Transcript of Is Jaylen Brown The Broccolini Of The NBA? | Local Hour New

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

I miss the tartan army.

My wife does not miss the Tartan Army. For those of you who do not know who these people are with their kilts and their drinking, they have made this summer a record-breaking summer for the local beer establishments and all bars in South Florida. The one under my house had a day last week better than any week they've had in 3 years. A day because of how these people party. And at 3 o'clock in the morning the other day, while I'm hearing sung I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.

That's a good song.

Just all of them singing it in a Scottish brogue. My wife says, because they're clearly throwing garbage cans at each other on the street, and she says to me, can we call the police or something?

And I'm like, Valerie, two of the officers are on their shoulders because they were like, they were just partying with these people who just bring friendliness and drunkenness everywhere they go.

Is this how they behave when they're home when they're partying, or it's like, hey, we're on vacation, so we're just going to act like this?

They do travel famously this way, loudly and fun and also charitably. The weirdly— how about this, or maybe it's not weird— the quietest night I've had in 10 days was the United States game, the game that the United States was playing against Turkey. That was not being watched by anybody. And so there wasn't, you know, there weren't police officers on the shoulders of people throwing garbage cans at each other.

But this thing has taken over our country in a way that has been really fun to watch. And I don't know how you guys felt about Colômbia-Portugal, but I was in a very popular restaurant at about 7:15 on Saturday night.

Very popular.

You've been there, Zuma.

No one was there.

There was, there was not a person in there.

We had the, we had the restaurant to ourselves because everybody was gathered around a television and at our watch party.

A just, uh, just a vibrating watch party. My wife asked me, and I don't know what your wife's experience was with this, as it was shocking to me to see you dressed up twice this weekend. My wife looked up and asked the question that I imagine a lot of novices ask about soccer when the game is over and the place is going crazy with Colombians. She's like, wait a minute, nobody scored?

Nobody scored the entire game? That offside is bullshit.

Like, I don't know how—

I don't know. I, I know I'm arriving here changing the rules on things, and I know they've been using, um, you know, all of their instant replay technology very well, and it's super accurate. But calling— when you get a— when you get a goal in stoppage time like that, and it's a—

and the player could have had a smaller shoe and it wouldn't have been offsides, that's asinine.

I feel like, Mike, look, correct me, maybe I'm being ugly American here, but shouldn't it be like if more than half his body is offside? I, I'm—

I understand this because it bugs me too, because that, that goes against the spirit of the rule. Offsides is to take away a discernible advantage by cherry-picking. If you watch Cristiano Ronaldo all game, he was very clearly offside because his speed isn't what it used to be. I'm with you, that sucks, that's unfortunate. I would like some grace there, but this is something that Americans do often, and we have to stop pretending like we're not spending 15 minutes in an NFL game wondering if someone's toe is on the sideline or if something is a catch or not a catch. The same type of absurdity happens in American football all the time.

This is my counter. First of all, I think it's dumb in that sport too. I think this is the part where people are like, "Oh, so you want them to get the call wrong?" I said no, but I don't want calls to be determined on technicalities. What you said is exactly right, Mike. The spirit of the rule was about so people would not gain a material advantage by cherry-picking. It wasn't so that, "Oh, my elbow was out." The idea that the silliest things break that, that invisible plane that no one with the naked eye could ever see is the part that gets so frustrating as someone who's loved this game for a long time.

I will say, though, they have the technology in a place now where it's irrefutable. It is proven. And I know a lot of people don't want to trust the tech and like, well, they can manipulate it. And we certainly heard a lot of that with Iran, who were so unfortunate, basically this entire turnament was weighted against them in really unfair ways. But it's irrefutable. The technology is such that, yes, I feel very confident that that dude's toenail was offside and it is a part of his body that he can score with. There are pretty absurd things that we've seen in Europe where, you know, there's a shoulder or a hand that's offside. I'm like, you can't— you famously cannot score a goal with your hand. How is this an advantage?

