that the Clippers didn't win when the Clippers are better and more of a moneymaker and less of a laughingstock and more relevant than they've ever been, at least in part because of what they did here. Which flouts the rules, or flaunts the rules. Is it flouts or flaunts?

It's definitely not flouts.

I've never heard that first word.

I don't even know what you're saying.

I think it's flouts.

It's a weird word.

F-L-O-U-T-S. Flouts.

Dan Flouts.

Flouts the rules. Flouting the rules means deliberately and openly disobeying or disregarding a law.

Wow, I'll pay a fine for not being educated.

Flouts the rules.

Thank you for teaching me a word.

God, we're dumb.

Down, Levitar!

Is there Back in My Day?

There is, actually.

What?

Were you not going to tell anyone?

Wait a minute, you guys, guys, it's a Tuesday.

Greg Cody, here's your guy, Greg Cody, with Back in My Day.

Okay, here it is.

Sorry, adultery.

3.

Yeah, wait a minute, we're waiting for this one.

This is the Dan Levatar Show.

Writers, man, that is an awkward hand.

No, no, it's— I'm filled with so much love right now. One ally. They all—

you saw the way Dorothy Boyd—

you saw the way—

I know you saw that.

It is an awkward thing.

No, I believe that this is the closest thing that there's been to, uh, Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger shaking hands in Predator.

Carl Weathers. Carl Weathers.

I'm sorry.

You think that's close? You think that's in the same neighborhood?

I think it's in the same Ventura. My bad. It's another— I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. This is a workout for me, by the way.

What we just did, double-edged sword. I mean, Dan gets flouts and then the Jesse Ventura thing.

It's a mistake.

Perhaps you should wind down.

Manny Summers off.

And I'm surprised you're this confident after that kind of an embarrassment on your end.

Well, flouts is embarrassing. I've never heard that word before, but I pride myself on being man enough to admit these things.

Jeremy's dad think that look weird.

The idea though, and I'll move off of this for a second, uh, it, it is strange to me the number of qualifiers that we can offer when, man, scandal Media and fans love scandal, any kind of scandal.

Give me information on any kind of scandal, no matter how numb we are to it. And I've been mentioning the Trump thing. What has happened would have derailed any other American presidency, just that one act. And there are so many of them that with him it doesn't even matter. We're sort of numb to scandal. But generally speaking, when it comes to, uh, something quite this egregious like— like, it's never underreported. It's never— I never have the complaint of any media scandal I have seen in sports that involves alleged cheating where I say, "Huh, surprising to see how little people are covering that." It's not even the biggest of the year.

Sorsby, bigger.

Again, that is the sport, not the crime.

Like, it's how much we care about about the sport or whether or not someone is winning the sport?

Because Jeremy's good point— and I'm sorry that the whole group was so surprised by Jeremy making a good point.

That's unfair to Jeremy.

Applause for a good—

I was more surprised that it was concise.

I was more surprised that you agreed it was a good point.

Yeah, surprises abound.

I thought you just said little people are covering something.

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

Brad Williams covered the hell out of that crossover, which was a crossover no matter how it was.

Not a crossover.

He just stopped his momentum.

He just stopped.

That's a good point.

The results of it were crossover.

If I didn't show you what was happening on one side of the ball, that was the offensive side of the ball, and only showed you the defensive side of the ball, you would have said that was a crossover. That, that you wouldn't have said that that was a just he stopped and took a jump shot. You would have said that he was crossed over.

I think after yesterday, Tony's just trying to make sure everyone knows he's got the basketball muscles. I feel a little insecure.

How? But I dominated heat camp. What are you talking about?

Well, but I know you know what a crossover is. We know. You know.

Tony, you know, you look like among all those kids, you look like Wemby on an NBA court.

That's what I was trying to do. Yeah, Greg, I was trying to sit there and be like, all right, what can I do to be evil Wemby? And then I started blocking little kid shots. And then I got to a point where the— that's how I know I'm actually a good person at heart, Dan, because I was like, you know what, this doesn't feel right. I can't keep blocking these kids. One kid looked up to me and was like, this isn't fair. And then I told him, life isn't fair, buddy.

There you go. You make anybody cry?

Chicken wing.

You make anybody cry or no?

Tony Fiorentino.

Jeremy cried during the All-Star Game last night.

I did.

Tony Fiorentino did say they're teaching basketball lessons and life lessons.

He's right.

You would have taught them life isn't fair, kid, and we would have had the video of you blocking, uh, 8 or 9 shots.

We have, we had that in the, uh, in the rough cut, so I'm going to try and find those.

Please find all of those. I, I always think that's funny.

I, I—

Peyton Manning has never done anything funnier than throwing football, footballs at children. It's the funniest thing. Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show: has Peyton Manning ever done anything as funny as throwing footballs at I was thinking on the way in here, you know, that whole—

that trade is on hold, but it's gonna go through. Like, they're just gonna, you know, they'll change the draft picks that are being sent to the Clippers. But what if the punishment from the league is like, Clippers get whatever punishment they get, and Kawhi Leonard's current contract that the Raptors would be trading for is voided because it's an illegal contract? If they wind up doing that, this is a really peculiar situation that Kawhi Leonard would find himself in? Because, alright, now he's a free agent and every team, including the Raptors, doesn't have money to sign him to the money that he wants. Like, Kawhi Leonard, I think we can all agree, is not gonna go sign somewhere for the minimum, because it's very obvious Kawhi cares very much about his money. What would happen to Kawhi Leonard?

