Transcript of Pablo Torre Has Questions For The NBA... | Hour 3 New

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It is time for Amin to share his World Cup Game Notes.

No one in the media will tell you what happened better than my boy. I mean, World Cup Observations is brought to you by Miller Lite. Legendary moments start with a Lite. Then, after 18 days and 72 matches, the wait is finally over. The Tartan Army got the Out of here! Go back to Scotland!

Holy shit, what are you doing?

Get out of here!

Welcoming the world.

No, they're gone. The wait is over. We were waiting for them to go home. They're the life of the party, yes, but everyone who's thrown a house party knows you want the life of the party to go home.

Unless they drive you thousands of dollars in revenue to your small venue, then you love them.

So this is the part where I feel conflicted, because can we survive the economy crash All those bar tabs. All the trash that was picked up by— we had to have people working overtime. Thank you, Tartan Army.

So jealous that Boston got them for 2 weeks.

All those bar tabs, not a single dollar in gratuity. It's not part of their culture. The World Cup finally begins, boys. Today, knockout stage. Ah, don't talk to me about yesterday. That one doesn't count.

What do you mean?

Canada, South Africa, that one doesn't count.

Terrible match.

That's why they put it on its own day.

Everybody else got a break. You're like, you got— hey, you guys, you know how like halftime of an NBA game sometimes will have the kids from the YMCA play on the court because it's halftime? That's what that was.

Yeah.

I finally found bad pizza.

A goal in stoppage time to advance. That can't be a bad game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you watch?

Because that one's the one.

The exhilaration of match day. Exhilaration. Was that word— Zazz, I know you Brasil. When I did my little rant earlier in the show, I literally sprayed spittle all over this table.

Yeah, people came out of the room complaining about that.

Yeah, it looked like a Shea Gildas-Alexander shot chart. Just, oh, a lot of mid-ranges and everything.

It really did.

What was more heartbreaking for Iran? Having a goal in the 90th called off? Or then having to watch Austria-Algeria, watch Algeria go up 3-2 in the 90th only for Austria to tie it up like 2 minutes later in the 90th.

That was the game of the tournament so far.

It was, but also it's heartbreaking for Iran. Argentina do it against Cabo Verde. Cabo Verde needs to stay alive for as long as possible. Zaz, you know what, the Cabo Verde fans, they are good fans, Dan. I mean, I have this question. I asked this question in the group chat, Mike, but I'm gonna extend it to the audience and to Dan, and guys, I am a modern man. I respect and love everybody.

Uh-oh.

But I have to ask this question.

Uh-oh.

How is it that every single World Cup fan base is so impossibly hot? And then when you look at all the sports, every sport imaginable, team sports, individual sports, is there any sport that comes close to World Cup soccer fan bases in terms of how hot they are? I've been to a lot of NBA games and yeah, they're glamorous people. They're not hot like that.

Not regular.

The regular degulars in the crowd are hot.

I would nominate a golf outing.

No way. I've been to— I've been to Waste Management Open, the greatest golf tournament.

Not saying it's as good. Trust me, I enjoyed driving.

You just nominated it.

Just looking for other good-looking— you go to this sporting event, you nominate something you don't actually agree with.

I'm just—

I'm saying you go to a golf outing and you see, you know, it's a nice college football.

It's a great day for sunglasses.

Especially now that the Canes are back.

One of my favorite things of the World Cup is when people call the Democratic Republic of Congo Dr. Congo. I really enjoy it. I don't know why. I created a 6-leg parlay where a $10 bet has a payoff of $1.2 million. Yeah, I think I might have to pull the trigger on this one. Part of it is Cabo Verde beating Argentina in 90 minutes, so.

Do you agree with Dominique's conspiracy theory that the World Cup fans are planted strategically, that it's not just random hot people, that it's part of how the World Cup sells itself.

Mike, you've been there. I've seen Mike's real-life boots-on-the-ground video at World Cup stadiums and outside of it. Flawless.

There's so much more they can show you.

That's like what we're seeing. That's the sanitized version. That's the PG. Like, oh, well, this is what we can show the puritanical American audiences. 'Cause they could not handle— our brains would fry if we saw how hot everyone in that stadium was.

Great fans.

Welcome to Latino women, boys. I love cosplaying as a Colombian.