But this is a difference though. When you mention football, American football, and you're right, we are now over-officiating these things. And yet somehow still complaining about the officiating. But what I'm objecting to in this particular instance is it doesn't happen very often in American football that the goal is so valuable that what you're doing is you've got an entire country celebrating and then you're like, yeah, never mind.

Greg Cody at the watch party—

Chris Cody's entire role at the watch party was just to throw up an arm.

He was offsides guy at the watch party. He wasn't rooting for anything but corner kicks that he bet on because he bet on 9.5 corners and all he was doing was throwing his hand up. He was the only guy there. I love to see it first amid a bunch of Colombians. He's the only guy throwing his arm up in the air to be the official guy.

I hear the argument and I get it. I'm very frustrated with VAR sometimes, although I think the World Cup is probably the best implementation of this technology. But like, show someone from Morocco the tuck rule. And be like, you know, that started a dynasty.

The goals are worth so much, though, that when you've got a whole bunch of people celebrating and then most of the people in the bar were so busy celebrating that they didn't even notice that—

Oh, I had no idea. I was on the table.

You were on the table with your arm up just telling everyone, this is my moment. I was just like, I told you, Quintano, I told you.

You did.

Mike was giving me a whole lot of I told you so's on the goal.

I couldn't see anything. That smoke machine was thick.

The country has been overtaken by this in a way that's really charming, and it's not just the Scottish who are drinking too much.

Mexicans are sticking their heads in cotton candy machines.

I have been told of, but don't know anything about, the Mexican Batman.

I'm gonna need some more information.

Oh, wait till you find out about Mexican Batman.

Well, go ahead, tell me about the Mexican Batman.

Dan, the Mexican Batman is a cultural phenomenon that is happening right now. Somebody, a vigilante in Mexico, Wait, Mexico has a real Batman? Has a real Batman. There are thieves that are stealing motorcycles and this Mexican Batman is catching them and taping them to light posts.

Holy shit.

With complete duct tape. Obviously the eyes of the accused, or one of the eyes of the accused has been blurred out.

Well, no, it's two of the eyes of one of the accused, but four of the others with air— they have 8 eyes, none of which are covered up.

Is that because Batman killed that one?

Why have we covered up just the eyes of one kid when we're clearly accusing 5 of them of criminal behavior?

Behavior, or the Mexican Batman is.

The Mexican Batman is— again, the jurisdiction is not ours. They do have different rules over there. Mexican Batman has other rules. But Dan, imagine vigilante justice. He's going out and not only finding these people that have stolen motorcycles, getting them, and then somehow, some way, subduing them into duct taping them into a light post. Like, I don't know if you've ever tried to do this, like, as with friends or whatever, you try to duct tape somebody and do stuff like that.

I have not. It will not surprise you to learn that I have not tried to do this.

Okay, that's Spider-Man's move.

Of like leaving— it is, but it's webbing.

But that Batman doesn't generally like leave them there.

Guys, I, I'd like to point out one inconsistency perhaps. I know we all want to believe in Mexican Batman. Can we bring the picture up again? All right, you got the guy on the left, you got the guy on the right, you got the guy second from the right.

The two—

how do you duct tape two people? You sit still. Hold on, I gotta be like— it's two of y'all. One of y'all had to get away. There's no way both of them There's a Mexican Robin.

Oh, there's a Mexican Batman, Mexican Robin. Robin holds one, Batman ties the other one, gets the other one going, and that's it.

What do you think Mexican Alfred's name is? Is it Alfred?

Alfredo. Alfredo. I would think Batman's the project manager and Robin's doing the taping. I think Batman is like, no, I'm gonna stand back here, and Robin's the one really—

No, but Batman's got to keep the strength. He's got more strength than Robin does. Robin's frail and small and skinny.

He doesn't have that much more strength than Robin does.

The Boy Wonder, come on, he has a lot more strength than—

ton more stronger.

What are you talking about?

Have you ever seen him?

Have you seen Robin? You ever seen his legs? He's got his legs all out.

But I mean, then he becomes Nightwing.

Yeah.

