Transcript of LeBron James: Cleveland Or Miami? | Hour 1

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I have asked Pat Riley and Alex Rodriguez about this, and they both deny it. I have been told that both of them are the only people who have Armani privileges. Privileges that allow them to walk into any Armani store in the world and grab what they want because of the kind of customer they've been. When I tell you that the goalie, the 40-year-old goalie of Cape Verde, uh, ends up getting lifetime accommodations in his country, what does that look like exactly? Like, is there a card? Do you— do all the hotels know about this? How do you imagine the execution of this goes where they're able— where he's able to get lifetime accommodations for free anytime he wants to stay anywhere. And if you had that, would you just not pop in every once in a while to a hotel and just take a quick shower and use the room without paying and just leave because it's closer than your house and you can just use— you can use the entire country as if it is your home? Okay, so the, the question you're asking isn't 'Does everybody know it's him?' It's, 'How does everybody know that this is allowed?' Well, is every person who owns an establishment that usually charges to have people stay there, do they all know that they have to give it to him for free?

Or is there a card involved? Or is— like, I've told you the story before, okay? There was a, uh, Guns N' Roses was beginning its reunion tour, and, and I was with Carrot Top, and he's like, 'Do you want go. And I'm like, well, I don't have— we don't have tickets, we don't have parking. Like, what? How do we— how do we do it? And he just does this where he circles his face, and then sure enough, he pulls in and he just puts his window down and all the doors and gates in Las Vegas open everywhere he goes because his face is the ID in Vegas. He's been playing in Vegas for so long. Uh, I'm, I'm really asking you guys about practically— and we'll get to the games in a second because there's a lot of good World Cup stuff to talk about, and I want to talk about all of it before we get to what is Obviously the biggest game in more than 20 years, but we only have drunken Cody Imaging saying 2 decades worth of drunken biggest game.

Biggest game in 20 years.

You imagine that looks how? Lifetime free accommodations in your country.

It seems like you want a real answer here, so I'm going to give it to you. I would—

you don't know Cabo Verde logistics.

I would guess that it's some government worker that is now like his person. So anytime he wants to do something, he reaches out to this government person, and this government person will just make it happen.

That's a good—

reach out to the hotel, wherever you want to go.

How many nights?

How many rooms? You want 4 rooms? All right, your limit's 2 unless you're going to a cheaper place, then we can get you 3.

Dismiss it. Say it's not good enough.

I like it. Good choice. Excellent work by you, Chris. Before we get to the World Cup stuff, though, there are 3 basketball things that I want to tackle with you guys. The first, Jalen Brunson's dad, Rick Brunson, says that the greatest Knick of all time is Patrick Ewing still. And I say that's not true. I say that he is wrong. And the reason that he's wrong is when you average in the playoffs as 30, when you average 30 and then close it out with 45 and win the championship, that makes you golden forever. I think that's where he passes Patrick Ewing, who never won a title. Your thoughts are what there?

My thoughts are he agrees with you and he cannot actually say with other people listening that his son is the greatest Knick ever.

Uh, put it on the poll at @LevitarJoe. Uh, Jalen Brunson averaging 30 and scoring 45 in a clincher, greatest Knick ever, yes or no? Uh, I want to get to LeBron in a second, but the— I want to— one thing that I didn't mention last week because of just the nature of how stunning the Jalen Brown stuff is first, in the history of the Boston Celtics, they've never been laughed at like that, ever. In the history of Boston sports, you're going to have a hard time finding anything other than, you know, Babe Ruth and Mookie Betts. Basically, you're going to have a hard time finding anything in the history of Boston sports that gets a franchise laughed at like this. But the part that's made me uncomfortable, I don't know if you guys have seen Colin Cowherd. He credited Darryl Moore for making that trade, even though Darryl Morey hasn't been with the Sixers for a few months now. Uh, he was the first to get out there with Jalen Brown is, uh, the— of the belief that he is the smartest guy in every room and, uh, that basically, uh, he has a disease.

He called it a disease of being the smartest guy in every room. Now that's a step from uppity Like, it's, it's a couple of notes from uppity on where the smearing of Jaylen Brown goes. Jaylen Brown, I'm guessing, is very often the smartest guy in every locker room that he's in. He's a really smart human being, and the smearing of him has, has started in a way that makes me uncomfortable because this is not a person who deserves to be smeared based on what his resume of credentials is public behavior and play. Like, this, this does not qualify as earned, what's happening to Jaylen Brown in the way that he is being smeared. But let's listen to him react to Colin Cowherd, because he is fighting with media members one by one.

