Transcript of LeBron Changing Teams? Miami Marlins Dominance? Hogs And Boars? | Local Hour New

Zaslo is being honored today at 5 PM, and I don't know what the nominating process was. I'd like to know rigorously how it is that this came to be, where Las Rosas, which is doing better live music than any other place in Miami according to the New Times, is celebrating a dad in Zaslo. And I don't know how much competition there was for this award. What is this award? How did this award come to be? Why are you such a great dad when your rambunctious kids run roughshod over you?

Well, when you were gone last week, actually, Dominique was very impressed with all the activities, all the things, the places I take my boys, the things that we do together. He made it a big thing that I'm this great dad, and I do have the self-awareness to have admitted that all these things that we're doing, it's really things that I want to do.

Zazz's best friends are his kids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We just realized he doesn't go out with his friends. He goes out and does stuff with his kids. Now the power dynamic is such, as Zazz mentioned, that they have to kind of go do what he wants, which is what he likes.

Yeah.

Dad of Honor.

When they heard I was av— when Los Rosas heard I was available, it was a no-brainer.

Well, I mean, Dan trying to poo-poo the Dad of Honor. We combed through every single father in the nation and we decided that Zazz was worthy of being the first ever honoree.

They even moved up the start time for me.

Yeah, because he's like, I'm— he's like, what time does it start? I'm like, well, it's 6 to 9-ish. He's like, I'll be there at 6. I'll be there right at 6. So I'm like, you know what, World Cup's going on, let's do this a little bit early for Zazz, the dad of honor.

So you said that I poo-pooed this honor. All I did was ask questions about what kind of rigor was in the nominating process, and the answer is, well, Dominique just said I was a good dad. That's That's not a process.

So many great dads that we could have nominated. Bobby, Amin, Greg Cody. And rest assured, all of them will be honored at some point as I try to grift off their social media followings to grow a concept that is still very young.

And I mean, when I heard that Tuesday— I've never been to Las Rosas, but when I heard that on Tuesday nights, why is that funny?

Well, because you've said it wrong twice now.

Las Rosas.

Las Rosas.

Yes, you said it right this time. The first two times you said it incorrectly.

All right, well, don't be afraid to tell me how to pronounce it. Las Rosas. All right, there you go. Now I know.

Yes.

And once I heard that they do, they do dad rock on Tuesdays, I mean, come on, this is something I got to go to.

Well, they had their biggest Tuesday ever last week because the World Cup is in town. And so this is going to be a bit of a comedown, I guess.

The sheer panic when all these people in kilts started showing up and realizing that my, my partner, because I was traveling abroad, didn't have nearly enough Rod Stewart—

Yeah!

Star of de day... star o'f dae-day... it iss ye star off di dèy... Star of di day... star o'f di dèy... It iss ye star off di dèy... Star of di day... star o'f di dèi... Iddiss yeh start off di dèy? Start off the day! Start off the day! It is the start of the day.

This is from Last Week Tonight. I found it shocking. I did not know this. Hogs and cows kill more people, humans, per year than sharks. Are you guys surprised by that?

You just found out about this?

Uh, put it on the poll at @LebatardShow. Are you surprised that hogs and cows kill more people per year than sharks? Uh, yes, I just found out about this. I find that statistic shocking.

Not shocking at all. Number one, most shark attacks do not end in fatalities because sharks don't like eating humans. They take a bite, a nibble.

Yeah, but cows and hogs don't like eating humans either.

Well, hogs, hold on now.

I don't know about hogs.

I don't know about hogs. They develop a taste.

I'm on this crocodile algo. Have you seen like all these attacks with crocodiles, especially in Mexico, dragging people into the ocean? Bad stuff.

Into the ocean?

Yeah, saltwater crocs.

Wow.

Seen that classic one with that old guy? Where he tries to put a shirt over him and tries to wrestle him.

Yeah, we did that a lot on a golf course.

We did, we played that a lot on Highly Questionable. We played a lot of questionable videos on Highly Questionable. We had a dancing party Spider-Man who was doing a backflip and fell on his face.

Oh, I love that one.

Yeah, but we learned later that he died during that and we shouldn't have been airing any of that. I do find it surprising. I'm sorry that Amin is incapable of being surprised.

Wasn't scared at all of Japan yesterday.

Wasn't scared for any reason as a big Brazil guy.

I'm a learned man.

I'm sorry.

We will talk about the World Cup, uh, later in the show.

Uh, Mike Ryan is doing the Morally Abhorrent show. It'll be in the postgame, but I want to talk about some of the things happening locally. The Marlins continue to get buried and they are playing exceptional baseball. Now they're beating Colorado, but they've been beating a lot of good teams.