Oh, that's later though.

That's much later.

We're talking about Robin right now.

He's the understudy of Batman for the moment. It's a long, you know, prolonged period of time that he's fighting through being skinny until he's finally fit enough to be Nightwing.

Very weird relationship between Batman and Robin, between Bruce Wayne and, and what's, what's Robin's real name?

Are we talking about Dick Grayson or Jason Todd?

It looked very weird, very weird. I'm gonna take this ex-circus freak kid under my wing.

Aqaba wasn't a freak, he was part of the Flying Graysons, that's a headlining act, they weren't freaks.

I went through a lot.

You think, you think there are people in the circus who aren't freaks?

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show: are there people in the circus who aren't freaks, yes or no? Uh, Robin counts as a superhero, correct, even though he's human? And Batman is—

what's his superpower?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Batman's a superhero. He has no power.

No, no, but he has access. He has access to things. What does Robin have?

He's a nepo baby.

Yeah, wait a minute. You got— is Robin a superhero or not?

No, he— I mean, he is, but he doesn't have superpowers.

He's a hero, but he's not a superhero.

He's dressed up like a superhero. He's wearing a cape.

Tiene pinta.

He looks ridiculous.

He has a baton, and apparently he's a trapeze artist. That's it. That's not a superpower. That's just a little nimbly bimbly. See, Batman's got a superpower. You know what it is?

While I'm—

yeah, I'm bleeping rich.

Doesn't Dick Grayson and Jason Todd— don't they have the same access to the same wealth?

Yeah, Bruce Wayne's wealth. Yeah, so they got some kind of allowance, which goes back to the whole weird grooming situation that's happening. I don't feel comfortable.

I mean, this is a decades-old trope. There was absolutely a gay subtext, especially in the '60s.

Take back what you said about Batman.

The ambiguously gay duo was inspired by actual Batman and Robin stuff.

Put it on the poll at Le Batard Show: is the Batman and Robin relationship weird? And also, is Robin a superhero? I don't seem to have consensus on this.

You guys, he's dressed up as a superhero. You guys are giving me— you're giving me a negative when you're just saying to me that Robin is Batman's administrative assistant. Like, he's got no real superpowers. He's wearing a cape because Batman's just feeling generous. He's like, fine, You could dress up if you want to dress up, but you're not a superhero.

I bet you this is how it happened. One day they're at the Batcave and Batman's kind of surveying his— all his screens and stuff. And Robin comes in out of Batman's closet like, look what I found! And he's got the cape on. He's like, can I keep it please? Like, fine, whatever.

Again with Robin's out of the closet. Again, like, you're better than that.

You did that. You're better than this. You did this. You, you made the relationship something it's not, something I've never heard it is.

We're not covering new ground here with the Robin is gay theory.

I'm not saying he's gay. I'm saying that him and Batman have a very weird kind of rela— like, older rich man takes underprivileged youth into his house. Come on.

What's the age difference between them? I don't think of them as having a substantive age difference.

Is there a substantive age difference between Batman? There has to be.

I think it's pretty similar.

Bruce Wayne is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. This guy's a circus freak. He's eating like leftovers, chicken bones and stuff.

He was an orphan.

Exactly. You know what they don't call orphans? Adults. They don't call adults orphans.

Chris, would you look up for me please the age difference between Batman and Robin? Because I think of them as peers, even though there's obviously a power difference dynamic.

I'm paying for everything and now we're peers?

No, they're—

I mean, it's any running mate in the NBA. We're like, oh, that guy's a Robin to the Batman. The power dynamic is very well established. It's Batman and Robin.

I got it.

I'm not confused about the power dynamic.

I'm confused about both the age difference and whether or not Robin's a superhero because I think he's a superhero. Does he classify as a superhero? What's the definition of a superhero? He's dressed like a superhero.

And also whether there's a predatory relationship between Batman and Robin.

Oh, come on, man, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

The internet is saying in DC Comics there's no single Robin age. They vary across different storylines. Generally, Batman is 10 to 20 years older than Robin.