I love cosplaying as anything. Rotsil. Christian Pulisic wouldn't have got nutmegged if you pronounced his name correctly. He got him so dirty, man. The funny thing was he actually tried it the play right before, and he closed his legs and it went out of bounds, and so then They're doing the throw-in and he did it again. And I was like, you know how— you know how little someone has to respect you to try that multiple times? It wasn't about, hey, I gotta get this ball in play so we can score. It was, I'm gonna make you look like a fool. You know why? Because he says his name Pulisic. Dumbass. Cristiano Ronaldo is everyone's grandpa walking in the living room during a Super Bowl party, standing directly in front of TV asking, what are y'all watching? Look out the way, man.

Do you guys realize he's got more minutes on the field, or the pitch as you like to call it, than any other World Cup player? Than any other?

That's what happens when you play 8 billion World Cups. How many goals does he have? That's the question.

He had a couple of— 2 games ago and you guys are still ripping him.

Uzbekistan.

He played well against Uzbekistan.

Yes.

No one in the world is happier Then Tunisia's former head coach, who was replaced by heartthrob Hervé Renard. He's saying, "Not so easy, is it, pretty boy?" They got waxed, man. They got waxed every game. They didn't allow a goal in qualification.

Did you see that group though?

Oh my God.

I can't see Dan Ebersley in that group. Messi! Don't get too comfortable with that most goals scored in World Cup history thing. You're not even renting. You're in an Airbnb and the owner is Mbappé.

Well, he looks like he's getting pretty comfortable.

Why does Amin say it like it's some bumbling statistic?

Oh, most goals consecutive World Cup history. That's kind of a big thing.

Well, Mbappé is going to catch him because of his age. But man, Messi—

because of his age, he's going to do it this World Cup. This World Cup he's going to do it.

I think, well, Messi is presently the top goalscorer. Okay, so he's actually increased his lead.

Yeah, well, you know what's gonna happen. Cabo Verde gonna send him to hell. Argentina can go to hell. These are the World Cup observations.

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Dan Levitar.

Ahoy, it's Captain Slappy.

Jonathan Sasslow. Is this Chum Bucket? This is the Dan Levitar Show. Pablo has gotten out of the elevator that he was trapped in. He is going to walk us through this hour with more Kauai information as some more indictments have come down today. But the Messi statue in Argentina, a lot of people are pointing pointing out that from the back, uh, the statue makes it look like the World Cup trophy that a giant Messi is kneeling in front of. When you look at that from the back, it looks like Messi has a giant penis.

No, that's not what it looks like. It looks like he's riding a giant penis.

To each their own. I disagree. I don't think that that looks like he is.

You don't think that looks like that?

Reverse cowgirl, folks.

Looks like he's pooping.

It also looks like he is pooping, although I think that would be further back.

It's like a cloud, guys.

It can be whatever you want it to be.

No, but I don't think— I think that most people are making fun of this because it doesn't look like a cloud or as pooping as much as it looks like in the front. This is unfortunate. We can agree the centered World Cup makes it— the World Cup trophy makes it so that this is an unfortunate statue that's in Argentina.

We'd agree this is stupid to me. Look at the statue from the front, the way you're supposed to view the statue.

Look at it from the front.

It looks—

he's riding.

Really normal.

There it is. He's riding. That is a— and he's positioning himself right over it.

That's not— so Pablo Torre is with us now.

Uh, they got the— they got like the fabric sort of like so beautifully done. Like if you look at the folds in the shirt, that must have been hard to construct.

And then You know what else is hard?

That tattoo. Yeah!

That tattoo. Fuck, he's writing.

Can you stop that, please? Pablo, the indictments that came down today, the news that came down today, and the news that Shams is reporting that Toronto and Kawhi Leonard are involved in serious trade talks, or Toronto and the Clippers are involved in serious trade talks. What did you make of today's information?

There's a lot happening. There's too much happening. What order do you want to tackle this?

Uh, let's do Kawhi first.

Um, okay, so a couple of thoughts that I have around how it is that the NBA— I was talking to an NBA owner last week who was wondering, why is this taking so long? What is dragging the NBA's investigation into what feels like a very conspicuous sort of briar patch in which there is no announcement, there is no ruling. Um, all of it sort of to me as I, as I watch and I, uh, continue to report, all of it seems to me like if the NBA's goal is to shrink the footprint, the PR mess of this entire story, a lot of this makes sense. And so I'll take you back to pre-All-Star before we go to where we are today. So of course we publish now 11, 11 parts, I think, I mean, is where we are in our series.