There's so many different forms of intelligence. Whatever you value is whatever you value. I never told anybody like, look, I'm the smartest person in the room. That may be how they took it. But let's keep it a buck. Like, in sports, no offense to everybody in sports, but the bar is fucking low.

You know what I mean?

Like, the bar isn't that high. So I think that's what people need to take into consideration. It's like, okay, he's one of the smartest athletes, but like, a lot of athletes in the NBA, like, you know what I mean? How high is the bar really?

You know what I mean?

No, and that's no diss. We got a lot of smart athletes.

He's basically saying, yeah, I am the smartest guy in most of the room.

Look at these idiots.

No diss though.

Look at my colleagues. They're dumb as rocks.

No diss.

I agree with what he says at the beginning there because this is something I object to all the time in sports, okay? You dismiss someone as dumb in sports even though at what they do they might happen to be a genius. Like, generally speaking, when you're good enough to be better than the top 1% of the top 1% of something that the world is competing at, you have an intelligence for that in a way that might make you a little lopsided and might keep you from other intelligences because it's hard to stay there. So the genius for that is to me not unlike whatever your genius is in making Tesla or whatever it is that you assign, uh, intelligence points to based on how you define intelligence. But do you understand what I'm saying? Jalen Brown now has a negative connotation he does not deserve. Like, this is not based on his behavior. There's nothing on this person's resume, a really impressive resume of all manner of accomplishment, not just basketball accomplishment. This is a smart human being, and he's getting dragged in a way that's just not reasonable. It's not fair, and it's just because people want to laugh at Boston.

Well, which, which part do you think has hurt his reputation more? What you're talking about there and, you know, the smear campaign, you know, his behavior, smartest guy in the room, that kind of stuff. Or is it what I actually believe has been the most hurtful to his reputation is what his value was in this trade? That to me is what has really hurt his reputation, is all the stuff coming out about how nobody really wanted him, no one was willing to give up what Boston was looking for. And look, they just had to trade for Paul George's corpse. That's apparently what Jaylen Brown's—

I've read a lot about this over the weekend trying to understand it, and it seems— because the Boston Celtics are not run by dumb people, and what this is is basically them getting out ahead of something that changed over the last 3 years, which is you can't have 70% of your payroll tied up in 2 guys. And that all changed in the last 3 years. You could do it 3 years ago, you can't do it anymore. And so they're getting out in front of, okay, we'll do the unpopular thing right now. And you're right. His, his value, his greatness has taken a hit without a game being played. His greatness has taken a hit this offseason. But when you say what's done the most damage to his reputation, I don't think it's even that. I think it's this. He won't stand down like he's fighting everybody. And so you fight everybody. You're in the news stream every day in a way you weren't, and in a way that no number 2 player in the league on any team gets. Like, there's, there's no such thing as what's happening with Jaylen Brown right now, where he's now gone from popular to unpopular to polarizing, and he hasn't really done anything.

Like, what's he done? He's just, he's just on the internet saying, hey, don't treat me unfairly. I'm not going to keep quietly taking the fact that all of you continue to treat me unfairly.

He is occupying a piece of Aaron Rodgers' real estate, though, not understanding why he's in the news stream when he injects himself into the news stream. By adding on to the story, giving something that the talking heads he's openly fighting with more to discuss, and then pointing the finger at everybody else like, why is everybody talking about me?

Rodgers is a great, great example.

Also a Cal guy.

And also a guy who I think most of us would describe as smartest guy in the room.

It's a Berkeley thing.

Oh, but wait a minute though, uh, Aaron Rodgers did something Jalen Brown didn't do, which is opine on an assortment of different things that don't have anything to do with either sports or the media. Like, Jalen Brown's keeping it classified to one area. He's not giving you a whole bunch of disagreeable, polarizing opinions on an assortment of different things.

Understood, but that's why— I mean, he has done some social justice stuff which has been really, really good, but that was years ago. But that's why I said he's in that class, because that's not the only thing with Aaron Rodgers. He's several years removed from that, and yes, it applies some context to how we frame what Aaron Rodgers does, but Aaron Rodgers also makes news because of his sports takes.