I mean, the nickname is the Boy Wonder, not the Teen Wonder, not the Man Wonder, not the Man Wonder.

And so the—

so now you guys wonder whether or not this grooming—

it's like a Greg Cody, Paul Ratke situation.

I'm not—

it's like a Paul Ratke, Greg Cody situation.

It is a Paul Ratke, and a Batman and Robin thing.

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Down, Levitar!

God, I would love to see that interaction. Lord, let there be a day.

Hey, Oprah!

Let there be a day. Oh, The Color Purple.

You like these glasses?

She would see these glasses, she'd be like, this is someone I'll take a picture with. He looks sophisticated.

I love big game, not a big game.

Jonathan Sasselow.

She would say that to me instead of me having to go up to her and say I'm a big fan. She's like, I love big deal, not a big deal.

Huge fan of your work.

Yeah, one-time or two-time championship broadcaster?

Two. Oprah, two.

You think Oprah would say like, hey, know about that book club?

Well, and I would say yes I do, Oprah. Yes I do.

Have you seen Weapons?

But the kids!

This is the Dan Levatar Show.

So since you guys are speaking of sidekicks, can you guys explain to me why it is that Bobby Marks is going on ESPN and he is saying that an analytics guy said to him that Jaylen Brown is the 7th best player on a team? And Jaylen Brown, not in reaction to this, but just in general, Jaylen Brown is saying that Stephen A.

Smith is the face of an unethical Network as this thing continues to escalate.

But Bobby Marks is the analytics guy. Bobby Marks is the salary cap guy.

Bobby Marks is somebody who is saying that he is talking to an analytics guy and that person is saying Jaylen Brown is the 7th best player on a team.

That's not right.

That's not fair. You're quoting someone anonymously because no one's putting their name on that. No one, no one in that sport would put their name on that analysis.

That's just terrible analysis.

But what's happening there?

—Well, so I don't even know that Bobby Marks— and I happen to know Bobby Marks a little bit— I don't know that Bobby Marks is actually an analytics guy. He's a former front office guy. He's a salary cap expert, of course, from his experience in the Nets front office. I don't believe he's actually an analytics guy. And the part— so listen to this clip here, Dan. This is actually Bobby Marks made an appearance a few days ago on SiriusXM NBA Radio.. And here's Bobby Marks giving that anecdote.

There's mixed feelings about him when you talk to teams. The analytics of Jaylen Brown is not good. I'm more of an eye test guy. There are some people out there that look at that a little bit more deeper than what the eye test says. I had one, not an executive, but an analytics guy saying, well, yeah, we view him as like a, like the 7th best player on a team. I was like, holy crap. Oh my God. Like, what do we, like, what do we, like, get it? There's a rule for analytics and stuff, but, well, I guess they call it, I joked, I said, I guess We call that strategy now. Wow. 7th best player on a team? So I was like, wait a minute, that's a little bit— that's a little bit of a stretch.

I heard former Coach of the Year Sam Mitchell getting in there with a strong opinion, with just straight incredulity.

Could not believe what he was hearing.

Can you walk me through, Zazz, what you believe to be the assessment from the general public when they hear the phrase that someone is an analytics guy? Because I think at this point in sports, it's a slur.

Oh yeah, it's so easy for random NBA fan to hear those words and it just turns into, "That's for dorks who don't play." That, like, you watch the game, watch the game, it tells you everything you need to know about Jaylen Brown. Obviously Jaylen Brown cannot be the 7th best player on any team, that's why analytics are stupid. And so as a result, Jalen Brown continues, uh, just a tremendous offseason, uh, crashes out on Twitter over this. And the funny thing is, so Jalen Brown only heard the clip, or, or like maybe read quotes from that clip from Bobby Marks, and Jalen Brown did the thing that he likes to get upset with media about, where you say something and then you don't like the reaction to it, which is very common thing that athletes then do where they, they use the whole taken out of context, you know. And so the media, they're unethical, and you bash the media for stuff like that. And Jaylen Brown kind of did that here to Bobby Marks where he went after Bobby Marks when in fact, no, no, Bobby Marks is trying to say I don't feel that way.