Is it real?

For a while now.

I think it's real because they started slowly, but I can't believe they're 5 games over .500 and they're getting nothing from the ace of their staff. The ace of their staff has got an ERA of close to 4.5 and gets pelted pretty good. And I would have thought that for them to be good, they would have needed Sandy to be good. But he has not been. He has been incredibly average. In fact, I would say he's been kind of below average.

So for the total season, maybe. But in the month of June, Sandy Alcantara just became the 3rd pitcher in Marlins history to go 6-0.

Okay, but you know that's bullshit. Like, what are his numbers?

That's bullshit.

That's bullshit.

I mean, he won yesterday 10-7.

He gave up a bunch of runs in 5 innings, but he goes deep enough into the game to put his team in position to win. I mean, I can look it back at the starts if you'd like me to, but yeah, yes, his ERA is not where you'd like it to be. There were 3 or 4 terrible starts after Dan cursed him, and then since then he's been one of the, the solid pitchers across baseball. They also have a starting pitcher who's the only pitcher without a loss this year.

Let's just all agree that a solid counterpunch to Alcantara has not been that good this season is he's 6-0 in the month of June. That's a solid counterpunch.

I would say generally speaking wins are not a great stat for a pitcher. I remember when Rick Helling had 20 wins one season with an ERA of 5. Like, it's just not a great stat.

Who's a counterpunch to you, Jeremy?

What do you got?

Like, the team is 6-0. Alcantara, I know he gets credit for it, but Again, they scored 10 runs last night. He got credit for the win. That doesn't mean he was good.

Okay, so the previous 5 starts: 7 innings, 3 runs; 7 innings, 1 run; 8 innings, 3 runs; 6 innings, 2 runs; 6 and 2/3 and 1 run. So sorry, last night's start wasn't perfect. No, no, no, in Colorado!

Bam!

How bad must your ERA have been for you to put up those numbers and still have an ERA of 4.2?

Bam!

The Panthers and the Heat as well—

Oh, that's it?

No, no, I'm not done yet with the Marlins, but the Panthers and the Heat are doing the thing that we love the most, right? The transaction. And, uh, while I'll circle back on the Marlins because I do want to talk about what they're doing, uh, yesterday the Panthers did something that is, I'm guessing, very popular here locally as they become more and more hateable. Uh, Radko Gudes is, uh, a goon. He's a goon, and, uh, Zazz admires him as a goon, uh, finds him, uh, incredibly honorable as a goon. And this is very popular for, the Panther fan, correct?

This is one of— this is legitimately one of the most honorable players in all of sports, and I'll explain why, okay? In a vacuum, down here, we obviously love Radko Gudes, and I think there's a part of the Panther fan, like for me, as much as we love Radko Gudes, he did not win either Stanley Cup with this team. So it kind of feels like, man, we want you to be part of this, we love you so much. So the chance that he's about to re-sign with the Panthers, and we'll know before tomorrow because they traded for the rights to negotiate with him. You gotta figure they're gonna get it done if they made that trade. But anyway, the part about him being honorable— people look at Radko Gudas like, that dude's a goon, that dude's a thug, he's a dirty player, whatever it is. Last year, he took out— was it Auston Matthews, I believe? That he— it was a dirty knee-to-knee hit, alright?

He knew it was dirty though.

He knew it was dirty, there's no way to defend it. It ended Auston Matthews' season late in the season. Okay, fine. Later on in the year, when Anaheim played Toronto for the second and final time in the season, obviously the Maple Leafs are gonna want some payback. But here was the problem: Radko Gudes was injured. He had not been playing. He wasn't cleared to play, matter of fact. But he told his coach, "I'm playing tonight." So he suited up, and the reason he suited up was because right after puck— he started the game! Now he is the captain of the Ducks. He started the game, and right after puck drop, He knew, "I gotta answer the bell here. I'mma take my medicine. I need to fight the guy who is going to defend Austin Matthews and what I did to him." And not only did Radko Gudis answer the bell, he didn't throw a single punch.

So he didn't fight or answer the bell.

He just wandered out there just to take the beating.

Yeah.

Is that—

I mean, is that not the most honorable thing you could do?

We should have spent an entire show on the ass-kicking he took.

He did. He took a beating.

Uh, Roy, I know hockey players have their own rules for nobility, but that's one that I hadn't heard of a whole lot, where a guy goes out. How uncommon is that for a guy to go out? Well, it is uncommon to go out injured when you're not supposed to be playing, but to go out to a fight and not swing because your only role in that fight is for your face to get turned to hamburger.