Aaron Rodgers made news because of his dating history. There was an assortment of things there with Aaron Rodgers making weekly appearances, not on a Twitch stream, on a mainstream platform where he was saying things that were politically divisive. Uh, Jaylen Brown's keeping the subject matter to himself. He's just defending himself. That's— it didn't start with Jaylen Brown. I guess, I guess it started with him being on a Twitch stream and saying he had a lot of fun this season, but I mean, really? Like, that's the starting point on tearing down a Finals MVP?

I think let's give Jaylen Brown some credit for being smart. That's exactly how a smart guy would force his way out of Boston, by opening that door. We all knew what he meant. We all knew what that opened up. We knew that the chances dramatically increased that Jaylen Brown would not be a Boston Celtic once he framed it that way.

I understand that you think, and most people are going to think, that they are, uh, they have it right and have a right to their indignation, and I'm telling you, you got it wrong.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not indignant. You're asking questions. I'm answering them.

This is one of the good guys.

I'm being helpful.

He's being framed as one of the bad guys, and this is one of the good guys.

Well, he's being framed that way because he is literally taking on other people in a I'm right, you're wrong type of way.

I don't know that he's being framed as a bad guy.

Ooh, I think that Jaylen Brown right now, you say his reputation has taken a hit, and I'm like, why and where and how? It's not— it doesn't have anything to do with basketball. When I say, when I say this is a couple of notches away from uppity, saying that this Black man, a proud Black man who has accomplished a great deal, is always in the crosshairs on something when whatever it is he's talking about isn't actually that divisive. It's not subject matter that everyone's fighting over whether he had fun last season or not because Jason Tatum was there. Like, it's just It's silly. If you're discerning in any way, you know that what this person has accomplished puts him at the very top of accomplishment in competitive fields in American sports. He doesn't deserve what he's getting. Like, it's, it's outsized and it's unreasonable compared to the credentials.

I appreciate how fair we're being. We also have to be fair and point out that he didn't disagree with the notion that he's the smartest guy in the room.

I understand, but it's not enough to get someone gone. Like, it's not enough to undermine all the other things that he is and has accomplished because he is smart.

I don't think it is what made him gone. I think he's gone from Boston now because, A, you mention the salaries, and you can't have two guys making that much money on the same team moving forward in today's salary cap landscape. And B, they know this player's personality and they don't believe that they're going to be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube with Jason Tatum returning next year.

Also, we're playing a semantics game with Jaylen Brown by saying he never asked out. He also never said publicly, I want to stay a Boston Celtic. He just works through his agents like they should. Hey, I never formally requested out of Boston. No, we know. We saw the Twitch stream. We got what you were trying to say.

It's all semantics. It's like when Giannis— Giannis never asked for a trade out of Milwaukee. Oh, your agent did. Like, that's totally—

yeah, but Dominique laid it out on why it is that he would be bothered by that, slight by slight, item by item. It's not unreasonable for him to arrive at that position either. When you say that's not the reason that he's gone from Boston, you can say that, but Coward's saying it is the reason. He's saying— he's quoting an executive and a scout anonymously saying he's got a disease. His disease is that he thinks he's smarter than everybody. And Colin Cowherd is citing it. It's what— it's what Jaylen Brown is objecting to.

That's the thing here is that it's all the reports after the fact. It's the fact that we can have the discussion about whether analytics is a part of it, whether the disagreements on being the guy are a part of it, whether the contract is a part of it. But now, after the trade, all of the things that Jaylen Brown has been saying about us in the media and the way that things get portrayed after the fact are all of these leaks of smartest guy in the room, smartest guy in the room, he's condescending, he's this and that, when by the way, like, by all intents and purposes, he is the smartest guy in the room, even compared to the executives. Look at the degrees he's had. Look at the lectures he's done at Harvard.

I mean, he's a smart guy. He's objecting to Colin's take while not denying and being condescending to his contemporaries.

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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 Sasslow.

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.

