Transcript of Pablo Torre's Kawhi Leonard-Daktronics Paper Trail | Hour 1 New

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DJ Pickett's not budging. He is not budging off of the number that was promised to him. Quote, I've worn the number my whole life since I was 4 years old. It's the number I was promised. I wish Jayden the best. Good player, did a real good job here. So that's all.

We touched on this yesterday, but it really is crazy that Brian Kelly made a promise that Brian Kelly himself didn't keep. And Lane Kiffin, who famously does not keep promises, is all about keeping Brian Kelly's promise.

That's right.

That Brian Kelly did not keep.

That's right, that's right. I mean, it's, it's a mess over there in Bat— I mean, I, I, I feel like Jaden Daniels is just getting really poor advice. And I know, I know there's this thing out there right now where like his mom is controlling him. I don't think it's very fair. Maybe that is the case, I don't know. I know there's a lot of jokes out there.

I mean, I would like to say right now in front of God and country, yesterday I was very harsh talking about Gene Daniels and specifically talking about his circle of advisors, whomever they might be. And you guys point out, well, it's hard when the mom is one of them. And I said, man, that happens all the time. Family happens all the time. And then I went home and I did some research about Gene Daniels, about his circle of advisors, namely his mom. And I'm here to say I was wrong. She's right. And anyone who says she's wrong, I will fight you. I will fight you physically. I will fight you verbally. You will not besmirch the good counsel that this wise woman has bestowed upon her son.

How is it good counsel?

Google, great counsel is Jaden Daniels, right?

How is it great counsel?

It's, uh, look, man, she's got the plan and the vision, and we're sitting around here like doofuses, like, oh, you shouldn't do that. I, doing my research, I was like, oh, she's absolutely absolutely.

What's going on?

Are you doing a thing?

What's going on?

I'm dead serious, man. It's all right to say you're wrong. It's all right to admit you've made a mistake.

Look, I'm willing to say I'm wrong, but let me run a Google image. Uh, Jaden Daniels came out with a statement, and this thing got more bizarre yesterday. You would think that all the optics of this were bad, and it was not a good look for— no one's benefiting from this. Everyone looks petty.

Who looks the worst? Jaden Daniels, right?

Jaden Daniels.

Because who looks the least bad?

What?

StubHub had a funny tweet.

Joe Burrow.

Yeah, Joe Burrow. Lane Kiffin, oddly enough, because he's a man of his word all of a sudden. Hey, Dave, this is a football story.

I love it.

And, you know, first of all, I mean, I knew it was a man of honor and now he just Jerry Orbach'd it. You know, any man, you know, who's right with the man in the mirror knows when he's wrong, he says he's wrong, like Orbach says to Swayze at the end of Dirty Dancing. So I appreciate that. I'm not sure of exactly what Amin is saying Jaden Daniels' mom is right about. I do have to say, as Devlin Yamashita, a little bit here, there is, you know, we're glossing over, and it's sort of like the mistake of Jaden Daniels is sort of insisting on a nickname he's given himself, and that's the ugly part of it. It's like, but I want this number to be more esteemed than it is, or my wearing of this number to mean more than apparently it means to other people. However, that, you know, that lore of a certain number at certain schools, and even in the NFL, '88 with the Cowboys, but '55 with USC and otherwise, there is a prestige attached to that number. And I get spiritually defending that and wanting to perpetuate it. It's just like I say, you can't be Peyton Manning in the twilight of your career and being like, no, I'm the sheriff and everybody call me the sheriff from now on.

Like, this No one buys it.

Jaden Daniels are like, I don't know, he's walking it back already, but Jaden Daniels doing the thing where I'm not focused on this, I'm focused on training camp, the Washington Commanders. That's number one on my mind right now. Like, it just, it's funny to me that it seems that he and maybe his people, they're surprised that there was such a negative reaction to this.

But it ends with, I trust that this can all be resolved. But he's holding his line, and DJ Pickett's certainly holding the line.

Oh, well, when he says he hopes it could be resolved, he's saying, I hope they give me what I want. Yeah, that's what that means. Mother knows the resolution.