That's right.

And One of the first things you heard was that none of this would derail the NBA's All-Star Game being held in the Intuit Dome. That was one thing. The next thing you heard was that, uh, a couple months later, wait a minute, the Los Angeles Clippers have gotten the 5th pick in this draft. Incredible. And then despite various rumor mill things spinning up pre-draft that we would get a ruling, the Clippers went and made that pick in the draft. So congratulations to the Clippers. Um, Then the notion is, okay, well, free agency starting July 1st, certainly given that Adam had said previously that there was going to be resolution, we got to end this sometime. Certainly this would happen before free agency. And of course, we are waiting here today. And the rumor with the Raptors is so unbelievably interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One is that the Toronto Raptors, of course, were the team that had the biggest complaint about Kawhi. Via tampering by the Clippers, allegedly via cap circumvention by the Clippers, allegedly because he was their guy and the Clippers took him from them after winning the title in one season.

The other detail here that I think is really interesting is that the owner of the Raptors, Amin, is who?

Is Roger—

Larry Tannenbaum.

I'm glad you asked Amin that and put him in a position to win there.

He was thinking about the Rogers Center.

Rogers Center.

That's what he was thinking about.

Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment.

But it's not great when you say Roger and he says Larry. Like, it didn't sound like chemistry to me between you two.

Let them cook.

We've only, we've only done 11 episodes together. The Larry Tannenbaum detail is interesting because no one typically knows or talks about Larry Tannenbaum, to the illustration that we just got on this show. Larry Tannenbaum, though, has a very particular job currently. He is the chair of the NBA's Board of Governors. And so when you're thinking about what's happening backstage, who knows what and what is being negotiated. I just think it's very interesting that the Toronto Raptors are the one team that Kawhi apparently is saying he would sign a long-term extension with. They would pay him the max. And the guy who is overseeing the Board of Governors, which is the thing that ostensibly is in charge of all of the most important matters in the NBA, that guy happens to own the Raptors. So to me, what this smells like is a bunch of people who know stuff And they're not telling the public. What they're trying to do is get to a point in which the PR footprint has shrunk such that more podcasts can be mitigated or nullified, such that more embarrassment can be prevented. It all feels like the sort of thing the NBA, if it had its way— I'm not saying that they're doing this deliberately.

I'm just saying it is very convenient that Kawhi Leonard, if this is true, may not be a Clipper by the time that a ruling is dropped, if all of this reporting is to be believed.

The other part of this is if you're the NBA, you're saying to yourself, okay, who are the stakeholders in this decision? Who are the people who actually care? Who are the aggrieved parties? The other 29 teams, right? Because the Clippers cheated and whatever fan bases care about. Well, if they can walk away and say, well, the aggrieved parties, what do you guys want? You want the Clippers to be held accountable? Okay. We dock them picks, we fine them, and if we leave it there, then you're satisfied, right? Like, it doesn't need to be the massive bring down the whole establishment thing. What we're trying to do is basically, by indirect means, compensate everybody for what infractions happen. They cheated, all right, dock them their picks, and now we're good.

This though is reported so thoroughly and is so egregious as caught cheating reading based on all of the reporting that you guys have done that has resulted in a Pulitzer Prize, that it seems to me that we're headed toward inevitably a dissatisfaction with how punitive this is going to be because of how handcuffed they are by the collective bargaining agreement. Because to me, this is something that has been reported with such detail that it should result in one of the biggest penalties we've ever seen in sports. And it doesn't seem like that's what's going to happen.

I mean, the reporting suggests that this is the most vast and absurd cap circumvention scheme, not just in the NBA, but in American sports.

According to everything that I've, I've seen, this, this kind of cheating is so egregious that I'm almost certain at this point, given how delayed this is and what you just mentioned about Toronto being the one that's involved with trading for him, suggests that he's not going to get into very much trouble at all. And I'm not sure how much they can penalize the Clippers but based on your reporting, I do. What is the greatest, uh, punishment that a team has ever gotten? Is Donald Sterling losing his team the greatest punishment that there has been in basketball?

Minnesota and Joe Smith, they were penalized pretty heavily, weren't they?