Yeah, uh, he did the right thing. Absolutely did the right thing. The unwritten rules call for him to go out there and fight even though he was injured, and Didn't really play in the playoffs because of that injury. But yeah, he did right there.

Not throwing a punch is the odd thing. You often see if a guy does something to a team, the next time they play, someone's going to drop gloves with him. But it's the— I'm going to just take the beating here. That's the rare.

We should give a tip of the cap to AJ Greer, who is also beloved by Panther fans. This is a rare trade where a fan favorite goes and a fan favorite comes back. Radko can help this team a little bit more, even though AJ Greer was excellent in his role. I think he's probably easier to replace. We got pretty thin along those blue liners last year, and I know that the Panthers were actually, you know, seeing if they could acquire Radko last trade deadline. Like, that was, that was something that was out there.

They were never going to be able to keep AJ Greer. He just had 17 goals. He's going to be able to sign a deal that's going to pay him more than the Panthers are willing to pay him. So you were always going to lose AJ Greer, but now while losing AJ Greer, you've afforded yourself the opportunity to solely negotiate with Goudis. So it, it's exciting if they could work it out.

The AJ Greer replacement is Garnett Hathaway. They got him in the Flyers deal. He's a solid, uh, penalty killer. Uh, so he's a big guy. He'll basically do the same role as AJ Greer in this lineup.

And for those who forgot, AJ Greer is the one who I saw get a haircut at Elbow Room after they won.

Uh, just to be clear though, the Panthers are actively trying to be the most hated team in the league, right? It's what they're going for.

You get both Kachucks and then you do this, you're going for, we want everyone in this league to totally despise us, correct?

Yeah, basically the entire second line between the Kachucks and Sam Bennett. You got Brad Marchand, now you got Radko Gudas. Yeah, everybody's gonna—

yeah, I think we're— we've already surpassed critical mass with the acquisition, uh, acquisition of Brady Kachuk. So yeah, Radko being here, what a team. He can't be more hated than the most hated.

I'm debating season tickets. My son asked, was like, hey, do you want— after they traded for Brady, it was like, let's get season tickets. Like, you know what, maybe we will.

Gotta see what we do with goaltender But this is entering this season, the most loaded Florida Panthers team of all time.

Well, they figured out half of the goaltending situation. Goaltender situation. Yeah. Akira Schmidt, who they got from Vegas, and that goaltending situation in the regular season last year was awful, but they got reliable backup. So good on them.

I'm sorry, Zazz, do you think you can just walk up to the box office? 2 season tickets, please.

Maybe.

I'm pretty sure they've been sold out on season tickets.

No, no, no. I see ads all the time on my— My algorithm's two things these days, all right? Number one, you know, it's boobs. And number two, a lot of hockey, all right? And I do see ads for like season memberships.

Daz, I keep getting emails from the Boston Celtics for season tickets, but it's like a waiting list. They want you to put down a deposit and then they hold your money, and then years from now when it comes up, then you can get the season tickets.

No, no, no, no, no. I, I expect to be able to get on the phone with someone and for them to offer me up season tickets, maybe even at a discount. I don't know, we'll see.

You probably should have some, uh, clout based on being a local broadcasting legend. Uh, I mean, why are you making faces when I say—

your eyebrows just moved in ways I've never seen them move.

I thought there were caterpillars on your forehead.

Like, why, why are you making faces when I say he's a local broadcasting legend? He is.

Just the idea that he has clout. Like, uh, do you know who this is? This is the Jonathan Zaslow, the dad of honor.

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For 22 years on this show, we've debated the greatest athletes of all time. Who's the GOAT in football? Who's the GOAT in soccer? Who's the GOAT in hoops? One thing that we all know is Dan's the GOAT of finding the worst possible take. But there's another kind of MVP/GOAT that doesn't get enough credit. The friend who knows to show up with enough Miller Lights. Plus extra ice. Because they just know. The one who already has seats at the bar when you walk up. That is a Miller Time MVP. I've been on this show long enough to know that Dan is gonna make everything about his feelings and Jeremy is gonna push back on whatever I just said. But here's something nobody on this show will argue with. Miller Lite is the summer beer. The original light beer since 1975. This summer, recognize your MVPs. We all have that one friend who makes every game better. Now it's time to give them their moment. Head over to Miller Lite's social media pages to learn more about being a Miller Time MVP. You can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller Time.

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Down, Levitar!

I've never stepped foot on that campus!

I—

if you told me right now your life depends on it, Go to Santa Fe University and just, just, just take a picture.