Mother knows best, guys. Stop, stop fighting this. She's smart. We're dumb.

What are you getting at, Amin? What, what is this that you're, you're doing this? I know you're being strange about this.

I know, I know. No, I know what he's getting at. I saw the—

well, you're getting that.

What are you getting at? I saw the photo.

Ah.

I saw the photo.

The photo of the contract where they made the promise?

No. The photo on the field.

Which field?

Commander's Field.

Look, man, all I'm saying is sometimes we don't have all the information, OK? She clearly has more information than we do. Now, I volunteer to go find out that information. I mean, if you guys really want to get to the bottom of this, I'll get on a flight. I'll go to D.C. right now.

You are a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

And Edward R. Murrow.

Congrats.

Got one of those. You guys see that?

What happened?

Do we get this one too, or this one's just for you guys?

Oh, we share it.

All right.

You guys are part owners, right?

No, only if you're full-time.

Pablo, Pablo Torre is going to join us coming up later on here in the show as a new episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out dropped last night. It's good stuff. More on Kawhi Leonard and Daktronics. So we'll talk to Pablo coming up in a little bit. Dave, there's, uh, there's a lot of traffic now on our way into work in the mornings, and that can solely be attributed to school.

You gonna be okay about it?

Yes, I'm fine.

What's going on with you?

You know I'm recovering from being sick.

Yeah, but it's a thing with you.

That's right, it's a thing. No, it predates you having a cold.

No, it predates you being sick.

No, I'm very phlegmy.

You occasionally, like, get choked up by your—

Yeah, when I have a cold.

No, but it happens before the cold.

Jay Lucas here with us signed a 5-year extension a couple of weeks ago.

You're so happy for him. You're getting choked up.

Bye.

You were fully prepared to just power through and not take a break to clear your throat. Yeah. And that was the beginning of a long thought. I came to your rescue there, pal.

There you go.

It sounded worse than it did in my head.

No, really.

It was bad. All right.

All right. There you go. All right.

There you go.

Dave, I don't know if you're aware, but school is back and that has led to more traffic. But there are other things that happen when school is back. You're annoyed about certain aspects of school being back. Am I right about this?

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm annoyed by the existence of school. I don't care for the man trying to dictate to me what populates my brain. And nevertheless, I'm required by law, or I was, to attend school. And even worse, despite my proclamations when I was a child that I would reduce— at worst, when I took over, I would reduce the school week from 5 down to 4. And now it's the opposite. It's even worse. School now used to be Labor Day, the worst holiday on the calendar, because labor is work. It's a celebration. It's a holiday devoted to the man, to celebrating the man. I'm not, I'm not a sucker. I'm not going to work on Labor Day and celebrate the man. And as the man is always up to, he's trying to seduce you, trying to distract you like you're some sort of a fool. But I ain't no fool, because on the other side of Labor Day was always school or work or winter. And as a reminder For all the gifts that football gives us, its greatest is providing a distraction from the grim reality of having to go back to school, and in most parts of the country, it getting cold outside and it dark early.

But at least we have football on Monday night and Thursday night and on the weekend to distract us and to keep, uh, to make life worth living. But now the man has gone to try and offset all this has now moved up the calendar and is sending these poor kids to school in August. Fair, right?

Did you ever, did you ever pull off the move? Like, you're saying how when you became in charge you would make it a 4-day school week. Did you ever, did you ever live the dream where when you went to college and you make your own schedule where you had more days no school than days of school. Like, one year I did the move where I, I had all my classes Tuesday and Thursday, so I had 5 days no school, 2 days school. I thought I was gonna be living the dream. The result was those 2 days were way too long. But I tried that once. I tried to live the dream. Did you— like, did anyone else ever do that where you try and make your schedule—

made you emotional—

you try and make your schedule where you have less days of school than you do have school.

That's a play on for me. We're being too hard on him now.

No, that's not a play on.

That's not a play on.

To answer your question, yes. No, it's not a play on. But yeah, I, I stacked Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was the best.