You're a 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. You guys saw at the All-Star Game, right, that he had an incident and he is feuding with Beverly Hills because Beverly Hills, in terms of their police force, I've never seen anything like it in terms of a police force that gets someplace quickly because that's where the money is. Beverly Hills, the police arrived very quickly because of anything happening in Beverly Hills. And during the All-Star Game in Los Angeles, he had a party in Beverly Hills. And I'm assuming what happened is just people didn't like that there were a whole bunch of Black people that were there in the neighborhood. And then all of a sudden it ends up with Jaylen Brown fighting the system and fighting Beverly Hills and fighting everything else. You do understand, right? All— I understand why we all feel entitled to take Jaylen Brown and just make him an avatar for whatever it is that we find disagreeable in sports. And money is at the top of the list. Okay. He's going to be to be the 7th highest paid player in the sport, and nobody believes him to be the 7th best player in the sport.

So Boston is getting out in front of a money decision. I believe money is the root of all of this, uh, but having the proud and defiant Black man with the bank account now fighting with the entirety of the media item by item and step by step on, you're not going to keep doing this to me where I have to just take it quietly because you're the only one with the microphone, to me it signals change on two fronts. It's not just that the Boston Celtics have never been laughed at like this, and they're doing something to get out in front of what is probably coming for the sport in a variety of different ways, where they have to get the finances different because what worked 3 years ago doesn't work anymore. But still at the top of the sport somehow, as July makes the rounds and free agency is now held up with whoever it is that's left because everybody is waiting for LeBron James. I'd personally be stunned if he goes to anywhere but Cleveland, because I think that that is clearly the best story. And at this point in his career, based on what it is you're seeing Rich Paul do on a podcast he really cares about, really cares about being the story and having the punctuation be the nice story.

He can win in Cleveland without Cleveland, without winning in Cleveland by just going back to Cleveland. And it's the only place he can do that.

Yeah.

And so I believe that that's— even though it's not an imperfect fit, I believe that that's where he will end up and that all of this is just a show because they want attention on Rich Paul's podcast because they're making a show and they want LeBron James to be still part of the show. But let's go to the whiteboard that Max Kellerman and Rich Paul stole from Jeremy Tashay. They're going to steal the puppets next. Let's listen to what it is they had to do.

This is just a hilarious example of— they're listening to our show. Rich Paul stole our idea. Jeremy did the whiteboard last week, and then you see a couple days later, boom, you got LeBron in the middle with the lines, the same exact thing Jeremy did.

I'm just a little suspicious.

I like how you could tell which teams are the most serious because there were 5 teams and the starting lineups were listed, and then like on the periphery was just team names, you know, well, ah, I don't need to take the time to actually put the lineups together, you know.

Would you guys be surprised if he went anywhere other than Cleveland at this point? Are you not? What, what is it in terms of betting favorites at DraftKings Sports? What, uh, where are— is it the Cavs that are ahead of everybody?

Yeah, I think the Cavs are the heavy favorite, matter of fact. And I think, and I think for— I mean, I say for some reason because it's really not going to happen, but Philadelphia is like the next favorite, even though there is no chance he goes anywhere but Cleveland or Miami.

I have no chance. I have lived long enough to seeing Cronkie be a positive.

That's right. Cronkie's name is listed on the periphery there.

That's wild.

That's right.

My favorite part, if we put the board back up, is not just that he puts a star next to Tyrese Maxey and mentioned that the Cavs losing Darius Garland is a big issue for him, which I thought was hilarious. Yeah, he has Davion Mitchell listed on there, which is great, and he keeps referring to him as off night. But if you look over at the Dallas Mavericks, it just says oil. Which is just a remarkable thing to have as a pro on the periphery. This is a perfect whiteboard by Rich Paul.

Oil! How do you guys feel about LeBron James as the oldest player in the league? I'm gonna say by miles, oldest player in the league by miles, uh, still having the attention currency that makes it so that most people are going to get the alerts on their phone and go to their friends and say, hey, Hey, LeBron is going here. Can you believe it? And I'm assuming that Cleveland is the one that would feel most anticlimactic, correct? Like, because it's so obviously the coolest story, the going home. He has spent a lot of time over the last 20 years framing the narrative. Okay. He regrets some of what he did in coming to Miami, the way that he did that announcement. And when he left Miami, the way that he did it was more quietly, by just calling a Sports Illustrated reporter and writing an article with him, ghostwriting an article with him that announced to everybody through Sports Illustrated instead of a TV show that he was going back to Cleveland. But that's going on 12 years now. He played for the Lakers longer than he played for any of these other teams, didn't particularly want to leave Los Angeles, has said before he doesn't like going back to Cleveland, has said that recently, that does not enjoy going back to Cleveland.