But 5 first-round picks does not hold a candle to— they took the team away from you.

They were also penalized.

The greatest penalty for cheating that there's ever been across sports, when you guys think of a league coming down on somebody, uh, Adam Silver made his initial reputation on being able to replace David Stern, made that reputation because of how loud he was in taking the team away from Donald Sterling. This should be something that enters that realm. Like, in terms of— I mean, one of them is optics. The other one is cheating. Like, Donald Sterling— what Donald Sterling did looked bad, sounded bad, was bad. Wasn't cheating. Like, was it this overt of a cheating scandal?

It wasn't cheating at all. There was no material advantage that Donald Sterling got by being a racist. He was just racist, and they got him out of there. But it kind of highlights what we're talking about. It's about the optics, right? It's what's the decision that we can make that makes the stakeholders, the other 29 teams, and then whatever fans are actually locked in on this, which is debatable, feel satisfied. It's not about actually meting out justice because The reality is, if we were to treat this and go beyond Article 13, which is very specific on how you can punish people— that's why I told you guys earlier, Kawhi's not going to get suspended. They can't suspend him. It's not allowed, right, for this infraction. The, the reality is this: the one thing you don't want to do is have Steve Ballmer on the outside of the NBA circle. That guy is a massive asset to the NBA, to its, uh, goals, especially at this time, now more than ever. Where we got one guy who doesn't want to keep the hotel room for the team masseuse. You got another guy in New York like, we won a championship.

Guess what? I don't want to spend any money. Like, we are at a time where we need good PR. And Steve Ballmer, this thing aside, for the most part is like the NBA mascot.

This thing aside.

But he's good.

This thing aside.

He's good PR for the league.

Not anymore. He's not.

You don't want him on the outside. That's the last thing you want.

What the NBA definitively does not want is litigation with Steve Ballmer. You know, there are versions in which the NBA— and I've fantasized about which day and how they would do it— and the NBA could do this in which they announce a massive punishment, but the response from the Clippers is, 'And we are going to sue you,' or, 'And we are going to take you to arbitration,' which is possible. The NBA, if you take all the optics, Dan, as the real story here, which it is, right? What am I saying when I'm saying they got the All-Star Game, they got the draft pick, they got to potentially trade Kawhi before any punishment happens. That's all in the spirit of optics. And the optics would become so much worse if it's the league versus one of their owners, let alone the owner with the most money in all of American sports. And the other thing when it comes to optics that I want to remind people of is that early in all of this— this was after the September 10th NBA owners meeting— Adam Silver said the following, and I'll just quote it here: I'd frankly never heard of the company aspiration before, and I never heard a whiff of anything around an endorsement deal with Kawhi or anything around engagement with the Los Angeles Clippers.

So it was all new to me, end quote. What happens next? We get a copy of the founding sponsorship agreement, the $300 million document that Aspiration had with the Clippers, which, quote, must be submitted prior to its execution for NBA approval and shall not be effective or enforceable until it is expressly approved by the NBA, end quote. So there's a bit of a conflict there. And then what happens next? This is now mid-September. Adam Silver is interviewed on stage by Front Office Sports And what he says is actually, hold on, I have heard about Aspiration before. Quote, I said I never heard of it. I meant in the context of the accusations here. I was certainly aware of the brand. End quote. There is a phenomenal and hilarious and unsettling inconsistency when it comes to how the NBA itself has talked about this story. Which all indicates to me that they clearly want this to go away.

What's the point of having rules at all if Amin's going to sit here and make the argument that, yes, the most egregious thing you have ever heard proven that an owner has done to get around a salary cap that is collectively bargained by players and teams alike so that no one can do this, the most egregious crime that an owner has done to flagrantly, allegedly break the rules, "Ah, we like having him around. It's good optics. We don't want to upset him.

We don't want to go to court against a guy who has cheated this flagrantly, this obviously, allegedly." You remember the Dark Knight trilogy, and in the second one, Harvey Dent, who is Gotham's prince of a DA, and he locked up all the bad guys and all that stuff, and then he gets scarred, and then he kidnaps Commissioner Gordon's son and almost kills him and all that stuff, and then he dies. And then they come back in the third one and they've created the Dent Act, which is basically, Harvey was murdered by thugs and criminals and we need to continue his legacy. And the Dent Act in and of itself, in execution, is a very good thing. It's a good thing for the safety of Gotham, but it's built on a lie that Harvey Dent was a good dude. When at the end he wasn't. What Gotham needed— they needed to believe in Harvey Dent. That was more important than the truth of knowing that Harvey Dent was a guy who kidnapped a child and all that stuff. But my point is this, Dan, my point is this: I'm with you, this is egregious. I hate what people call it sloppy or not a big deal, everyone does it.