So Jaylen Brown is doing the exact same thing, but he chastises the media.

But I think something that's fair here, my favorite of those kinds of objections from athletes was Charles Barkley saying he was quoted in his autobiography.

That's, uh, that's the best thing I've seen on that front.

But when Jaylen Brown says to Bobby Marks on Twitter, state your source, this part I feel like if I'm an athlete, this is fair. If you're going to quote someone anonymously saying something that asinine, that asinine, which is just beyond the pale to say that Jaylen Brown, a Finals MVP, multiple-time All-Star, is the 7th best player on a team I understand why athletes don't want people to be able to hide behind that opinion without putting their name on it. And so I just want to, to ask you guys, I've used anonymous sources, I see the value in anonymous sources, but it's usually not for this.

Anonymous sources are usually used in journalism for things that are dangerous, and we have cheapened it and cheapened it and cheapened it so much that Zazz now thinks that very often radio and TV people are using anonymous sources that they're making up, that they're not actually sources, that it's just some person saying something and you make it an anonymous source. And next thing Jaylen Brown's doing is he's calling ESPN an unethical network.

I think there's a lot to unpack here. Number one, Zazz, if you know someone who's ever created a source on air, would you let us know? Say it again. If you knew some— you're like, if you're using, right, someone made up a source, radio and TV guys making up, making up stories to say, oh, there's a source when there was no source. Would you tell us that you knew of someone who did that?

If I knew for sure, I think so.

So then what gives you the idea that it's happening if you don't know for sure.

Oh, I don't believe that here with Bobby Marks, by the way.

Like, I'm not accusing— I know, I'm just saying in general, that's— to me, that's such a wild accusation. I'm not talking about people on Twitter or some podcast or whatever. We talk about people who are getting paid to be behind a microphone, whether it's local radio or whether it's all the way up to ESPN. I cannot think of a single person who would create a story and then just say, I'll just blame it on a source that doesn't actually exist. That's a wild allegation.

But is there a difference between completely making it up and using someone as a source who really shouldn't be counted as a source. Some—

someone who works for a team.

To me, the anonymity is to protect that information from, uh, still coming in, and also to protect that source who, if you work for these organizations, they have rules. You can't talk to the media.

You can't talk to the media. So I, I'm gonna know— I'm a dinosaur. I came from a time where the only time I talked to Paul Corral was like, hey, are we playing pickup today? Paul Corral was a beat writer uh, who covered the Suns back in the day for the Arizona Republic. So I, like, I— we just didn't talk. Nowadays you got video coordinators and all sorts of people who can't wait to talk.

But that's what I mean, like, should that be counted as a source?

Yes, because they are giving you information from the inside that they would never give if it was on the record. What's Jalen Brown is asking for here is this kind of weird, hey, show me your papers. Like, no, the whole point of us getting an idea how these people think— and this is not everybody, this is one person who works in one department of one team. But that's how they view him. And what Bobby Marks was doing was, by the way, saying, I don't agree with this at all, right? But this is what people are saying. And by the— he's not wrong in saying that the analytics do not love Jaylen Brown in a way that should be commensurate with what his reputation is.

To me, the real story here is very clearly Jason Tatum's the 8th best player on this team.

One of the things that is happening with the general diminishing of standards on how it is that you, uh, assess information. This, as a quote from Bobby Marks, okay, so you're talking to the salary cap guy who's, uh, outsourcing this particular information to a source that we don't know. We don't know how credible this person is. We don't know if it's an NBA coach. We don't know if it's somebody in the ticket office. We don't know anything about who the source is.

I mean, you You can shake your head all you want at this. It is asinine to say that Jalen Brown, that analytics of any kind make Jalen Brown the 7th best player on any team unless that team's the Dream Team.