But there's no— what is the second best story? Says this is like, it's very obviously and clearly, if you want applause at the end for something that has gone the rare route of he went popular, unpopular, popular, popular, unpopular, popular, and when he got to popular, it's because bringing Cleveland the championship and coming back from a 3-1 deficit makes him golden forever in Cleveland. Coming back one last time at the end What's the second best story compared to that?

I think the second best is— it's definitely not Miami. All right. Everyone hates Miami. Everyone's going to hate if he winds up choosing the Heat. I think— I don't know that there's a second best. I think it is Cleveland. That is the good story. But if I had to choose a second best, I think there's a lot of people who would like the idea of him and Steph Curry playing together, even though, again, he's not going to Golden State either. So if I had to pick a second, it'd be Golden State.

The Knicks would be a cool story, but it's really strange to say that I don't think the Knicks want want him anymore because they would have to, uh, they'd have to move some pieces in order to make room for him. They can't just put him on the payroll and expect to pay him what he expects to earn and not lose other pieces.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremy, but I believe Rich Paul said it would have been the Knicks had they not won the title. That's right. He didn't like the optics of him going after they won the championship.

He said that we wouldn't even have made a whiteboard. It would have been the Knicks.

So let me ask you guys this question, because, uh, in the reporting that I've done around this over what now 16 years, I can tell you that both Pat Riley and LeBron James have learned some things after they broke up. One of the things that LeBron has learned, because initially when he got to Cleveland they were really mismanaged, he did feel when he left Miami that he could go wherever it is that he wanted and take some of those lessons with him, and he wasn't wrong. But the Lakers were run pretty poorly while he was there, even though they won a championship while he was there. And it is something that he trusts here, which is that he knows they can get the players around him to complement him. And what he also knows, in all of the places that he's gone, there haven't been any places that develop the people around him the way this place does. Cleveland didn't do it, and the Lakers did not do it. The place that developed him the players around him where he saw how they grew, right? He's seeing from, he's seeing from the first practices how Patrick Beverley can't make the team because they, they get rid of him and end up keeping Eddie House.

Uh, the things that they did in Miami, he had to leave because his only experiences were Cleveland and Miami. And Cleveland's famously mismanaged before and after they had him, but they're mismanaged throughout. Like Dan Gilbert, everyone knows Cleveland's not run well. What The surprise wasn't that Kenny Atkinson blew it. The surprise was that initially Kenny Atkinson did it correctly by using Evan Mobley correctly, and then everything ends up falling apart in Cleveland because they're Cleveland. Like, the same people are in charge there. He had to go to the Lakers to see, oh, the Cleveland-Laker things— this isn't like Miami at all. This is a different— this is a different way of treating, uh, how it is that we make players better. But I'm not sure how much appetite he has for being under Pat Riley's control. Like, why would, why would he want to be more controlled now as he's older than he would be in Cleveland? Because in Cleveland, he does get his run of the place, and he gets to go there and knock Donovan Mitchell and James Harden and Evan Mobley to the side. He's not, he's He's not actually coming to play second fiddle in Cleveland.

Here he is coming to play second fiddle.

So you don't think that if he were to choose Miami that there would be an understanding of, hey, we're not giving you the, the run of the place, that, you know, we haven't changed that much since you left 12 years ago, it's one of the main reasons that you left because we weren't going to allow that, but we are willing to meet you a little bit closer to the middle because we've learned a thing or And Spo has more influence now than he did at that time of being a coach there.

And they're much more of peers now after the work they did during the Olympics. But the thing about playing second fiddle, like here, LeBron James would be the point guard. Like he would run the offense here in a way that if he was playing with both Donovan Mitchell and James Harden as a basketball fit, it would be the same thing that he was dealing with in Los Angeles, playing a ton off ball. And at the end of games, those guys are going to be the guy with the ball in their hands. The Heat, we specifically said, need a wing playmaker who can get his own shot that's not Giannis or Bam. That's LeBron James.

Is it safe to say that Miami would ease up this second go around? The power dynamic is totally different. Part of the selling point to LeBron was, you don't know how to win, we're going to teach you how. Now LeBron has proven, I know how to win without you guys. I'm an old man here. I'm helping you get into that conversation because let's be real, barring something totally unforeseen, If the Miami Heat don't add a LeBron James, they got their work cut out for them, at least for the next half season or so.

