Transcript of Nobody Knew Anything About LeBron James' Decision | Local Hour

Howdy folks, it's Mike Ryan. You know, The Labattard Show and Miller Lite go way back. Pretty much, I want to say like 95% of our existence we've been partnered with Miller Lite. And we believe in Miller Lite, they believe in us. It's great to have a partner with a product you truly love. That's me with Miller Lite. I love Miller Lite, always have. In fact, I consider myself a bit of a Miller Time MVP.

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I'll pick the spot. I'll throw the cooler in the trunk.

Bring some Miller Lite.

And suddenly what was supposed to be a couple of hours turns into a whole afternoon. That's me, the Miller Time MVP. And it's great for summer hangs. Cools the body down, that beautiful white can. Not much better than an ice cold Miller Lite because it's brewed for taste with simple ingredients. Clean, refreshing, and easy to drink in the Miami heat. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer. Miller Lite. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

As I feel like I'm surrounded by an assortment of hungover, sad people, that the ability to talk about LeBron nonstop for the next couple of years was something that this show was welcoming, and we've lost that ability to do that. And I feel like I'm walking into a broken group of people who really were rooting for something and now can't have it.

Doesn't LeBron know how much we were going to say really nice things about him for 2 more years? It was going to be so pleasant for him here.

Chris, how are you dealing with the fact that everyone thinks you're a ruiner and a disgrace?

You know, a lot of people report things that don't end up being right. That's all I'm gonna say.

Well, that's not what I asked you though.

I'm feeling okay. I don't feel great about it. I'm kind of just neutral. I don't— I'm not like stressing it like some have thought. People are checking in on me like, are you okay? And I don't know, maybe I'm just perfect. I'm perfectly numb to some of this stuff. So I just— I'm good.

Because you do it all the time?

Yeah. Do you think at this point the risk was worth the reward?

Um, yeah, it was worth it.

It was?

Yeah, I mean, it was a nice little bump for the, uh—

I don't understand this at all, man. That's crazy. You're like, yeah, I see the benefit. I got people's attention. Got some followers out of it.

I mean, I— What? All right, Dan. All right, let's— if we're gonna do this, a few weeks ago, Dan was like— Dan reported the Heat are doing it this year for Giannis. What have they done since then? I'm not saying you're— I'm just saying that's a report you got out there.

They were trying to do.

Okay.

No, no, no. Wait a minute. What I said was before anyone knew it, that all of that with the Heat and LeBron was real.

And it was real. There's no disputing that it was real.

Right.

And so they went out, they went after LeBron is what Dan was reporting there. And I'm reporting that the Heat thought they had him. And I stand by that. I mean, there's been reports that, like, Ethan was reporting—

you didn't report that the Heat thought that they had him. You said that he had decided he was coming here. That's different.

He was going to announce that he was going to Miami on Monday.

Maybe I worded it poorly. It's a semantics thing.

It's not, it's not semantics. One of them makes you wrong and the other one makes you right. That's not semantics.

You know what semantics are.

The Heat came out, like Ethan Skolnick has reported afterwards that the Heat— I saw reports that Rich Paul thought he was going to the Heat.

Uh, the old afterwards report.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, if the reports are everyone in his camp thought he was going to the Heat, and so did I.

Love an afterwards report.

Uh, Roy, can you just get me the sound that was the foundation of this report?

I don't know what a source is.

Thank you.

That's fair.

Well, I, I want to talk. We'll, we'll keep this for the show, but I, I actually want to have a conversation with you about what you think a source is, because it's not the guy who sidles up with you at the bathroom urinal and says something, because there are 7 million douches in Miami who were reporting that LeBron was coming to Miami.

There has to be a filter between the person at the urinal who thinks he knows something and how that news gets disseminated to the public. And it's supposed to be a trusted news source. It can't be you still arguing that you're right on Monday when it's as wrong as anyone's ever been around here.

I'm not arguing I was right. I'm arguing that I didn't make it up. I heard it from people that I trust.

Just tell us who your sources are.

I'm not gonna— no, I will not say that.

I get it.

I'm not If your source was wrong, what do you owe them?

But it's like—

they made you look stupid.

There have been plenty of people that have done similar reports and got it like— you guys are just attacking me because I'm an easy punching bag.

No, but maybe we're on your side. Like, we don't like that someone made you look stupid. Say who it was.

We're attacking you because you're the one who got it wrong.

All right, well, they better put something good around Giannis or else you're a terrible reporter.

I got you there.