You are fundamentally misrepresenting the facts that we don't have. This person could be in the ticket office. No, he clearly says this person works in the analytics— said it's an analytics person— analytics department of a team. That's the credibility, Dan. Someone who got hired, who gets paid need a salary with benefits, vision, dental, all that stuff, to do the analytics analysis. I mean, that's terrible analysis.

No one else is saying that. No one in the world is saying that except this one anonymous person.

Again, I would tell you that the concept that the analytics is not enamored with Jaylen Brown— that's the overriding point. That's different. Not as like it— that's, that is a prevailing conversation as this guy's overrated. That's what the—

now you can say that without saying that he's a bench player that you could say that without saying that he's a guy who might not get in if you're playing in the playoffs, deep in the playoffs. He might just stay on your bench.

You're hung up on the wrong parts of this, right? That's my point. You're hung up on the wrong part. You can disagree with the analysis. What you cannot do is disagree with the credibility of the veracity of the source. We can't see here, say maybe it was a guy in the ticket office, maybe it's a guy who's an intern. Like, no, it's not that.

I don't know how Bobby Marks does this with sources. I don't know. Like, this is, this is such asinine information.

I know, I know Bobby Marks. Bobby Marks should not be quoting the janitor who, who looked it up on, on, uh, ChatGPT. That's not what Bobby Marks is about.

And he's sharing it because clearly it has value. We're all talking about it. He's sharing it to be like, hey, this is a ridiculous thing, but it's something that is out there, right? Which is an interesting storyline. So it is providing value. It is from a source that he deems valuable. It's certainly a source that he feels like it's worth protecting.

It's probably Obviously, I'm sure that example that he gave there is the most extreme example from analytics people, but he's making the overriding point here that the reason they haven't been able to come up with the trade that Brad Stevens wants for Jaylen Brown is because a lot of analytics people in these NBA front offices don't love Jaylen Brown.

Okay, so 200th best player in the NBA, that's what we're doing now?

Okay, good. So this is the part that's interesting to me, Dan. So he says this, and by the way, again, I gotta stick up for Bobby. He says, I do not agree with this opinion. Opinion. He, he was so complimentary of Jaylen. Absolutely. But, but obviously excerpts and aggregation, whatever. Jaylen Brown tweets out, uh, analytics nowadays used to discredit and control narratives. Roll the ball out. None of these guys better than me on both sides. Who does he work for? Okay, who's controlling what narrative? I— that— this is the part I don't like, is they don't agree with something, we're just gonna point to a vast, massive conspiracy that's targeting me for some Number 2, he says, analytics have/are ruining the game. We're playing AI hoops.

That's his team!

His team's at the forefront of all this!

Dan's ass! Don't steal my thunder! I'm sorry!

I'm sorry! Sorry! I get carried away! Dan Levatar! My algorithm on Instagram, it's Dan's all boobs.

Jonathan Sasselow! It's a good algorithm. This is the Dan Levatar Show!

Really stole his thunder. He had lightning and then thunder. You stole the thunder and we never got the lightning. He's just— he's furious. He's right. He's defending Bobby Marks, who's wrong.

Bobby Marks is not wrong.

Stop doing this.

Bobby Marks is wrong for quoting this ridiculous thing from the set. It's just an asinine thing to say.

No, it's useful. It provides you some other opinions out there that help explain why why Boston is having difficulty moving this guy, because I'm sure they'd like this problem out of there. And Jaylen Brown continues to crash out. I think this is very valuable information in terms of context as to how the analytics community views him and how his reputation may be a little outsized. We don't agree with it. I, I rate Jaylen Brown. No one agrees with it, but that's all right though. This isn't like the prevailing thought in the analytics community. This is just merely a data point that helps explain why Boston is in, in this situation, which I think is helpful.

Pretend that I didn't say— I, I want to hear— I do want to hear what you were going to say.