It's one of the many reasons that I'm wondering why it is more people aren't asking questions on this corner and ceding the entirety of it to "let's wait until Pablo Torre tells us what's happening here" and and then we'll know what's happening here. I do feel like there are a whole lot of compromises here in the conflicts between all the partnerships that doesn't allow people to report honestly on this in the way that reporters should and must.

I know you touched on it, but The Athletic yesterday did advance the story a little bit. We got the, the Groot Kawhi thing. It's— yeah, that Aspiration tried to workshop ways to make Kawhi a valid pitchman for it. So they created a tree-like Groot-like character for Kawhi. And ironically enough, Groot speaks more than Kawhi.

I saw these pictures on social media and I just didn't care enough to like actually click on it and read it, but I passed it. I was like, huh, got a new movie, I guess, superhero movie.

I could tell Pablo's pissed he didn't get that.

Yes, put it on the poll at Le Batard Show. Does Groot speak more than Kawhi? Tim Kirkshin is going to join us here in about 10 minutes, but I wanted to get into the idea an idea of something that I believe is anti-American. The third place game. Greg Cody has said, "Bronze is for losers. We don't celebrate bronze in this country." Even though any of us, I would imagine, would love to be third best in the world at anything. If any of us were third best in the world at anything, it would be better than we presently are at anything because third best in the world is an achievement. But there is the potential for, uh, and I think it's what's going to be, Messi and Mbappé playing a third-place game, and that's going to be here, correct?

Yeah, it is in Miami.

Yeah, uh, so you're gonna have, uh, Messi and Mbappé—

will they play in that game?

There's a lot of unknowns here, but I, I never watch the third-place game. It's hard to get up for that after the drama of semifinals and the ramp up to a final. It's fairly meaningless, although Although in international sport, a team's best finish, and it being 3rd, is an impressive deal. Especially when they go back home, get the big parade.

Winning your final World Cup game is a big deal.

Yeah, but, and potentially, if Argentina lose today, that would then shift to the 3rd place match being Messi's international send-off. Perhaps it's his final match. So that's a big-time storyline. France-Argentina rematch, that's juicy. Here's the juiciest possible storyline. Those stats count. That is an officially sanctioned FIFA World Cup match. Mbappé, everyone thought yesterday he'd catch up to Messi's all-time men's World Cup goal-scoring record. He fell short. He did not score famously. Messi still has a match. Messi can increase his lead there. Now, I assume like everyone else, Mbappé will eventually chase down Messi. Mbappé almost certainly will play in the next men's World Cup.

World Cup.

4 years is a long time though. You cannot take that for granted. I assume Mbappé is definitely playing in Miami to chase down that record, and that is incentive enough for people to watch what is, for me, usually a meaningless third-place game. But if it's Messi v. Mbappé chasing down the record, you can have a Money in the Bank situation. Both of them grasping for the World Cup goals record. It could be scramble rules. They could— it could switch hands several times in, in one match.

Chris Cody today, uh, got his information the old-fashioned way, listening to the big dog Joe Rose talking, uh, to the bigger dog Dave Hyde. And the two of them were talking about when American football had a third-place game. Uh, @LeBittardShow, what— put it on the poll. @LeBittardShow, is a third-place game un-American, yes or no? Uh, Chris Cody and I guess Zazz, not aware that there was an American football third-place game back in Cody's, uh, heyday in the '60s, I believe, like '60 to '69 or something.

Dave Hyde warned me that Don Shula, while head coach of the Baltimore—

Baltimore Colts—

won 2.

What the hell happened there?

Tough to say that.

You got scared of Ravens, Colts.

I did.

Yeah.

Did you lose what team was actually—

I was just like, is it the— I knew it was the Colts, honestly. I was like, was it the Baltimore?

You just said to me off mic like 20 seconds ago, we've done a really good job not seizing on every honor mistake.

I did.

You, uh, did it to yourself there because you got scared. It was a speed bump between Baltimore and Colts.

But tell me more, Greg Cody, this is your wheelhouse, of the 3rd place American American football game.

Uh, do you guys believe—

I guess in American football we'd watch any football, any kind. Mike just made the Brendan Sorsby controversy bigger than what I was arguing is one of the biggest controversies in the history of sports, because football is king.

But what can you tell us, Greg, about the third-place game in American football?

It, uh, it existed for about a decade. It ended when the NFL-AFL merger happened and Super Bowl era began. But, uh, the only thing I recall about it is that even back then nobody gave a crap about finishing third and, and in taking it to this World Cup. Granted, Messi and Mbappé is a hell of a game. I don't care if it's for third place or not, but no team in the semifinals wanted to play in that game. Everybody's like, ah, shit, nobody cares about the third place game. And I don't think they do. In this case, Mbappé and Messi both have 8 goals. Mbappé has, uh, the, the tiebreaker lead in assists, 3-2. So to the degree that the Golden Boot is a big thing, it's not the Ballon d'Or, but it's something that guys want to win. So it's going to be an interesting subplot.

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show: should the third-place game be renamed "Oh Shit, Nobody Cares"?

Yes, I think so.

It was your idea.

Yeah, it's a little wordy.

Well, I'm quoting you. It was your idea on the—

Right.

Good. Let's go with it. Oh shit, nobody cares. What'll be the acronym there? OSN. Yeah, it's a little wordy. We'll workshop it. We'll get that streamlined a little bit.

Feel like we're doing that right now.

Oh shit, nobody cares.

The, uh, OSNC game.

The oh shit bowl.

That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I've heard him say that all the time.