Jonathan Sasslo.

I would die. I don't know where it is.

This is the Dan Levatar Show.

Chris Cody just whispered in my ear. I wasn't able to hear anything Amin said because he said Jeremy is still ranting about Sandy.

He won't shut up.

So in the 4 bad starts, he's thrown 27.2 innings to an 8.46 ERA. But in the 13 other starts outside of the ones where you cursed him, it's 88 innings to a 2.86 ERA.

Can I ask I ask you something. Of those 4 really bad starts, did he win any of those games?

Yeah, one of them.

That's kind of the point.

No, the one last night. That's it. All the other ones were the losses.

Wait a second, wins count now?

It's rounded, Jeremy.

No, but that's the point.

It's obviously me. I'm obviously right.

His ERA in May was 7.39.

That's cute. His ERA is 3.3 in the month of June. He's got a 4.2 ERA overall. He's got 9 wins. He's 6-0 this month. The last guy to do it was Jose.

This is This is like World Cup PKs right now. He scores and he scores and he misses and he misses. I'm holding on.

Yeah, they're going to make it very difficult the way that they're playing for this team to do the unpopular thing of trading Sandy here, as everyone assumes that they will, because they're paying him so much more than they are paying everybody else. For the entire last 18 months, all I've heard is that they are going to for sure trade Sandy. He will have value, and I don't know if you can the way that they're playing, because this doesn't seem like a mirage. They started slow, but over the last 2 months they're beating a lot of good teams.

They went to Philadelphia and got their ass kicked a couple of times in the first 2 games of that series, but other than that, says, like, they're dragging people. They are, they are winning almost every series that they play. St. Louis was lucky to get one against them, and every time they're going on the road, they're beating people up. Like, this is, this is not mirage. This is a young, cheap team that is going to get better over the course of the season.

Well, and I was looking the other day at the standings. They have the second most home wins in all of baseball, I believe. So they're winning some games on the road, like you said, but they're really good at home.

They have the most wins in baseball at home.

Like, they have the Yankees— I thought the Rays do, but okay.

It was the most wins in baseball at home when they left for the road. Sandy Alcantara leads baseball in innings pitched. So that, that's valuable one way or another. And that's especially valuable because they've been doing this without multiple starting pitchers. Jansen Junk got hurt, Robbie Snelling got hurt, uh, Yuri Perez was out. He's only made one start back. The fact that they've been doing this, I mean, if you look at the stats across baseball, they have more runs scored than the Rays, they have more hits than the Braves, they've got a better on-base percentage than the Yankees, more doubles than the Dodgers, more stolen bases than anybody. They're top 5 in the National League in ERA, hits, runs allowed. Their bullpen's top 5 in ERA, and that's better than Mason Miller's Padres.

Yeah!

More doubles than the Dodgers.

And by the way, I'm not the only one who thinks that this is special. Mr. Marlins Sun himself, Griffin Coneyne, who hit a home run in the third deck yesterday against Colorado, had this to say. 19 wins this month, that ties the franchise record. What comes to mind when I tell you that?

That comes to mind is the '03 team, you know? The '03 team, the '97 team. I think we're obviously a lot of work to do to get to that caliber, but we're putting together some really good stretches here. So it's fun to be a part of.

Kapitulate!

The '03 team traded for his father, brought him back popularly, and I saw that you guys were behaving awkwardly around him this weekend in a funeral setting around Mr. Marlin. All I told the people I was with when Jeff Konine came over and we were talking to him, I just said to a whole bunch of people who didn't know who he was, That's Mr. Marlin. And then they asked, they asked some questions and I said he played for 9 teams. Mr. Marlin played for 9 teams, but it's his actual nickname.

His name— he played for the Reds and the Orioles.

So you mocked him right in front of him?

Yeah, well, I do that a lot. Yes, I've done that since, since '93.

I've done that.

Thanks a lot, Dan. Never heard that intro from you.

How, how did you guys like—

Jeremy hogged him. I mean, he like what took all his time from me.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I was having a nice conversation with Jeff Konine.

You know, and Roy and I were like, oh, that's— I'd like to be part of that conversation. So Roy and I do what you do, you just like, you know, just go over, hey, Jeremy, good to see you. Even though I had already said hello to Jeremy, I said hello to Jeremy a second time just to establish it with Jeff Konine.

It's much more awkward than he's describing.

Got a good handshake in with Niner and dominated it. You know, you can't win that handshake, you just need to survive it, and I did.