Like, look, a main reason that LeBron left in 2014 was because the Heat wouldn't allow him to do everything that he wanted to do. And then, you know, years later, the Heat allowed Jimmy Butler all of that, and they're not going to allow LeBron?

A couple of things on that front, because the point that Jeremy is making when he was talking second fiddle, he was doing that on the court. I was not. I was doing. He comes here, he's not— he's behind Giannis, like it's Giannis's team.

He's LeBron.

He's— yeah, but he's already done this for Dwyane Wade in Miami. That's not the part I'm talking about. The part I'm talking about is you guys thinking and him thinking, oh, it'll be different this time, Pat Riley's changed. No, he hasn't. No, he has not. And so that rules us out. So What ends up happening—

I better learn growing emotionally.

What happens here is like the girlfriend coming back to the boyfriend who says he's changed in order to get her back, and then you're under contract, and then you're unhappy because the rules are a little tighter than they've been in Los Angeles and in Cleveland. You guys, I've told you all the stories about about, uh, he's not allowed to just take the plane to Las Vegas with the team here in a way he was allowed in other places to just say, we're going somewhere else, I'm the star. Uh, there are things here that he would have to sacrifice that he does not have to sacrifice in Cleveland.

But the fact that they kind of bent for Jimmy Butler the way they didn't for LeBron, that implies that Riley has changed maybe on front a little.

You guys say they kind of bent for Jimmy Butler, but, uh, they did what they did there reluctantly. Like, whatever was done there was not done with their arms around Jimmy Butler, uh, hey, come on, uh, let's, let's do this together.

And they got burnt.

Uh, it was— yes, that's correct. They got— they made some concessions for Jimmy Butler reluctantly, and at the end it didn't buy them much of anything. I— you guys do understand, correct, when you— the last 10 years LeBron has been making the rules, and that probably changed a little bit with Doncic, but that's about the only time in the last 10 years. Like, he went and got what he wanted in terms of freedom and championships by leaving in 2014. And so I don't know what his appetite is if Miami's interested. Miami would like this to happen. If it does not happen, it will not be happening because of what I'm telling you, that LeBron doesn't want to sign up for something that is a less good story and comes with a whole lot more rules than, uh, would, uh, that he'd have anywhere else that he played. Anywhere else that he played.

There's a lot of plugged-in people that I'm talking to in the industry, far more plugged in than I am, that say this is a foregone conclusion, that he's going to Cleveland and he's just stretching this out because it's fun. Fun to be talked about this way. Tony, you know that moment at a party or a tailgate where everything just sort of clicks?

I know it well.

It's usually when I show up, everybody goes crazy.

Yeah, you usually take all the credit for it, but it's because Tony usually walks in with Cuervo. I walk in like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuervo is a thing that turns hanging out into this is the night.

It has that effect on people.

It does. You usually take the credit for it, but again, it's the Cuervo of back. It's like that moment in a big game where everyone in the crowd just starts standing up, hooting and hollering. Keep it Cuervo!

Keep it Cuervo, baby!

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Dan Levitar.

I don't think strange for me, but like Mike Ryan.

Oh boy, this is the Dan Levitar Show. I think that that's what's happening too. Do you believe that? That's, uh, do you believe that I think that's what the nation at large is looking at here and saying that, uh, that there's not any actual intrigue here. It's just a, a, a play for attention.

Reputably though, Ethan Skolnick did report yesterday that Miami Heat have not been told that they are out of it.

I mean, Utah Jazz probably not been told that they're out of it.

Yeah, no one's been told. I mean, Rich Paul is enjoying the promotion for his podcast. It's a fairly unusual thing, I would say, to go from 2010, you've got a televised special. An MVP in his prime is changing teams through free agency and changes the entire balance of power in the league, gives more power to the player, and also befriends somebody who now represents, uh, I think it's 94 players in the NBA and like 600 people overall, who also wants attention in Rich Paul, fiancé of Adele. Who wants the attention of having the sports platform to himself. And now you have an agent on his own podcast— go ahead and show me all the examples you have of this in your lifetime— an agent on his own podcast with Max Kellerman going through the entire whiteboard of possibilities, naming players, naming teams, just to bring attention to what it is that he's doing on his platform. It's just not something you see. It, it has no precedent. In American sports, what Rich Paul is presently doing on his podcast with whatever this free period is to just grab publicity and attention.