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

Bill Belichick's primary right-hand man, power broker Mike Lombardi, the GM of North Carolina, has been placed on administrative leave effective immediately. Pablo Torre has done a report on Lombardi. He will be joining us at 10 o'clock to talk about that, the process, and other other things. But Windhorst is on Get Up, and he has said about LeBron, quote, this is a one-off moment in the history of the league. We've never seen a player ever say the following things: I don't care about money, I don't care about my family. He doesn't even care that much apparently about the city because it seems like he's going to leave at least part-time in New York. So I don't know how to frame it, Windhorst says, because it's really truly unbelievable. LeBron James as a Philadelphia 76er. I want to ask you guys a handful of questions here. We were making fun of Chris Cody during the Shadow Show. Chris, I say this seriously, and I say it to you and others, because I saw a video the other day that had like a million views, and all it was is explaining what a source is. That's all the video was, because evidently, zazz, there are a whole lot of people who watch television hear the reporters say sources this and sources that and have no idea what a source is.

I don't know what a source is.

Do you think the grand majority of our audience sort of knows what goes into a source being a source?

Well, I guess the short answer is no. I think that most people in the audience think when they hear a source, that means someone affiliated with the team.

So the source is the following, for those of you who care about this sort of thing, okay? And a reporter is only as good as his or her sources.

That's true.

Chris Cody, we're making fun of him because he got it wrong. He got it wrong in every way. Got the day wrong, got the team wrong. Not a lot of other things you can get wrong.

Just got everything wrong because he was hearing from a source that he won't reveal.

And he was trafficking on our credibility, uh, and our credibility is born of, at least in part, generally when I'm reporting something from sources, there's not a whole lot of history that I have of my sources getting it wrong.

But I will tell you that the last time I covered this and LeBron, I told you guys I had 7 sources. I had about 400 people telling me he was coming here. I had 7 I trusted, and what Chris did, I fear, and feel is that just one told him and he trusted, but he doesn't know what goes into that trust, even though he comes from a lineage of journalism with his father being a journalist. And this is what a source is. Do I trust you enough that if I get embarrassed here, I still won't reveal who it is you are? I trust you so much that I'm putting my credibility up against the fact that I'm protecting your anonymity. So I'm trading my credibility for your information. I'm gonna protect you, but it's because I trust you so much that you're not going to embarrass me. I believe your information is credible. And so the pipeline— and I think this is important in the modern age because we're getting really confused in the age of disinformation of what's true and what's not true— the pipeline is who do you trust? Not just who do I trust, who do you trust with your information?

And Zazz has been saying for months, and now everybody's been saying for months, nobody who's reporting from sources knew shit here.

Nothing.

Because even Rich Paul, who would be a good source, if he's telling me something anonymously, I would believe him as a source and protect him as a source if we have a relationship where he's not likely to embarrass me on purpose. Rich Paul was saying until the last minute he thought it was going to be Miami that LeBron chose.

No one knew anything. Like no one knew anything. At various times over the last few weeks, reporters were saying Cleveland right now is the favorite, Miami right now is the favorite, Golden State right now is the favorite. Not a single person said at any juncture that Philadelphia is the favorite. So you have people out there who are either straight up lying because they want to have their name in the game and hopefully they end up being right and look informed, or they're just getting terrible information. No one knew shit this whole time.

In this particular case, though, the only people who can know— it's like a really tight circle of people who would know, and everyone else has to talk about it because it's the person in American sports who has dominated the entire country when it comes to sports talk for the last 20 years.

It's been an amaz— when you think about what this run has been for him It makes no sense that in the history of sport there has never been someone at this contract relative to everyone else's contract that gets this much attention for the signing of this contract. Uh, this is the biggest bargain in the history of free agency. The fact that you bring this— never mind that it's a top 25 player— everything else that comes with the top 25 player, that means attention economy. It means every single one of your sports talk businesses in Philadelphia is celebrating today because LeBron James basically helped build this thing that we have here because he came to Miami when he came to Miami and allowed Miami to be a market that was national with ESPN when none of our other sports teams deserved national coverage.

And there will be a multimillion-dollar business on the LeBron James farewell that they will get to, um, capitalize on.

Maybe the, uh, amount of money that the Sixers got for $3.9 million doesn't make a lot of sense to me in this respect, Zazz.