It's a very firm handshake. Even as Dan warned me, this guy gives a firm handshake, and then and he kind of gripped, and I had to do the Donald Trump, President Xi thing where we just— I'm pulling him in. Yeah. No, no, it's mine.

So Roy and I then stood there for about 45 seconds waiting for Jeremy to like open the door of like, hey, this is now a 4-person conversation. This was a 2-person conversation and now it's 4. But no, Jeremy played defense and Roy and I awkwardly looked at that. We were just like, wow, these ceilings are really high. This is a nice house.

That's not at all what happened. I did not box him out.

And then we walked away.

No, this is what happened. I'm standing and talking to Mr. Roy.

What happened, Roy?

Okay, Jeremy boxes out, man.

That's not what happened.

Getting a rebound over here.

I wasn't aware there was a mixer. I headed straight to the cemetery.

No, this was shiver.

It's called shiver.

Shiver yesterday.

Uh, his handshake— he's a racquetball champion. Like, his handshake— playing racquetball against him must be horrifying, like, if you're not a professional racquetball player, because, uh, he's, he's uncommonly strong. Uh, but, uh, Jeremy, go ahead and tell your truth here as Roy and, and Chris say You didn't allow them anywhere near Konig.

So I walked up to Jeff Konig like the brave soul that I am. I shook his hand and I started chatting. We started having a conversation. And I can then see a few minutes into this conversation, Chris and Roy, as several of the other members of Meadowlark Media are laughing at them as they tried to dance around a couch because the situation— we're standing in a living room. There's, there's a couch.

We tried to go around the back door, the back door was closed.

We're facing each other, and then there's a couch, um, parallel with a perpendicular, maybe, with Jeff. So you saw them though strategically approaching, trying to figure out which way do we go around to go shake Jeff Konine's hand. So I, I can see them creeping up behind Jeff Konine and then quickly abandon ship because they realize, oh no, this is not the direction that we need to go, this will be strange, we have to tap him on the shoulder. So then I see them walk around the other way, and I see More people laughing. They come up from the front. I literally physically backed away so that they could shake the hand of Jeff Konig. He goes, "Hey." "Hey." And then they walked past me to behind me because there was a table in the way. And so they're just standing behind me. What am I supposed to do? Completely turn around?

What?

Just looking up at the chandelier going like, "Oh, I guess what?

I don't know what to do." They're just standing there.

So we continued our conversation. And they walked away because they didn't engage.

I believe at one point Roy touched the couch and was like, "This is a nice couch." It was a nice couch.

So you guys were just milling about, you were loitering around Jeremy's conversation with Jeff Konine, and he never welcomed you, and you still accuse him today of hogging Konine.

Yeah!

Okay, I'm glad we have established all of that. I should have mentioned this yesterday, and I did not because we were asking help from the audience, an assortment of places. But, uh, what happened to David and his family with Kira, I believe to be as cruel a thing as I've ever seen happen around someone I care about. Uh, Kira Sampson gone at the age of 28 by the rarest of brain cancer, a brain cancer, uh, that basically had no medical hope as soon as it arrived and was a total, uh, surprise, uh, at that age. And, uh, David Sampson, in her memory, has been raising a great deal of money for research so that others may deal with this somewhat better because it has been a legitimate horror for 9 months now. Kira Fund, the Kira Fund is something that he has created in the event that you wish to help. A lot of people are giving him an outpouring during what feels like an exceptionally lonely time because, uh, there is not a way for me to explain to you properly the amount of cruelty involved with, uh, having this particular person personality extinguished almost immediately upon the diagnosis of this, which was a surprise, from one day to the next without warning.

So if you wish to help David raise money in her honor, he wants to keep her memory alive, and he also wants to do, uh, good and important work in helping others who are afflicted with, uh, just this really uncommon, incredibly uncommon kind of brain cancer. You don't find it very much, never mind in young people. So the Kira Fund is something that you can donate to, and we will have links and information here as part of what it is that we're doing. David has been in and out of his show, nothing personal, but has been very willful about somehow continuing to do the job while being at her side the entire time for 9 months when she needed a great deal of care and help. So if you would like to help with that, please do so. And forgive me again for, you know, just sort of stumbling out of that into the local topics of the day. To keep the show moving, because as he says all the time, the show must go on, it must always go on. So help if you can, because he's doing good work in her memory.

Sehr gut, sehr gut, sehr gut.

Sehr gut?

Wieso, Steuer ist sehr gut, das sagen ganz viele.

Cool, wer sagt das?

Stiftung Warentest, Computerbild, Focus Money, Chip, Finanztipp, such dir was aus.

Mega, aber das ist doch bestimmt kompliziert.