It's because they never watched me before. Like, Rich Paul clearly watched everything I did and said, that's as good as content gets around LeBron. I need to take that and make it my own.

Your, your whiteboard is empirically better than his whiteboard.

Nobody does it better than me.

Oil was a bad— oil was a bad— oil's really good though. You can golf down here too.

Come on, but I put Jazz.

Nobody had the Jazz up there.

I think Mike's right though. My favorite part is in parentheses, Cronky.

It's a flimsy whiteboard and it doesn't— uh, what is that on the lower left? What does it say?

Brad and Tatum.

Brad and Tatum. Okay, so Boston doesn't— Brad, the order there, the order there, putting Brad in front of Tatum there for Boston. Uh, look, this, this whiteboard is super limited. I mean, oil, oil is doing some lifting there, but the The rest is just an assortment of names and just a galaxy around LeBron.

How about Spurs? What could be the selling point there? I don't know, let's leave that one blank.

When I was looking at all the teams though, that what would be a cool story, like him going to the Spurs to put them over, like that could be a nice story.

Spurs. We'll get back to them.

I do like on the top right, it's under Cleveland, you got Garland, no Garland, and there's a, you know, negative in parentheses, and then right above it it's weem. So just LeBron's friend is there. Weems.

That's right. Getting back to the World Cup for a second, I was bummed that Mexico didn't advance. England, England is making the case and is not wrong that that's a big— as big a road victory as England has ever had as a country going into that place and winning that way where you're down to 10 men and you're fighting the last 36 minutes in a hugely hostile environment with 10 men against Mexico.

Mike, I saw that correct, that last night is just the third loss in Stadium Azteca in 90 matches in competitive matches. What the hell?

No, and it— I, I've seen that place a little crazier because that's a more affluent, uh, group of people. But once, uh, once Mexico got that first goal, and because it looked like for a 90-second stretch there that England was gonna run away with this and they might get ugly because Mexico's not built for that, that goal from Quiñones was so great in terms of establishing, okay, we got a banger here. And then the red card happens, and that place was vibrating, pulsating, and it was, it was amazing. And a huge gut-check victory, second in a row, for a team that is often questioned in terms of, do you have the guts for this? Are you mentally tough enough for this? Because we know you have the talent, but can you push through the weight of that badge? What happened in Atlanta against DR Congo tested medal. That tested their minds, body, and spirit. They're positioned quite well here now that they've answered those questions.

That shit was awesome last night. I was watching my boys, we were so into that game. And, and, and the final, what, 25 minutes? It was just a power play for Mexico. Like, they had the ball in, in their offensive third for like the final 25 minutes straight. Chance after chance. It was awesome.

Jordan Pickford, the goalie for England, was amazing in that game. Well, listen to Harry Kane, England star. If you can hear his voice, it's a little bit hoarse. And on the front end, I should tell you, he's talking about a player who injured himself, who wasn't playing, who broke his arm trying to, trying to jump over a railing. Well, Harry, huge congratulations. What a contest, what a win. But I just firstly wanted to ask you what's happened over there by the English Jordan goal, because there looks to be some concern. Yeah, Jordan— my voice is gone—

Henoux just fell over there.

I think he's okay, just trying to move his arm. Okay, well, as for the performance, I think it says it all, the fact that your voice is gone. That was some contest to watch. What on earth was it like to play in? Yeah, it was a crazy game. We had to fight, we had to find something.

Yeah, I've just been singing there, I can't really talk, but yeah, what—

oh dear, The team, everything against us, we found a way. I was going to say, is that what pleases you the most, the resilience today? Because even your penalty, a word on that as well. Not the one you scored, the one you conceded. What did you make of that?

Yeah, I thought I got to the ball first. Um, it was one of those days, the ref gave it against us, and, um, in the end, in the end it didn't matter, so Yeah, I'm happy.

I'm going to try one more question if your voice holds out. What can this do for England going forward? You've got a quarterfinal in Miami against Norway to look forward to. What can the England fans look forward to now?

Well, just look at them here.

Incredible, unbelievable support.

Ah, speechless.

I can't even talk. So go and rest that voice.

Rest up.

Thanks, Harry. Uh, let's get the video of Jordan Henderson trying to, uh, just, you know, be athletic and climb climb over something and clearly just breaking his entire arm. Ah, no!