Like, no, this was sophisticated and it was deep and it was absolutely planned and executed, uh, in my belief, right? Having said that, to make an example out of Steve Ballmer by tossing him aside in a world where we have Tom Dundon and Jim Dolan and all these other guys that don't— we don't want those guys. I don't think that is good for the long-term vision of the league. It is better to believe that Steve Ballmer is a good and kind soul than to cast him aside and let Bane and the rest of those guys.

Am I Bane?

You are. You're reading the letter. You're reading the letter right now.

Can I add something, Dan? 'Cause I think one thing that's underrated, something that I've been shocked by in the last 9, 10 months of reporting this story, is that I think fans do care. I don't want to make it entirely about the pesky moralizing journalists on one side and the fans who don't care at all on the other side, and somewhere the NBA has to figure out how do we speak out of both sides of our mouths to both groups. I think right now sports is in a place where fans are smarter than we think. They can smell when there's something happening behind the scenes that is not truthful. They can smell when very wealthy people are doing things that they don't want to disclose to the average Joe.. And the idea here is not that, man, I love the salary cap as a moral instrument. The idea is, do rules even matter anywhere? And I think we're at a moment where part of the virality and the impact of the story is because the fans, let alone the coaches and the GMs and the owners, all whom I've heard from to shocking degrees, it's the fans who are like, they're They're taking from us.

They're not treating us like we have any amount of intelligence. They treat us like we're stupid. Meditieren, Yoga, Joggen, nichts entspannt mich. Echt?

Mich entspannt meine Steuer total.

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Wow.

Und das ist einfach?

Klar, die macht fast alles automatisch.

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Dan Levitar.

DJ Laz is playing Gulo in the back of my pitbull.

Here's Dave Demacek and he's like, hey guys, Pittsburgh, uh, all right. Everybody's like, who the fuck is this guy?

Dave Demacek.

He goes, what TV's the Penguins game on? Who the hell is this guy?

This is the Dan Levitar Show. The salary cap is not a moral thing, but the salary cap is something that exists because San Antonio and OKC could not compete with everyone else if Ballmer just wanted the players. Ballmer could buy his way into the game, couldn't buy his way into the game, so he allegedly cheated in a way that's really flagrant, like offensive to anybody who cares about the rules. This is a very easy rule. This rule makes it so that the richest owner can't do this to the poorest owner. And Bomber allegedly, well, I don't have to do it that way. I'm gonna do all of this so that I don't have to do it that way. And I can't even imagine how people would be right now on this story if it wasn't Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers who didn't win anything, but it was Mahomes and the Chiefs, or it was some— it was somewhere else where there's a salary cap and you're like, wait a minute, you can't do that.

Well, Dan, the example I gave, I think in the first episode we did, Pablo, I said if this were Jim Dolan We'd all be jumping off the top rope with the People's Elbow. We— the league would probably be throwing alley-oops to us about this, right? But it's because— part of it is because it's the Clippers, not quite the brand name, right? But the other part of it is because Steve Ballmer is generally regarded as one of the quote-unquote good guys. And so that's what makes this so much harder for the league to adjudicate. If it was someone who was an easy target— if it was a Robert Sarver, They would have buried him underneath, uh, Bathgate Prison.

They did. This has been an interesting segment to see play out, given the Pulitzer winners here that have been the driving force behind this. It's like that scene in Jurassic Park. This is unbelievable. Brought the two archaeologists in to be on my side, and the only guy that's on my side is a bloodsucking lawyer. Why is Dan on an island?

The idea that you guys are making it about the criminal instead of the crime is just misguided. Like, this is not— this is not about the criminal, it's about the crime. It doesn't matter who's committing the crime. It does not. I understand that it was easy for Silver to get Donald Sterling gone because all of the other owners wanted him gone, but what are we legislating? What's the point of a commissioner applying anything in the realm of judgment or protection of the sport if you're gonna have different rules for the different criminals?