LeBron James, since signing that deal at a discount with the Miami Heat in 2010, has been firmer on nothing than "I will not take any discounts." He has been firmer publicly on no stance than "You will pay me the maximum that is allowed because I'm underpaid even when you pay me the max. I'm still underpaid." And this represents a reversal, of course, when it comes to him. That is at least in part because the market showed you, no, no one's going to actually pay you what you think you're worth in a market that you want to play in.

Well, the teams that were in it did not have a max contract to give him, but as firm as his actions were over the course of his career, that's how firm his words were via Rich Paul. Rich Paul said weeks ago, money does not matter, and everybody met that with skepticism.

I didn't believe it.

Everything along the way of Rich Paul— Rich Paul saying he hasn't decided, every single thing that was criticized, "Oh no, you guys know exactly where you are," came out to be true. Rich Paul didn't know, LeBron didn't know.

Let me, though, offer you a bit of perspective here on what Rich Paul did know earlier than the rest of us. He said out loud that money's not a factor when he realized they weren't gonna get what they wanted anywhere in the world.

Like, he didn't say that because that's where they entered the proceedings after leaving the Lakers. The Lakers broke up with him, and then they started framing everything, and they realized that the moment that the Lakers broke up with him, they had a decent idea of where the money was going to be and how much it was going to be. And so they started with the narrative of money doesn't matter when it's mattered a whole lot the last 20 years. They knew the amount of money that was going to be available, and it was a lot less than what they wanted. The market spoke early on this.

Yeah, but I'm sorry, but like, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't we all know what the market was like? We all knew the cap situation from all these teams that he'd consider being in the mix. Like, it's not like, all right, let me get a max contract. They didn't have that to offer. The cap situation for these teams was a cap situation. Yeah, they could have maybe moved things and signed in trades, but I think it was pretty clear that he had to take less.

This stuff happens months before we hear about it.

LeBron James and Rich Paul have been planning for the exit from the Lakers for many, many months. It didn't just— we learned about it when they were willing and ready to do the framing of whatever it is that they were going to say publicly so that they could shape the storyline. Line, but they knew what their situation was in Los Angeles. Now, I'm hearing a number of different things in a number of different places, and I want to make both some clarifications and some corrections here because the New York Post, for example, did a really bad job of headline writing on something that I said as a whole lot of people, not just in Miami, Cleveland's doing this too, there are a whole lot of people wondering how it is that LeBron James just signed a contract that is, let valuable for him than just about any contract he could have signed at any point in his career. And so the New York Post puts up this headline that says, "Heat furious over LeBron snub as wild 76ers conspiracy theory emerges." And I didn't say furious. They're not furious. There's no one there I've talked to who's furious.

This is definitely though from you.

Yeah, it was from me. They, they were using my name all over that story and they misheard me. I said curious. I'm not even making that up.

I mean, you were walking the streets while you were talking to us. Maybe like, you know, it came in a little bit like grainy. I don't know.

What was the wild conspiracy theory though?

I'll get to the wild conspiracy theory in a second, but it's curious because Mike is real eager.

You may have noticed him there. He wants me to lob him that so he can dunk it, and he already did that the time that I presented it the first time.

And it's fine that he wants to dismiss it immediately as the loser's lament. I want to clarify again This isn't just the Heat that's wondering about this. The thing that happened here where Philadelphia comes, uh, apparently out of nowhere to be the team that lands him at the greatest free agent bargain there has ever been in the history of competitive people bidding with money over a talent.

Because the Sixers only had $3.9 million to spend. You have to get money elsewhere if you're LeBron James to actually get the value or closer to the value of what it is that you are. And so Topps, the trading card company, was the one that actually broke this news before Shams, before it was released. And however it is these things get released, LeBron's been very calculated over 16 years about how these things get released. Television show, Sports Illustrated. And this time I thought it was Shams that released the news. It was not. It was Topps Trading Cards. And Topps Trading Cards are run by Fanatics and Michael Rubin. Fanatics, quiet as it's kept, Fanatics is a powerhouse that's as large a power as there is anywhere in sports.

Like, if, if, if you, if you just said to me right now that Michael Rubin, if you made a list of most powerful people in sports and said to me Michael Rubin was number one, I'd say, yeah, that's probably right.

They have a total monopoly over sports merchandising now.

So Michael Rubin owned 10%. This Michael Rubin is a fascinating figure. He was millions of dollars in debt at 14. Like had a jet ski company and stuff and just knows how to work business.

And through whatever it is that he inherited, he, you know, he created a business that was able to lose money before it made money, because the best way to make money is to have money, or in some cases not even have it and just pretend like you have.