Okay, so there's two quick responses. The quick one is analytics are ruining the game. If Bobby Marks had said— I talked to an analytics guy and he says that Jaylen Brown is actually the most underrated player in the NBA by their, by their thing, he might actually be either the second or best player in the entire League. Would Jalen Brown have the same opinion? No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't. He'd be like, oh, that was great, right? He's saying this because he does not agree with what is being said. That's, that's the fundamental part. But then when he says ruining the game, I said, well, I mean, yes, there is a way where you could say analytics is ruining the game. Uh, like hypothetically, if you had this team that was playing at home in a Game 7 and they kept missing threes, but the analytics say, hey, this is a good shot shot, keep shooting it rather than driving, uh, and scoring at the rim or drawing fouls to get to the free throw line. Yeah, I would say hypothetically the analytics are ruining that. And at that point, Jaylen Brown, if he were in that hypothetical situation, should stand up and say, no guys, we're not going to keep shooting threes, we're going to take destiny into our own hands.

I mean, ruining is also subjective. There are plenty of people that have touted that they don't like the direction that the NBA is going. I think it's fundamentally changed the game the same way that analytics fundamentally changed baseball. That when baseball was invented, they didn't really consider the type of style that is played today. And the same thing with the NBA.

You guys are doing something here though that I think is getting lost. You guys think that what I'm doing here is defending Jaylen Brown. He is the second biggest victim here. The first? Analytics guys.

Because you just quoted one anonymously, and none of the others agree with this particular take. Like, nobody agrees with the idea that Jalen Brown is the 200th best player in the league. And so when I pair that against everything that Dominique was telling you guys last week, where he listed one by one all of the reasons that Jalen Brown is, uh, hurt and offended by the way that he's covered— and it's a, it's a long list of things. It's not 2 or 3, it's years of slights that discredit this person and don't fix the discrediting when he wins Finals MVP. Nothing gets fixed there. And now we're talking about, about this as a story when, when the opinion being given is asinine. And most analytics people, all analytics people, would say that this is an asinine thing to say. 7th best player on a team is just stupidity.

Dan, what's something you don't like to eat? Give me an example. Not, not you can't eat it because you have an allergy. Olives. You don't like it.

I just said a lot of people hate olives. Just trying to help you out.

He's helping.

You think I need help with foods I like? You're looking up, you're looking up, you're searching.

He was filling the space.

I don't love broccolini. Okay, you don't love broccolini, right?

It's too stringy. There are some people who do like broccolini, yes, but you don't like broccolini, right? What if someone came in and said, Dan, I hate broccolini? He's like, yeah, me too, it's terrible. Yeah, me too, everyone who eats broccolini or even serves it should be put to death. You'd be like, whoa, So that's an extreme, you know, standpoint. But we stand on this, we park our cars in the same anti-Broccolini garage. That garage is massive, and that's, that's a wing that you don't want to be a part of, but it's still the same garage. That's what this example is. The analytics people park their cars in the same garage of Jalen Brown overrated compared to what his reputation is. But then there's that one weirdo all the way over there who's like, he's the 7th best player.

What I'm saying is you can't quote the weirdo as representative of the entire community.

No, but you should— but you should absolutely make mention to it. All right, so like, people think that there's just like one analytics guy. There are a bunch of different analytical models that teams use. You know how when a hurricane is approaching and you see the spaghetti models and you're like, wait, this one model has it going to Portugal, that's weird. Well, that— it helps them. Them create a cone of certainty, right? It's just one data point. And what you're listening to right now from Bobby Marks is perhaps that one spaghetti model that has it going to Portugal outside of the cone. It is just a standalone data point for an organization that uses several.

Except that when I'm going to the spaghetti models, all of them are credible.

All of them. This, this is lunacy. This is a spaghetti model made out of actual spaghetti trying to measure hurricane storms using, uh, using some linguine strands.

But the credibility is he works for an NBA team.

Yeah, I, I think that maybe this person's model is wrong here, but there have been some times where that model has been incredibly right and the player has been incredibly undervalued. We don't know enough there. It is just a data point, and it's not infallibility.

That's what the, the thing that analytics carries that the eye test doesn't carry is that if someone watches Jalen Brown, so that's— guys, maybe a bench player for my team— he does not with that opinion then represent what the entirety of basketball eye test believed. It's just him. But when one analytics guy says something, all of a sudden it's analytics that's evil.