But the days were so long when you would do that.

Yeah, but I liked school.

Oh, good.

I was a dork.

I still am.

Liked school.

Nerd. Liked school.

No, I liked my classes. I am. I'm, I'm actively a dork.

I still like learning.

I think about it all the time. I, like, there, if there ever comes a time in my life where I have enough free time and I'm not working 18 hours a day.

You want to go back to school, like get another degree or something?

Not even that.

I just want to enroll in a couple of classes that interest me.

Vomit.

I'd love to learn again. There's so many times, so many classes I look back at, I'm like, man, I wish I would have paid more attention. I'd love to learn about that.

Jeremy, you know what's funny? That's actually happened to me where I realized, man, I wish I'd paid attention. I really need that information right now. But then I realized something very astute, which is this: you can go right now to call— no, not even YouTube. You can go to college. You got to find where the class is, but you can look it up. Go and sit there in the class, and you can sit on the lecture.

I have thought about exactly—

no, the only thing you can't do is you won't get a grade.

You won't get a grade.

You can't take the test because when they try to grade you, like, yo, you're not in this class.

You can take the test, but take it home, have somebody else grade it.

But I don't want to take it.

Stop looking at me like that, dog.

I just want to go and learn.

But that's my point. Like, you just sit in these classes, sit on this, you could get a whole college education for free. You don't have any proof of it.

This can't be legal.

Of course it's legal.

It's like legal until a million people start doing it, and then they're like, oh, there's too many people in this class.

Okay, so is your memory of college is that there were too many people showing up?

And the way you're describing it, it's like anyone can go. Yeah, like now anyone that would get a lift—

you've never brought like a friend with you to your class?

Me?

Yeah. No, in college I did. I did that before.

That would involve him going to class. Like to bring someone else to— in order to have a plus one, you have to actually be there for the plus to even kick in.

No, I mean, like, I mean, you guys, you guys went to your classes in college. I literally went to less than half. I guess I'm making it sound like I'm proud of that fact, but I mean, you're talking about aligning your schedule so you had days off. Like my solution, if I needed time away, was to just not attend class.

I'm in the record books. For how many classes I dropped at FAU. Like all-time records we're talking. Just like where like you get a few weeks in and you're like, this isn't going well.

But your parents must have been so mad at you because you get to a point where—

That's right.

You only have a certain number of classes you could drop before you don't get the refund.

No, I know. Yeah, my mom not happy.

And you're just still just dropping like you didn't care.

This was a dark time for me.

This is not a good class for me to take. I gotta get out.

Down, Levitar!

For 5 minutes I was watching everyone just like, nope, not letting you in, not letting you in. So when I got up there, I had to say something and I said it. Cheaters never prosper. Chris Cody, my buddy, was saying, not today. Yeah, but you're not today. I think that was what he was adding. Yeah, I'm telling you, the response I got from this guy, what I said was amazing. Cheaters never prosper. This guy yelled as angry as he could.

I ain't cheating.

This is the Dan Levatar Show.

When you said this is a dark time for me, I just imagine Chris would like long stringy hair in front of his face— Goth! Yeah... Dum dum dum dumb dumb dump?

Dumb dumb dumb dumb duh-duh-da-doo-hooo!

So wait these are good times now for Chris Cody?!

This my heyday right now until you jump through 500 yards shit coming out clean this that's it we're experiencing Cody now "Let me yeah let me in!" What does even mean there was going to dark time I mean, just in terms of maturity, he was listening to a lot of Dashboard.

This is like 19-year-old Chris, okay? Living on my own for the first time, just the least productive. My freshman year.

So you're one of those kids who they—

who finally, like, you know, he left the house, he left the nest, and then I was just like, I can just stay in my dorm and play video games and no one will know. I could just like tell my mom, yeah, class was good.

So you're saying you almost— you almost fought So you're saying you almost flunked out of school?

I got—

So I die happy.

I think I got one class credit my first semester ever of college. I took like the full classes and I either failed or dropped all of them except one. And then I got my act together. I finally like figured it out. But that first year was a culture shock.