And so Michael Rubin owned 10% of the Sixers and realized, eh, not enough. If I'm not an actual owner, if not— if I'm not a real owner, if I'm a minority owner, I don't really have power.

And so he realized, nah, my relationship with Joel Embiid is probably more valuable than owning this percentage of the team because of what it is that I want from life and sports. And so he got out and he built a giant company.

Howdy, folks.

It's Mike Ryan. You know, The Leprechaun Show and Miller Lite go way back. Pretty much, I want to say like 95% of our existence, we've been partnered with Miller Lite and we believe in Miller Lite. They believe in us. It's great to have a partner with a product you truly love. That's me with Miller Lite. I love Miller Lite, always have. In fact, I consider myself a bit of a Miller Time MVP. The friend who says, "They've got it, I'll pick the spot, I'll throw the cooler in the trunk, bring some Miller Lite," and suddenly what was supposed to be a couple of hours turns into a whole afternoon. That's me, the Miller Time MVP. And it's great for summer hangs, cools the body down, that beautiful white can. Not much better than an ice-cold Miller Lite because it's brewed for taste with simple ingredients. Clean, refreshing, and easy to drink in the Miami heat. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer, Miller Lite. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

96 calories and 3.2 carbs.

Per 12 ounces.

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Dan Levitar.

I got a Slater scoop.

Chris Cody. He fucked us. This is the Dan Levitar Show.

What are your guys' thoughts on the idea that a trading company would have, would have the news before anyone? Before Shams, before anyone, that they would release a trading card that takes prep, even if it's not the actual card, even if it's just somebody photoshopping it.

They had the news and the information before anyone else had the news and the information.

And because Michael Rubin's not affiliated with the 76ers, a leap that can be made by people who are suspicious or curious is, what was Michael Rubin doing for the Sixers here?

How much is that deal with Topps worth? And while Mike—

go ahead, I'll give you the chance to poo-poo it, Mike, but I want to ask you some hypotheticals afterward.

Are you alleging that the Heat's contention is—

I'm not saying the Heat anything, okay? I'm not— don't make this about just the Heat because there are plenty of people talking about this. It's not just—

I'm sorry, I just read the New York Post. It just said Heat. But you don't think he would have had this deal with Topps if he picked Cleveland?

I don't know what the deal is.

What is being insinuated here is that there's some sort of cap circumnavigation via Topps that would only exist if he picked the Philadelphia 76ers, and I believe wholeheartedly he would have had that deal with Topps wherever he chose.

Okay, but you don't know what the deal is.

I know what the deal played out to be, which was Topps got to announce where he was going.

No, you don't know what the deal is. You don't—

if I told you right now, just in the hypothetical, If I told you that deal goes for X usually, but Topps said, "No, we'll give you $50 million." Like, what's the number I have to put it at where I get your attention on, ah, oh, like, why I get your attention in the space where they gave Kawhi how much to not plant trees on the side? Like, what's the number I have to put it at for you not to poo-poo it because Michael Rubin, let's say, all hypothetical, but let's say Michael Rubin badly wanted to get him to the Sixers and has all the money in the world and is the most powerful man in sports. What do I have to put the number at beyond what the number normally is to get your attention on, hmm, not sure if that was kosher.

Fanatics spends a ton of dumb money. Did you not see how their flag— yeah, the flag football investment went?

I think you have to find if there's a connection between Fanatics and the Sixers still, right?

Well, the thing is Michael Rubin had to divest from the 76ers, and if you actually want to look into like weird stuff, there were a whole bunch of rumors about James Harden picking the 76ers and his close relationship with Michael Rubin. Michael Rubin clearly had to divest because he had a lot of close relationships with athletes that probably complicated his investment in the Philadelphia 76ers. If there was an incentive to pick the 76ers because he's friends with Philly ownership and ends up being a 76ers fan, yeah, that's worth looking into. But I don't feel like— and I think that this should be the standard— unless totally disproven after a thorough investigation, I don't think that the number attached to his Topps deal would be any greater or less if he picked another team. And I think to suggest that is pretty irresponsible. And I think for teams that ended up losing, teams that went on the record saying LeBron can make his own decision, and then when he makes a decision, to just suggest, hey, look into the Topps thing, is sore loser behavior.

Bad ball.

Fair enough to come away with that appraisal, but I'm gonna take a couple of steps back here and frame this for you in a different way so that you understand exactly what's happening in the NBA. NBA right now, and I'm going to go over to where Ballmer is.