But Dan, it's always been like that. It's the reason why when Draymond Green sneezes and he gets suspended, we're like, "Yeah, because it wasn't someone— it wasn't Steph doing it, it was you!" That's life though, Dan.

Like, it's about the criminal who does it.

There's people that vary.

There's two laws of, you know, series of justice for people that have means and people that don't.

Yeah, but in this particular case, the rule that is being fractured is the one that's meant to create equality. Like, the very rule is in place so that all of these people are equal no matter the amount of money they have. You guys are telling me, well, one of these guys is good for the league even though he— this is the— go ahead and give it to me. Go ahead and give me the other example you guys have as ironclad as this one of an owner behaving this poorly to fracture the rules. Give it to me.

Glen Taylor, Minnesota.

It's not as bad as this. It's not as bad as this because Joe Smith isn't this player. Joe Smith wasn't wanted the way this player was, and Bill Balmer got this player by simply allegedly cheating. Our tone is so good right now.

Yes.

What about the indictments, Pablo?

Oh man. Okay. So, gosh. One more thing on Kawhi and then we'll get to the gambling stuff because the rabbit hole is vast on the gambling stuff. I think that when it comes down to why the rule matters, why the crime versus the criminal matters, I just think that the NBA, Adam Silver— the question I often think about is like, what would David Stern do? And I don't think David Stern would have handled it like this. Some have mused that David Stern would have assassinated me by now, which I also think is fair. He might have handled it that way.

1000%.

But the whole thing of is Adam Silver beholden to the money in a way that has sacrificed everything that's made the NBA special is an active conversation. That is worth having. Um, Adam Silver has looked to money in every regard at the expense of what you could argue are the core principles of the sport. And the whole idea that you can't even punish the owner because you're afraid of him is a defiance of the entire job description of what a commissioner does. Of course, we can be cynical and say, but he has all the money. But the point is that sports is supposed to be different. If sports is going to be like the federal government, like frankly the United States in the era when Steve Ballmer, noted good guy, was running Microsoft in the largest anti-competitive scandal at that point in the history of capitalism, when he was truly anti-competitive there in ways that the federal government were, were trying to fight. If sports is just going to be that, if the rules truly don't matter, then what we get is what we deserve. And maybe that makes me sound like Bane, but we will deserve everything when sports becomes worse because we can't even enforce the rules anymore.

Now, Pablo, do it again. This time, stand on top of a car.

Yeah.

The indictment.

So speaking of sports becoming worse and sports needing to figure out how to police itself, look, we did in July of 2025 a whole episode that was about Malik Beasley. And what happened today is that the federal government, the Eastern District of New York, which notably the NBA does not control— a lot of the subtext that's uniting all of these stories is that we report some stuff, we have some research and intelligence that suggests that things are of interest to the federal government. That is the case of Aspiration. That is the case of the gambling scandal. The NBA is not quite in the loop on what the federal government likes to do now. And of course, the federal government today is a wacky place. So God knows that I don't know exactly what they're doing either. But what they announced today is that Malik Beasley has been charged as part of this increasingly sprawling ring that has indicted Ed Davis, the former NBA player, a current NBA agent, a number of other people that are new on the record. And the notion is there are several games that the federal government has identified in which Malik Beasley was fixing his performance via unders and overs to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And the question we posed a year ago was, how is it— that Malik Beasley is wrapped up in this? How is it that he was named before the federal government, before Shams Charania, before ESPN, before anybody? How is he named on Twitter by a random user as watch out for this guy, he's going to be wrapped up in this too? How was that Twitter user ahead of everybody? And what we ultimately researched and reported was it might have to do with the fact that that Twitter user is connected to the Jontay Porter criminal group that has also now been charged and arrested. And is Jontay Porter and Malik Beasley— are they connected? And what this suggests is that they very well may be, because the depth of this problem is as vast as the incentive structure that has led NBA players who need money. Malik Beasley doing this for $2,000, allegedly, according to these text exchanges, which are crazy. It's because the incentives of sports have now changed.

Ed Davis. Uh, I was not aware that that name was involved with any of this. Uh, can you be— put it on the poll, please, Juju, @LeBittardShow. Can you be a truly champion athlete if your name is Ed? Intimidating to others if your name is Ed?

Ed McCaffrey.

Ed Belfour.

So no?

Perez.