I had that awakening when I transferred to UF.

From Santa Fe?

No, I never went to Santa Fe. I had that my first semester that I got put on probation immediately. After my first semester at UF.

That's a dork.

Community college. Yeah.

I got put on honors college probation. I had a 3.1 instead of a 3.2, and so it was really disappointing. There was a B- in a class, and so I had to get straight A's the next semester or else I couldn't be one of the mentors in the honors college the next year. I was a dork.

Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it. No, I got put on the type of probation where we're gonna throw you out of school if you don't fix this.

Were you part of the square root club? You guys know about the Square Root Club? No. This is a Georgia Tech thing because it said the Square Root Club is when your GPA, the square root of your GPA is higher than what your GPA is. So this is a math thing, guys. I forgot. I'm not in a math class. So if you take the square root of something that's less than 1, it's actually bigger than the original number.

So were you in the Square Root Club?

No, actually I wasn't. I thought about that. I was like, was I? No. I was close though.

Yeah. Sorry, I can't be perfect.

So you're telling me I can just go to this cafeteria cafeteria whenever I want and eat the food. I'm in on this.

Yeah.

Oh, I love the—

I mean, you got the cap, living dorm life, but you could—

look, you know what proves the point? Look at Tashay, is in the exact same spot as Cody is, as Zaslo is, as Amin is.

I work—

we've all landed in the exact same spot, and Tashay is puffing his chest out about how he had 3.2 and I love going to my classes and I worked hard, and Chris Cody is bragging about the fact, or is stunned by the fact that nobody gave a crap where he was when he was 19 years old. He was free to do whatever he wants. The point is, school is for fools. The man is trying to fill your head with a bunch of jive. Witness the fact, and by the time you're the third grade, you know your multiplication tables, right? That's all you need. Like, that's something like, do you know how to read? You know how to write? But no, the man decides, like, I'm gonna fill your head with, with a bunch of nonsense that has no application for real life. Once you get into long division, okay, maybe you wanna make a case for long division and the virtues of it.

Fractions are important.

This thing with like, this thing about like, now we're gonna go to, now you have to do a year of algebra, and I don't even know what calculus is 'cause I never reached that far ahead in the math world, and my brain is just fine as a result for its absence. Who gives a crap? Let me tell you something. Here's a list to make, Chris Cody, future Chris Codys. Go on, feel better about themselves. Oh, you got it.

Oh, yo, the rat race.

Oh, what's your GPA? Oh, where are you applying? Did you get in? Did you get early, early admit? All that, all that jive. Don't, don't get seduced by that. It's for fools. Like I say, it's for the suckers out there. Yeah, be, be your own person. These are people who did not get a high school diploma. Now understand, now I'm going to give you a list of names to make you feel better. As you consider, do I have to go to class? The answer is no, because these people apparently didn't go to class. These people didn't even graduate high school. You ever heard of Walt Disney? You know about that Walt Disney's ass?

Yeah, I know about that Walt Disney.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no high school diploma. I think he made out okay. How about Richard Branson? You ever heard of Quentin Tarantino? I mean, you know about that Quentin Tarantino?

I heard of that Quentin Tarantino.

All these people, stand-up individuals.

Yep.

Quality guys.

I just want to point out, by the way, you lump me in with Zazz and Chris. I graduated summa cum laude. I have a graduate degree as well. Like, I was—

my point, Chris Cody is, uh, is acknowledging he's an intellectual bum. We're lacking.

I eventually got good, decent grades, okay?

I'm just talking about my first year. 14 feet away from you, it basically— you're the exact same person. What, what is— what is your summa cum laude gotten you that it, that it didn't get Chris Cody? You're standing next to each other.

Career in the NBA?

I'm not looking for specifics. I was being rhetorical there. Dave! Al Pacino. Peter Jackson. Ever heard of Sidney Poitier?

Oh, they call me Mr. Tibbs.

Hold on, but hold on, Dave. All the people you're naming are people who have talent.

Thank you.