Do you know how much money you have to have for other NBA owners to be scared of your money? Because what's happening with Ballmer right now is other NBA owners are scared of what he will do when he goes to court and is like, what about your rules? Why do I have to respect what your rules are? I respect your rules because we're all in the idea that the governance applies to everybody and that's how it's fair. But I don't respect your rules because I'm doing this on the side. And I'm denying that I'm doing it, it's all alleged, and I'm going to keep denying it. If rich people don't yell and scream about what Ballmer's doing, and they don't yell and scream about what Rubin's doing, is it because they're all doing it? Is it because they're all competing in these shadows around, yeah, the rules are for everybody else?

I think that's how Adam Silver has been able to keep this the way that it is and keep legacy media from reporting it fully, is because if I'm another owner, what Steve Ballmer has done, allegedly through Pablo's reporting, is an advantage, is unfair. It's cap circumnavigation. It's not fair to the other owners. And if I were another owner that was doing everything above board, I'd be losing my mind about it because this league legislates that equality with that salary cap. I think the reason why we're not hearing about it from the other owners is because they're all kind of doing something like this and they wish this story would go away.

Isn't that just a reflection of real life and how the, the elite of elite work in the shadows in ways that we can't understand?

I'm not exactly naive. I've worked in this business for a long time. A no-show job paying tens of millions of dollars outside of the salary cap allegedly stunned me.

Right.

But LeBron absolutely already showed up. He went to Fanatics Fest. He's doing his part here. This is not a no-show job. I think LeBron James picked the 76ers, and it maybe took me a little bit to realize this, because it's the best possible choice for him in the Eastern Conference to win a title this year. That is an incredible starting 5. If you want to look into any business interest that might be a little shady is the fact that— not the first time in his career, by the way— he's got a Klutch Sports guy on his team in Tyrese Maxey. And maybe we all should have paid more attention to the Maxey thing, to the Mike Ganzey thing. But I think it's pretty evident.

You know that the coach is Klutch Sports also.

I think it's pretty evident. Yes, there's all these sorts of things. But guys, like, if we were looking at this from a roster construction standpoint after they added Jaylen Brown, That team makes a lot of sense. Way more sense than any of the other destinations. I think we just didn't think he'd end his career in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform because it's random.

How shitty does Bronny feel right now? He left Bronny to go play with the guy who says Bronny sucks.

The thing that I love about the entire transaction beyond the mystery— there are many things that I love about it— uh, one of them is Holy shit, the oldest player in the league is going to have us all watching. Is this going to be a champion or is it going to implode? That's wildly interesting. Like, they're going to make the regular season interesting.

Still at his age, LeBron James is traveling around, still making the regular season interesting.

Because while you can say it's a good basketball fit, you're asking LeBron to play the 4, and I thought he didn't want to do much of that anymore.

Defensively, he doesn't want to, but I think offensively, putting him in the dunker spot, in the pick-and-roll spot, he saw that happen in LA and was like, okay, maybe I don't like being the third person, but also this is a really good spot for me to age.

Okay, so this is funny, all right, because this is a really good spot, uh, for me to age ignores—

you have to trust Embiid, and we get real forgetful with him all the time. In the 50 games, uh, in the half of the games, 38 games that he's available, in the half of the games that he's available, what happened to them in the playoffs is they beat Boston because he was healthy for 4 games, and then they couldn't do anything because he can't stay healthy for more than 4 games, right?

I think I mean, did a great job of framing that as Embiid is viewed as a luxury and they have assets that if the Embiid thing totally gets nuked, they have ways around that. But it's not like the other destinations that were in this didn't have question marks. There are question marks about Giannis' health. There are question marks about Golden State. You mentioned earlier that the Philadelphia 76ers came out of nowhere. No, they didn't. They were always reported as a finalist. If he went to the Chicago Bulls, that's a team coming out of nowhere. This team was always in the mix. It wasn't taken seriously. The relationships that he had via Clutch and Mike Ganzey were not looked at at the same way because no one thought he'd end his career at this random destination that ended up being the best starting five for him to latch on to.

I don't think Embiid can be viewed as a luxury. They are not a championship contender if Embiid is not—

correct.

It's not like a guy you sprinkle on saying, oh, this will be a bonus if we're going to be—

no, no, no, no.

You only win if Embiid is playing.

That is absolutely true what he's saying. You can be interesting. You can be competitive, you ain't winning the title. You're not winning the title against OKC and San Antonio. You're not winning the title if Joel Embiid doesn't look like Joel Embiid has to look. It doesn't become the best starting five unless Embiid is a part of it.