Maybe he's the Michael Burry of analytics guys. He sees something coming that nobody else does. Dan, would you have believed Michael Burry saying the, the, the mortgage situation was going to crash in 2008?

You guys been so stupid to pull your money from Michael Burry.

You guys can't give this credibility.

You can't, you can't give it credibility just because Bobby Marks is repeating anonymously something. Like, you can't take this. You're taking it as a data point, and I'm telling you that's a contaminated data point. That's not a data point that's useful in any way. It's so far off in the extreme that yes, you can, you can find crazy, crazy people in any occupation saying all manner of crazy things. This is a crazy thing to say.

It should have no credibility. I largely agree with you, but it is helping me shape context for the discussion around Jaylen Brown and how there's a discrepancy in how Boston values him, how most NBA fans value him, and the offers coming in. I think it's useful.

I think the— this outlier analytics guy who is saying he's 7th best on a team, I think that opinion is being taken— it's not even opinion, it's based on, it's based on, you know, numbers and facts, clearly, you know, this model. I think it's being taken way too serious. Like, don't you think it's— hey, the analytics people don't love Jaylen Brown the way everyone else may love Jaylen Brown. Matter of fact, In fact, there was one analytics guy who told me based on one of their models, Jalen Brown ranked 7th on the team. Like, I— that's all that is, isn't it? I think it's being taken way too serious.

Then years ago, I remember watching NBA on NBC and Bill Walton was on the call, and Dan Marley put his hand up and contested a jumper, and the jumper missed. And Bill Walton said, Dan Marley, one of the greatest defensive human beings who have ever lived. And I was at the time I was like, what is this guy talking about? He's not one of the greatest defensive human beings who's ever lived on the face of the earth. And it took me years to realize that's just Bill Walton trying to impress upon you, hey, he's a pretty good defender. That's— the exaggeration is meant to hammer on the point, not necessarily be an actual verbatim kind of quotable.

One thing that I learned about Bill Walton in the '90s, he was quite polarizing.

Oh, they hated him. Yeah, because I didn't get him.

Or exactly what Amin just said when he first started working on those broadcasts, and I'm like a teenager, I'm like, why is he— why is he trying to tell me Mark Jackson is the greatest passing point guard of all time?

This guy's an idiot, right? And all he was doing was using hyperbole to drive home the point that, hey, Mark Jackson's a pretty good passer. Because he knows if I just say Mark Jackson's a pretty good passer, it just goes over your head, you won't remember that. But he has to go over the top with it. Now, Dan, this is the part where none of have considered, and it's kind of ridiculous that we've taken us 35 minutes to get to this point. This anonymous analytics guy, he's got to be feeling good today, right? Like, they talk about me, baby, they talking about me.

But he can't say anything. He can't.

He's like, he's like, did you hear about Bobby Marks, what he said?

That's crazy, right?

He tell somebody, he's like, yo, yo, you that guy?

It's me. He's like Batman. He's Mexican Batman. Everyone's like, thank you, Batman. And Bruce Wayne's like, I'm right here, I did it, I did it. Oh, I can't take credit for it.

Oh, Dan, the chat is calling broccolini the rich man's vegetable.

I mean, did you go to the Dan Marley story because Zazz had previously stolen your thunder, so you took back your own thunder? Is that what you just did there with the only guy nicknamed in NBA history after Thunder?

You're a writer.

Well, I just think you did that. I didn't do that.

Kind of did it. The Jaylen Brown situation. If I were him, I would be bothered. I think any of us would. Be like.

The, the rampant discrediting of an NBA champion and Finals MVP seems to be unrelenting.

It's, it's also weird. It's, it's simply strange. You've got somebody who is a very good player, and there are none of those who are the 7th best player on a team.

There's no team. There's no team in the sport that has a 7th best player who's anywhere near as good as Jaylen Brown. Even if I gave him all the shots, made him the number 1 option, and gave him the usage rate, there's no such thing as a 7th player.

But that's weird, right?