Nö, einfach Foto von der Lohnsteuerbescheinigung machen und fertig.

Sehr gut!

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Down, Levertar!

Jessica thinks you're pathetic. I saw the look on her face. It can never be the lane to victory.

I know.

I think Jeremy's pathetic.

Jeremy, you should hear him back here. So sad.

Most absurd theater kid basketball analysis line that I've ever heard from him.

Jeremy, touché.

My dad was talking about the adjustments that Spoh made and criticizing him last night. And Jeremy, just back here, his adjustments were spectacular.

It's just like they lost.

They're down 0-2.

This is the Dan Levatar Show.

We're going to send Jeremy out in a second here to the whiteboard to take us through some of the NBA movement of the last couple of days.

And Windhorst is saying on ESPN right now LeBron's, uh, Golden State's trying to get him today.

That's a today thing, and that would be fairly seismic. Golden State, uh, trying as hard as they can to make Steph Curry's last few years and Steve Kerr's last couple of years something that is now LeBron adjacent. The old boys They're trying to compete against the youngest teams in the league, which are also the best teams in the league, in the conference, with some of the oldest players in the league. It's Al Horford. It's not just LeBron James is the oldest player in the league.

Do you know how old you have to be to be teammates with Al Horford? And Al Horford is younger than you. Like, that's, that's an old basketball team with Draymond Green and Steph Curry. That sport is breaking its young players. You're asking a lot, but that team is just going to try and be ready for the playoffs. And I'd like to see LeBron and Steph play together. Is LeBron gonna indeed waive his no-trade and what he wants, which is guaranteed maximum money? Because he's not gonna get maximum money there, correct?

Well, he's a free agent, so forget about no-trade, like legit straight-up free agent. And Draymond Green opting out of his contract yesterday theoretically, you know, can, can save them some money to be able to bring Draymond back at a lower number and also bring in LeBron at a a much lower number than he was making with the Lakers. But, you know, this is a Warriors team, I mean, where, uh, A, it's the Western Conference, and also you look at the guys they would have that they're gonna be relying on. LeBron played, what, 40-some-odd games last year? Steph Curry played in the low 40s last year. Porzingis played less than 40 games last year. This team's gonna— I mean, am I sure this team's gonna even make the playoffs?

No, I mean, I think that's a very valid concern, especially when we look at basketball, how it's been the last 3 or 4 years. It seems there's an emphasis on depth. Like, we have 9, 10 guys and they're all pretty good and they're young and they're athletic and they can run up and down, but obviously in the, in the half court can also execute. And so you look at that Warriors team, the first thing you wonder about is, hey, how are you guys gonna get those 82? Yeah, right. I mean, we talked about it with this Warriors team this season. Season, right? Are you guys going to get to the 82? And ultimately they didn't. They had a catastrophic injury to Jimmy, uh, Steph got injured.

He was not gonna be back until March.

So you already are kind of gambling a little bit by saying, I'm gonna get all these old guys together and our roster is going to be constructed where we don't have a whole lot of depth, but it's very top-heavy with these older guys. Are we going to make it? And then once we make it to that postseason, then maybe we've got— because we've got a day off in between games at least, and less travel and that it plays into your strengths, but you have to get there. And if you go through the play-in as they did last year and you lose, what was all that for?

This is why Jaxel Lundeberg, when he was drafted by the Warriors the other night, he said he thinks he could be a starter on the team this year.

Speaking of gambling and speaking of Jimmy, the story around him this morning is also pretty interesting. I keep making that mistake. It's the second time that Zazz has corrected me on the no-trade clause of LeBron, because LeBron being a free agent to me is wildly confusing. Like, it's just not something I've, I've been familiar with very often.

Dan, however embarrassed you are about that mistake, it pales in comparison to Zazzle saying he's a free agent, and he starts talking about LeBron, and Mike sits behind me and he says, is this the first time he's ever been a free agent? And I said—

I looked at him, I said, Mike, and I'm like, yeah, no, there was one other time, I forgot.

No, no, but what it is, the first time is the first time that there was a season and it was the last year of his deal. That's never happened.

Yeah, he opted out. And also a little confused because he'd actually traded for LeBron. But now that's on me. There was famously that one time where he was a free agent and he sat across Jim Gray.

Yeah, the TV show slipped my mind.

But the Jimmy story this morning that has emerged, what's fair and what's not fair about best friend adjacent being indicted as part of this Malik Beasley, very large and sprawling FBI investigation that is at the heart of something that I find interesting all the time. Right. Many of the athletes in sports, they're kind of competitionaholics, okay? So I'm rarely surprised when they end up in gambling situations because they're always gambling on planes. They're all— they need action.