Respectfully, I don't know when the injury is going to occur to a Joel Embiid. I just assume at some point there is going to be an injury because I have history as my guide. But the thing that we are not paying enough attention to is the young assets they have on that roster. To be able to dig themselves out of a catastrophic situation with Joel Embiid. And that team plays pretty well without him historically. So you have Vijay, you have Maxey, hell, you have Jaylen Brown. You have so many assets and flexibility to go out and reshape that roster should Embiid become a huge—

Are you saying to trade Embiid?

I'm saying that you can staple Vijay to Embiid like you're not buried. Hell, they just moved the Paul George contract and got Jaylen Brown back in there. I think the days of overlooking what Philadelphia can do with their roster or from a bygone era.

I think he was a decent asset though, Paul George, because he had a decent year when he did come back.

Simmons called it the second worst contract in the league, only behind Joel Embiid.

That's the problem though. Joel Embiid is the worst contract than a guy who doesn't play.

What I'm arguing is you can staple Vijay, who is an asset, who is desirable, who is good enough, who is ascending, to, to staple for 2 years of LeBron.

You let go of potentially a lifetime with Vijay for 2 years.

I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's without its questions. But what I'm saying is it's not the albatross that we're presenting it as.

You can't do that. Like, you get LeBron because it's okay, we have this 2-year window here to just super maximize everything. And if it doesn't work in this 2-year window, great. We have a future between Maxie, Edgecomb, and Brown.

Okay, but James Harden in Cleveland, Giannis' health in Miami.

Where is Harden?

He hasn't even signed. There are questions about all these teams. This wasn't like make any of his previous decisions. The money wasn't there, and there were question marks about all these rosters. What makes it interesting is the question of, is this going to work with Philadelphia? Guys, there wasn't a single place, including Miami, where you wouldn't have question marks about the fit and their ability to do it. Yes, it shifts the odds, no doubt. Marketplace reflects that. The market price on DK Sports reflects that wherever he went probably would have been the title favorite. But there are questions about LeBron, there are questions about every single fit here.

I, I think there's major question marks. I told you on Friday, Dan, I may not have said it on the main show, but I thought the most interesting place for him, for him to go to would have been to go play in Philadelphia if it weren't Miami. But that doesn't come without major questions. The Embiid part is obviously a huge question, and I think Jaylen Brown's a major question too. Like, I, I, I'm just as interested to see what it looks like where Jaylen Brown, who very clearly called this his favorite season because he got to be the guy, and his reward for being the guy and having a successful season is, here, you're now the third, maybe the fourth option.

Mike is gonna have to help me here with what he's seeing in Philadelphia's young people that I'm not seeing, because I was so tired of betting on Kelly Oubre and Dominic Barlow to do anything in, in games.

Those guys are gone now.

I think they might be, and I think Andre Drummond is also gone.

So Mike is trusting Johnny Broom and Adam Bona to be what—

Bona for sure, Broom also might get moved.

No, no, guys, I've said VJ Edgecombe a ton of times. I think it's a huge desirable asset at a rookie salary wage, and you can staple that to a bad contract. You can just trade it with other money that makes sense. I think he's super desirable. I think he showed you in the playoffs that he's an ascending talent.

I think the interesting thing is how they're going to play Embiid this season or how they're going to play LeBron this season. Is LeBron going to play back-to-backs? Is he going to play a normal ration of games? Is Joel Embiid— if I put the over-under at 39.5 games for you, do you think Joel plays more than that?

This is Dan Levitar.

I hate that Carolina is going to get this moment just because they waited us out.

Jonathan Sasselo.

But I love that Buffalo is going to replace the Panthers in this situation because those fans absolutely deserve it, not going to the playoffs for it. Oh, I deserve it.

We deserve it.

I don't care.

We won twice already.

I deserve a third one before they deserve anything.

I just started paying attention to hockey. I live in a swamp. Give me 3 in a row.

Sabers.

Buffalo deserves. Eat shit, Buffalo.

I care about Buffalo.

This is the Dan Levitan Show.

This is the problem with all of this, right?

Man, Edgcomb looked good whenever Embiid wasn't playing, but the Sixers weren't very good.

Like, it was Edgcomb and Maxey, and they were doing whatever they wanted out there.

So fast!

So fast, the two of them, and like, oh, look, they're a 9 seed.

All right, but now you have LeBron James and Jaylen Brown on that roster.