You said that one already.

I'm talking about a different one.

So no, Eduardo. He's Eduardo, pero Eddie. No, just Ed though. Eddie, maybe Eddie. Eddie might be intended.

Eddie Jones.

But just Ed. If I get—

Ed Reed.

If—

ooh, came over.

That's it, that's it. Well done.

Good night everyone.

Cody, a sniper from the back room. Ed Reed. Excellent work by you.

The greatest ever.

Do it.

You got me. You got me because I would not normally be intimidated by an Ed of any kind. I would indeed downgrade your athletic excellence if your name is Ed. But you've got me on Ed Reed and I'm going to have to put down my sword and I'm going to be embarrassed by the putting down.

Ed Sheeran, James.

That doesn't really work. I don't think anyone calls him Ed. I don't think— Ed. Capital E-D. Ed. No, I don't. I don't think that's something that we do just out of respect. A curiosity here, uh, as Draymond Green opts out of his contract and now the whispers start again on LeBron James and the Warriors evidently trying to make moves. Is this rumor? Is this real? What is real as it relates to LeBron James and what is real as it relates to Draymond Green opting out when Steve Kerr has signed up for 2 more years? And it seems like Steve Kerr and Draymond Green are going to ride out the rest of whatever this is together.

Well, first of all, we got an update from Draymond Green himself saying there will be an update on the Draymond Green Show. And you know what he used as a GIF to kind of announce this? The Bat logo in the sky. It's a very Batman Monday, folks. Lots of Batman today. Mexican Batman.

We got a Mexican Batman.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh, do we have a—

oh, do we?

Yeah.

And also, was Robin gay? Yeah, you got the Pulitzer.

Find that one out.

Yeah.

Is Robin a superhero, yes or no?

Oh.

Robin.

Dick Grayson or Jason Todd?

No, he's not a superhero. He's not Robin. Robin is, uh, not all sidekicks are superheroes.

There you go.

Is the Robin relationship one that Amin has suggested was grooming by Batman?

He was rescued from like a family of acrobats, Pablo.

He was a circus freak child that Bruce Wayne said, hey, come live in my billionaire mansion and I'll take care of you.

You just got to wear these tights.

Uh-huh. So those pretty legs off.

LeBron James.

So this is from Sham Charania when he reported that Draymond Green is opting out. Quote, the opt-out comes days after the Warriors said they expected Green to pick up his $27.7 million option. Instead, Green delivers Golden State time and space to pursue Anthony Davis and convince LeBron James to join Steph Curry, Green, and his old Lakers championship teammate in the Bay. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the basketball version of The Expendables.

Justice League was right there for you.

Oh no, I like The Expendables better.

It's been a Batman show.

Oh, that's a good point.

Uh, Zazz, do you think that LeBron James is going to be mobile?

Mobile meaning I think he's going to leave the Lakers, or he's going to be an athletic player? That's a fair question.

It is. I'm on your side.

Good point.

By that, mobile was a weird way to describe—

owed.

Yeah.

Got it.

On the move. Oh, okay.

Thank you. No one's confused about that.

Got her ass.

It feels like it's trending toward him going to Golden State. Yes, it does. I don't think it's coming here, but it feels like it's trending toward him going to go to the Warriors.

I said this in 2024, the most perfect basketball I've ever seen. Was LeBron James and Steph Curry just running circles around everyone. And I said, if we ever have an opportunity for these two guys to play— I never root for outcomes or whatever, but this one felt like we owe it to basketball. These guys need to play together. I did not ever consider that Anthony Davis would be in the equation as well. Guys, hey, young people, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, you might have to take a seat for a little bit. The old boys are back.

When talking about if a player is going to switch teams in free agency, have they ever been described as being mobile?

The nickname, the Old Boys, is truly terrible. The old boys are back. Like, that's just a terrible sports nickname. I don't know what you're trying to convey there other than age. Not much mobility. You're not, you're not conveying mobility with the old boys as a nickname.

I forgot all about Jimmy Butler, who, by the way, did you see him at the Columbia game?

I thought I could cosplay as a Columbian.

Holy cow. Jimmy Butler too. I forgot about that. Look at that. Amin is declaring the Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Steph Curry Warriors. He's declaring them as a legitimate threat to OKC and San Antonio.

The Old Boys.

Old Boys is a terrible nickname.