Look, you know, talent is standing to your left by 14 feet. His name is Chris Cody.

That's right.

He's in the same place you are right now.

Showman.

I mean, how about Simon Cowell, Billy Joel, heavyweight champion more than once, George Foreman, Billy Joel, Fitty. Yeah, Billy Joel, Kirk Korian, Jim Clark. I don't know who that is. David Karp. These are apparently Silicon Valley legends. Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Oh, hello.

She dips beneath the lasers.

Uma Thurman, Beatrix Kiddo.

Uh, not even having a high school diploma.

She still killed Bill though, didn't she? Uh, Gisele Bündchen, the former Miss Brady, Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Mary J. Blige, and to close it out, Seth Rogen. How about that? And then how about these guys? They didn't graduate college: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell. I mean, listen, bottom line, if you want to go and waste your time learning what the man thinks you need to learn, Go ahead and have at it. It ain't going to make a difference when you get on the other side of it.

Jeremy, did you watch the Field of Dreams game yesterday?

I actually didn't. I had a busy night, but I did see some of the clips and it was kind of awesome. Like, I, I loved seeing all the different examples of dads having catches with their sons.

So it was the third ever Field of Dreams game. They hadn't had one in a few years. They actually renovated and expanded the facility and the whole deal. And I, I like seeing what they're gonna do, like any special surprises. Like the first game, they had Kevin Costner come out and throw the first pitch. Okay, that's very cool. And the second game, you remember, they had Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. walk through the cornfields before the game started. That's very cool. And apparently last night they had a bunch of legends walking through the cornfields onto the game. Like, that, that, that's good stuff. I like that. And if you're watching, uh, you know, the video team putting up here, you got a bunch of guys. I know there was C.C. Sabathia and Mike Schmidt, Paul Molitor. Uh, you had a lot of, a lot of fun guys.

So the, the appeal to do this every year is, uh, it's gonna be different guys coming out of the corn, you know, because, uh, you know, it was really cool the first couple of times.

Look at Fudge Rodriguez. I do love the idea of, like, if them coming out, them coming out today being like, oh, you Notice you didn't see Jeff Kent because he got lost in there. Like, you know, they got confused and they're like, oh, Jeff Kent was supposed to walk out but he got confused.

Looks great. Larry Walker. Cal Ripken found the secret to aging. That guy's always looked 45 years old.

The Paul Rudd. Yeah, you pull the Paul Rudd, you look old early, and then no matter how old you look, you're always going to look, oh, pretty good for you.

That's not Paul Rudd, that's Sparky Anderson. That's what you're getting at. That's the reference you want to make. Angela Lansbury.

Jim Leland as Agent Beltran, the handsome devil, and has stayed a handsome devil.

Larry Walker, that came out of the—

yeah, Steve Martin also.

Do you think that MLB told the guys, hey, don't take your phone out and record walking out, it's going to take away from this a little bit? You got like these old guys like walking out with their phones out. It's like, just be in the moment, guys. We'll send you a video of this.

Tommy looks like he kept walking to the Florida Keys.

Is that, uh, is that Andre Dawson I'm seeing back there in, in behind there? Is that the Hawk?

That's the Crime Dog far left.

I was gonna say, is that Crime Dog?

Come on, man.

Fred from the Tom Amanski instructional video.

That's right, back to back to back AAU National Champions.

This is the instructional video that gets results.

That's a good crew they got there. So last night, yes, you had the Field of Dreams game. Uh, Jeremy, I— you, you've been, you've been bugging me about this, so I'm gonna give you a chance. This is your chance to shine here, Jeremy. Jeremy's got a stat of the day for us here, so let's do some stat of the day. He has lots of baseball.

I have a whole bunch of them.

He's— we're not doing a whole bunch of them, but I can't write them off. I'm gonna give you a chance to shine here.

Start of the day, start of the day, it is here. Start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, it is here. Start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day. It is the start of the day.

Take it away, Jeremy.

Over his last 60 games, Cal Raleigh has a batting average of .137. He had more homers last year than he has hits this year.

What's the deal there?