Yeah, and I wonder—

It matters.

Yeah, it does matter, but the thing that I wonder about before we get to this Jason Tatum sound that may or may not have been passive-aggressive is you've seen the tweets about Jaylen Brown, how did he like being Robin in Boston? Now he's gonna be Alfred in Philadelphia.

That's a bar.

Because, you know, you just— all those guys, highest end of the league in usage rate when they play. All of them. All of them. Jaylen Brown, Maxey, LeBron, Embiid, everybody but Edgcomb. Edgcomb never looks better to me than when no one's out there playing with him.

Right.

So we've highlighted that throughout this entire process. It turns out Rich Paul and LeBron James were telling the truth. Everything that they said kind of played out. And part of the reason why he didn't pick Miami— you can have your conviction and say, I still believe that Miami is a better fit for LeBron James— but part of the reason that he didn't pick Miami, according to the people that matter, was he'd already done that. And to go back to a place that you won wasn't as appealing because you can undo some of the feelings there. That's one of the reasons that he gave for not picking Miami. I think we can understand that.

I, I want to, though, correct you, or I guess it's not even a correction because I, I agree with you in general about them telling the truth, but what they were doing more is shaping shaping it. They were shaping it, and so it became the truth. But what— it's not the truth that he didn't want to go back to the Lakers and continue to do things there. They didn't want him there anymore, and they immediately shaped it as, ah, I want to see what else is out there. And that's when the money talk started to change, after they sniffed around. Because I'm telling you, these things happen months before we hear about them.

It's just, when I look at and I separate myself from the emotion and look, the homer in me thinks that if he picked Miami, Miami would have been in that conversation in the East and could have added to the roster and ultimately would have been in the mix as a champion. I really believe that. I wish he picked Miami. I'm saying that right now. But if I can separate myself from that emotion, I think LeBron James picked the best possible landing spot of the teams that were, were reported to be in that mix to help him win a championship this year, and he said as much in his statement.

Yeah, I don't know about all that truth stuff. This feels to me like one of those, this is my truth, you know, so this is my truth.

So this one's real, then it can be a rationalization, but it's not— we're debating whether or not it's the right fit, and for that to, for that to be clear consensus, then to suggest that there's a tops thing or something that's not above board going on here just sounds like loser talk to me.

Like, Mike, you, you think, you think LeBron made his decision 1 AM Friday 1:00 AM?

No, I mean, it's been reported that Shams messaged Pat McAfee, hey, you're going to want me on later today. So, I mean, these deals probably came together and there was industry chatter. I remember I checked the DraftKings Sports app one random day and the price on Philadelphia was really inflated post-Fanatics Fest. And I was like, what happened here? There was crazy line movement and then it shrank back down.

Mike, I'm going to keep correcting your word choices as your word choices allow you to arrive at loser talk. When you call it loser talk because you say suggesting and intimating. Asking questions isn't the same as suggesting or intimating.

Being curious isn't the same as being furious. And this report from The Athletic on the Topps thing: timestamps on the post from LeBron James, Topps' X account post, and Shams all popped at 11:30, uh, Eastern, but users received Topps' post notification first, indicating Topps sent its post seconds before the others. It's particularly of because parts of the Sixers organization were apparently surprised by James's decision, with a team source close to the process telling The Athletic that they did not learn of his choice to accept their offer until minutes before the social media alerts. According to the company, this marks the first time a player move has ever been announced via trading card.

Right, and LeBron has always been on the cutting edge of that and has decided to announce where he's going in different ways. And I firmly believe, 100% of my start, that he would have a top steal if he picked Cleveland, that he would have a top steal if he picked Golden State, or that he would have a top steal if he picked Miami.

I know, Mike.

To go there after repeatedly saying LeBron can make his own choice and to let it be known, hey, we're curious about this thing, is not Miami Heat culture.

It's—

everybody's asking this question, Mike.

We don't have to keep making it just the Heat because I'm hearing it for more than just— okay, Heat people. And I'm gonna ask you the question again.

I'm gonna ask it again.

If tomorrow, hypothetically, someone reports as fact that the Topps deal is worth— how much more do I have to make it than the average deal? Because it can be argued LeBron James is a bigger star than anybody, and so he's worth any amount of money that you want to pay him for a Topps card. But where do I have to put the number to get your attention on saying, you know what, that is curious? Nowhere.

Unless he got more money to go to Philadelphia.

We're not—

we're having an irresponsible conversation It's an irresponsible thing for a professional organization to posit that LeBron James picked a destination because of a Topps deal.