And the time between games, there's a lot of time for them to compete. So I actually think that athletes are more likely to end up in gambling situations than the average person just because they're competitionaholics. But what's fair and not fair about about, uh, this is a very close friend of Jimmy's who's getting ensnared in this indictment, right?

And I think what's fair is to say, hey, who is this guy Ernie? This is one of Jimmy's closest friends. It's not fair to involve Jimmy by virtue of that, to rope him in, because he hasn't been named. Obviously there's a lot of documents, court documents out there, they're naming names clearly in this thing. Jimmy's not implicated. So I think introducing this character as a close confidant, Jimmy Jimmy Butler, that should be the end of all references to Jimmy Butler as we talk about this.

But you could understand people are going to say, okay, if this guy Ernie is— who, who was indicted yesterday alongside the names of the likes of Malik Beasley and Ed Davis, we're talking current and former players— you could understand the suspicion that people have. Whoa, whoa, if you're tight with Jimmy Butler, like, there was nothing ever going on there? Like, you could at least think about about that.

Yeah, so what you're telling me is the Eastern District of New York was like doing an investigation, like, this guy's best friend with Jimmy Butler, I'm sure he's fine. Like, the idea that us sitting here— well, we are seeing something that the feds—

you're saying they've looked into it?

It stands to reason, no?

And to me, to imply anything that you— again, I've had this conversation with Dan before about a litany of topics. If it's just us sitting on a couch at a barbershop or at a bar or whatever, have at it.

I think that's what I'm talking about.

If you're a listener, have at it, right? But we work in this space professionally.

No, you're right, it is unfair. It is unfair. I'm talking about that where random fans are like, hmm, I wonder, uh, you know, if anything happened with Jimmy. Like, I think that suspicion is reasonable, but you're right, it's unfair.

It's comment section conjecture though. If you're thinking about it, if you're thinking about it as a faceless avatar on social media— you gotta think the feds have looked into it.

Especially because they're looking to make a splash when they put Terry Rozier in shackles, and they're looking for NBA players and names everywhere to bring attention to what it is that we're talking about here.

You see some of these videos yesterday— you know, every time this stuff happens, like when Terry Rozier was arrested, you get you get like the Twitter detectives and they'll put the video—

whatever—

in here, Terry was here. You see some of those videos yesterday with Malik Beasley? Damn, they looked— it looks so bad what he's doing out there. I mean, I mean, you've seen, right?

Yeah. What makes it bad is the corresponding text messages. That's the bad part, right? I don't know if you saw the one where it's like, oh, he even let out a sigh of relief afterwards.

And you could see in the video he's totally relieved, Malik Beasley, when he grabs grabs a meaningless rebound with 3/10 of a second remaining in the game. He is literally breathing out a sigh of relief. It— the video's so bad, some of these clips.

Let's go out to Jeremy, who is at the whiteboard, who's going to update us on an assortment. We haven't even talked about Ja Morant. Think about this, okay? We were talking about young teams. That meant that Memphis team with Jaren Jackson and Ja Morant and Desmond Bane, all of them at the time under 25 years old, that was a 2-seed a couple of years in a row.

That team won 50-plus games. That was a team, and all of that imploded. And you've got, uh, Ja Morant— a legitimate conversation was had around him as face of the league being traded for a bad contract, like being traded for another bad contract for no picks. And it's not just because of the firearm stuff, the off-court stuff. It's not even just because he's a bad 3-point shooter. It's at least in part because he used to be somebody who got all his shots at the rim, and you need athleticism to do that. It's hard to do that, and guys don't want to do that after a while. It's the same reason that in baseball the power hitters like A-Rod stop stealing bases. It doesn't end up being worth it to injure yourself trying to steal one base when you're good at getting all four. Ja Morant, um, you know, doesn't do much around the rim anymore and hasn't played in a while. But let's go out to Jeremy here, uh, because we've got, we've got, uh, chaos approaching, correct? Are we not going to have more and more breaking news over the course of today with an assortment of transactions?

Where are we with this, Jeremy?