61 home runs last year, 51 hits so far this season.

Craziest drop-off I've ever seen from a player that drastically. Like, we saw Chris Davis—

he's not a major league level player, right?

No, he's Truly one of the worst players to ever play.

What are they gonna do?

I am wondering though, Jeremy, playing him, I haven't watched many of his at-bats. Is it one of those things where he's hitting the ball hard and it's like just an unlucky season for an entire season? That can't have that.

Oh, we used to ask, or is he just lost?

I, I don't think it's that. I think, I think, um, he didn't shake the hand of Randy Arozarena and the baseball gods said you're gonna have the worst season ever.

Well, but how? Okay, so the year before last, like years, uh, he was good.

He was consistently improving. Like, he's a— he's always been a good player. Last year was an aberration.

He existed before last season.

Yeah.

Good to know.

See, baseball is weird like that where, you know, with basketball in the NBA, if you're a star player, you're going to get better and better every year until you start to get old and you're not, you know, then you start to decline. But like, there's no reason a player, a player in his prime would be worse on the next year, the next year, whatever. In Major League Baseball, it happens all the time where a player— stop looking at me like that.

You're on the line.

No, I'm totally fine on the line. I'm very okay.

Take that next step.

In Major League Baseball, it happens all the time where a player has a great year and then the next year he's not even close to as good as that. Huh. But there aren't that many that many examples where a player is a good player in the middle of the prime of his career, huh, and he just drops off and he's a miserable player.

It's almost like, I don't know, you look at the circumstances of their season and then those circumstances change, and then the next season they're not quite the same guy.

Baseball gods. Can I give you another one that's kind of equally crazy?

Meaning what?

Like, what are the circumstances?

Well, I don't know, you know, maybe, maybe I work out at a certain kind of gym and now I don't work out at that gym anymore. You know, in little circumstances, maybe, maybe I take my vitamins. I don't take my vitamins anymore.

You know, I mean, he had 100 RBIs the year before.

It's not like he was a bad hitter.

He had 30 home runs 2 years before.

It's starting to happen with quarterback play in the NFL. That drop-off, there, there are like crazy drop-offs in the league. And like when the defense, when the defense is on your ass, well, like sometimes it can be explained with, you know, injury, but like Carson Wentz went from MVP candidate.

I feel like he's the poster child for that.

It looks like Kyler Murray was electric in his first year. I think it's starting to happen a little bit. Like, keep an eye out on Jalen Hurts.

I was gonna say Jaden Daniels, big year for him.

Yeah, it's a big one. We saw it with Robert Griffin, although that could be traced back to injury in the NFL. Like, the, uh, these defenses have shown that they can beat on your ass.

This is not accurate.

Oh no.

Oh wow.

Is that the—

is that Jonah Hill in, uh, cut my life into pieces?

This is my last resort.

It does look like my nose. Damn it.

For the audio audience, there is a side-by-side of, uh, now Chris and college Chris.

There are the dark hands.

Yes, Dave.

Um, I once had the occasion, one of the true, uh, highlights of the last, uh, 20 years doing this, uh, stupid crap for a living, uh, highlight highlights of my career was Kevin Costner. I got to do a one-on-one interview with him when Draft Day was coming out. And at the end—

What a movie.

I had the occasion to say to Kevin Costner, you want to have a catch? And he said, yeah, I'll have a catch. And he and I caught a football. And I declared as we bumped out to commercial, Kevin Costner has a hose. Oh, it was a magical moment.

You're going to regret that. You're going to regret saying that. Dave, I have a new poster boy. I have a new poster boy to replace Carson Wentz. CJ Stroud.

Oh, now I, I think that was a blip, and it's wild.

What, the first year?