You're using posit. You're using words that aren't being used.

Okay, to curiously posit that he picked a destination because of a Topps deal. He's the biggest star in sports. He was going to have an endorsement deal with Topps regardless. Just move on. He picked another team, and he picked another team that makes a ton of sense. For a team or fan base to question what's going on here when the guy at most could have made $8 million, it's not like the difference was $4 million. There's nothing shady going on here. If you want to look into Fanatics and their monopoly over the sport, yeah, go right ahead. If you want to look into the James Harden signing of several years ago, go right ahead. But he picked Philadelphia Philadelphia on merit. There's a very strong argument for it. He didn't pick other destinations. He gave explanations as to why. It wasn't just basketball fit, though. If you have injury questions about Joel Embiid, you can have injury questions about Giannis Antetokounmpo. He picked Philadelphia because what he said was, this was the best roster to help me win now. It was better than Miami's. And he also didn't want to go back to Miami for some emotional reasons as well.

I'm gonna pair that, as he says, on merit, on merit, makes total sense, with the guy who's been covering LeBron as an expert since high school. This is a one-off moment in the history of the league. We've never seen a player ever say the following things: I don't care about money, I don't care about my family. He doesn't even care that much apparently about the city because it seems like he's going to live at least part-time in New York.

So I don't even know how to frame it because it is— and this is Brian Winhorst who's covered him since high school— really, truly unbelievable. And now Mike, with a weekend to sleep on it, is like, ah, I saw it coming all along.

It's on merit.

No, I'm not saying I saw it coming.

It makes total sense. While Winhorst is still on Monday saying this is unbelievable.

Okay.

Well, no, if you're going at me for saying that this makes sense, I like my hand. It makes total sense. They did not come out of nowhere. They were a finalist reported the entire time. And you could say not caring about money with whatever destination he picked because the money wasn't there to reflect his fair market value. He could have maybe made a couple more million dollars down here in Miami. That's it. So very clearly the money didn't matter.

I don't believe he doesn't care about money.

You know why? Because he's been telling me for 15 years publicly that it does.

He doesn't need to care about salary that he's getting because he knows I can get endorsement deals anyway.

He didn't have to care about it for the last 15 years, and he still cared about it every single time, said, you will not pay me less than the maximum.

Guys, it, it's pretty obvious why he picked Philadelphia. He told us as much.

I know, but when Horace is saying it's still unbelievable—

yes, it's unbelievable.

Look at it.

Look at—

look behind you. Look at that Photoshop of him in a Sixers uniform.

This is crazy.

He's ending his career in Philadelphia.

It's random.

They weren't taken seriously as a leader this entire time. But I think with Altitude on the situation we get it.

I do think that there's got to be a Laker fan after he signs for the minimum in Philadelphia who says, you couldn't have played for the minimum one year with us? One out of eight. You had all the money in the world after you signed with us. You couldn't do it for one year and let's see what other pieces we can put around you and try and win here? Like, now Philadelphia, you don't owe them shit. They don't owe you shit. Now is when you're going to be minimum salary guy.

This is the thing that I would say here, because the Lakers have been telling everybody who didn't get LeBron that where there are relationships, hey, there are some bullets you dodged there. And nobody has any questions about what he is on the court, right? But what he brings off the court can be a handful for an organization.

There were plenty of Heat people who were not sold on welcoming all of that back to them.

I would say the reason that this is them shaping the truth instead of just telling the truth is he also wanted a place where he could make all the rules because they want him so badly again because he likes to make all the rules when he goes to places. And he didn't get to do that anymore with the Lakers once they got Luka, and he got to do that when he went back to Cleveland, but he left Cleveland and came here.

And I've told you some of the stories about Maverick Carter and all those guys asking for an assortment of things in 2010 that weren't allowed, that the Heat wouldn't go for. Because why wouldn't you ask for them? You have all—

why?

Kawhi and his uncle just kept asking for an assortment of things that could or couldn't have been allowed, because allegedly, because they— because, hey, you put it on— you put the responsibility on the organization to follow the rules if it means you can have more money.

All right, so you're finding it. You're, you're talking it out and you're finding more reasons as to why he picked Philadelphia, and more reasons why it makes perfect sense.

The rules— making the rules—

that's not being reported by anybody.

It's not being said by anybody. As, as the agent and the story shape the entirety of the narrative because they can, at least in part because they're the only ones who have any real information, unlike Chris Cody.