That's the thought process, Dan. Like LeBron James, Zazz just mentioned that Brian Winhorst brought up the idea of LeBron James being on the move today. So you've already brought up LeBron. There's a few Laker guys here. Austin Reeves is staying with the Los Angeles Lakers. We know that the reports have been that Marcus Smart will likely leave the Lakers. Where does this leave LeBron? Could he be headed to the Warriors potentially alongside Anthony Davis? That was the initial report. But how would the Warriors be able to acquire Anthony Davis without moving Jimmy Butler? That's what I'm trying to figure out, because ultimately he's been reassured according to all of the reporters there locally, that he's going to stay in Golden State. That's also what his agent Bernie Lee said. Kristaps Porzingis went back to the Golden State Warriors, 2 years, $40 million. The interesting part of that is it means that the MLE is not fully available to the Warriors to potentially sign LeBron James. The MLE is not available in full either because of the Andrew Wiggins signing for the Miami Heat. So what could that mean in their pursuit of LeBron James?

Writing is so small—

is all of this— this is big writing, Dan. There's a lot handle. You can read it. I'm looking directly at the screen that is on a monitor here. There is no reason to undermine me this way.

We don't have to see Jeremy. We can zoom in on the board a little bit more. His face is irrelevant.

NBA offseason. I can read that part.

Robert Williams is an interesting piece in all of this. It seems as though he's probably going to end up leaving the Portland Trail Blazers as Ja Morant joins the Blazers. Could they also be in pursuit of Jalen Brown? That's the thing that we want to know. Drew Holiday, now a piece that could be available because he's under a huge contract over there in Portland. But they have Damian Lillard, they have Scoot Henderson. How do they want to maneuver what things are looking like there? You see, obviously Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis joining the Miami Heat. But if the Heat are trying to create more space, could Bobby Portis actually be sent somewhere else to try to create more money? I don't believe that'll be the case. I believe Bobby Portis will be a member of the Miami Heat. But these are the questions you have to ask when trades aren't formally completed. We saw the exchange of LaMelo Ball and Nas Reid. Jalen Duren is now a question. Could he be headed to the Lakers?

Jeremy, you are alienating both the video and the audio audience now. First, it's, it's really aggressive that what you've written there is really small. Let's do this. Hold on a second. Jeremy's shaking his head and he's furious.

Go ahead and tell me, Zazz.

Second row at the bottom. Put up on the screen, please. Put up on the screen. Second row on the bottom. What does that say at the bottom there? Those two names at the bottom. Don't, don't focus in. Now I can see what it says, but what does it say down there at the— just across the bottom of the screen? What does that say?

Sheesh. I think— is that a Kaminga on the left?

Maybe that is a Kaminga.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, I thought that was a Kawhi. I thought that was a Kawhi on the left.

Right.

No, the left—

look, you tell me. I mean, the lower left-hand corner, if I say that's Kaminga or Kawhi, which are you guessing?

Klay Thompson.

What about Klay Thompson is right here? And that is a question. Where will Klay Thompson ultimately end up? Does he get bought out by Dallas, or is he a potential trade candidate added as well, with his contract sitting, I believe, at about $16 million. And speaking of shooters sitting at $16 million, Max Struis is an interesting one because Brian Windhorst brought up that he could potentially be on the move. Max Struis, Gabe Vincent, also a free agent. Could we see those two guys reuniting here in Miami potentially? Speaking of Miami, Bradley Beal now available as a free agent, Tim Hardaway Jr. as well, Mike Conley Jr. A couple of juniors cutting it up. They're potentially guys that could end up in Miami. So lots of things happening today, Dano.

Okay, back to you.

Under Draymond on the screen.

Is that Jameer Nelson?

What is— what is that?

What is this?

Yes, that's Jameer Nelson.

Asshole. The type is too small. The type is too small.

You're—

that what you've written there is too small, and your handwriting's not great.

What about Duncan Robinson and Norman Powell? These guys become really interesting pieces of the conversation because we don't know where Norman Powell is headed. The rumor had been the Detroit Pistons, but they signed Kevin Huerter. They also traded for Isaiah Joe. So is that no longer an option? Could it be the Chicago Bulls. That was something rumored yesterday. But when it comes to the Pistons, Duncan Robinson, potential buyout candidate. Could we see Duncan Robinson head to Miami and have Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, and Gabe Vincent all end up in Miami? I don't think it happens, but wouldn't that be so fun?

How do we feel about people who spell season S-Z-N?

I needed to make room on the board. What do you guys not understand?

That's when you're efficient. That's when you're efficient with the word season, because you put a Z in the middle of season. That's where you decide to be Efficient.

Yusuf Nurkic has re-signed with the Utah Jazz, which means Walker Kessler could be on the move. Another potential candidate for the Lakers.

We should trade for Jimmy. Hear me out. We always needed to pair him with somebody better. Yeah, same goes for Bam. Well, we got the guy that's better than both of them.

LeBron's changing teams today. That's a thing that's gonna happen.

Yeah.