No, no. Well, I mean, it is obviously a monster year for him, for his career individually, but it's funny, about a month ago I thought I was, uh, I was super clever to say I don't think anybody's talking about the Houston Texans, but they have a real shot in the AFC this year. Since then, everybody and their mother has declared all in on the Houston Texans. They are the sexy pick to get through the AFC and go to the Super Bowl this year, and it's all dependent on the guy who, as you rightly say, Mike Ryan, the last time we saw him, or the last several times we saw him in the playoffs and at the back end of the regular season, looked like dreck. Looked like, wait, this guy has thrown a football before? Let alone was, you know, was the difference maker down in Houston when he arrived there, and what a steal he was that they that he fell in their lap over Bryce Young and all of that. But yes, he was atrocious. But everybody has collectively, it feels like, turned the corner on him and done that. But before we dig in too much there, I want to go back.

Zazz.

Well, hold on a second.

We got Pablo and Dave. You will not shut up.

Dan Levitar.

Too much with the chef honorific.

Behind.

You know, I'll go, I'll go doctor. I'll go senator. I'll probably go even coach.

Dave Demacek.

But chef is where I draw the line. I'm not calling you chef. I'm calling you Gary.

This is the Dan Levitan Show.

Dave, hold this thought because I could sense it as well. It was going to be very important. Hold this thought, though. Let's bring aboard Pablo Torre, who dropped the 14th episode, a 14-part series right now. In the Kawhi Leonard series. Pablo Torre finds out. Pablo Torre joining us here. Pablo, good to see you. I, I want to tell you, so I, I watched/listened to the most recent episode, and a lot of the episodes are complicated when we're trying to connect the dots. There's a lot of business terms, legalese, and all of that. And I really felt like this most recent episode, which is tying together an email trail between Daktronics and LA Clippers executives about Kawhi Leonard's sponsorship deal with the scoreboard company. I found it so easy to follow along and understand what's going on here. And the point that I'm making is, how is, how is this still ongoing when it's so easy the way that you're pointing out the email chain connecting these people, and we are still out here wondering if anything wrong took place.

I love that endorsement, Zaz, because the goal of this is to make it digestible. Now that we have a second hidden sponsorship deal for which Kawhi Leonard has publicly done nothing, that never got announced, and it has echoes of Aspiration, which was more complicated because it was a federal investigation. And of course, everything that, you know, 10-part series might imply. The thing about this one, though, is that the email chain that we got between the Clippers and Daktronics takes place in the spring of 2021. And so just for people who aren't following all 14 parts, that's before Aspiration. And so everything that you hear in this episode, just understand this is what the Clippers were going through before they did the Aspiration thing. And so in this email chain, just to spell it out, and this is a spoiler alert, a bit. Um, we've been asking the question, how involved were the Clippers in these side deals that Kawhi had with team sponsors with the Clippers? And with Aspiration, Steve Ballmer went on ESPN and said this was independent, we were not involved, we had no oversight. And here in this email chain, you get the Clippers badgering repeatedly Daktronics to try and do something with Kawhi Leonard and Dennis Robertson by name.

And the question that we asked to David Sampson, who like did a zillion of these deals with team partners, is how common is it to have the team basically serve as the parent forcing two kids to hang out here under the guise of like, hey, this is a real deal, so you guys got to do something. Can you please do anything? And what David says and what everyone we've talked to, what they say is that this is not how this goes. He has zero examples where he got in the middle of such a relationship on the side of the sponsor, reminding them, hey, you guys are like paying for something. Do you guys want anything from that? And so the reason I say this, as is, if the question is why is this in writing, the answer might be because one thing about making a fake job, as our reporting indicates, for a player who doesn't intend to do anything, is that you kind of need to convince him to do literally an autograph, a photo, a tweet, just so in the event of an inspection by the NBA or by a journalist, you can claim, look, this is normal, even if it's for multimillion dollars beyond market rate.

This is a thing where he did something. And here we have the backstage effort to try to make that happen, except we don't have proof that he did anything.

Yeah, Pablo, you, you give the example there where you're connecting the dots between Steve Ballmer, who ran to ESPN to sit down with Ramona Shelburne and defend his team and the aspiration deal, or alleged aspiration deal with Kawhi Leonard. And he specifically says, we can introduce our players to sponsors, and at that point we get out. We have nothing to do with anything. And you're You're showing here via email the Clippers aggressively reaching out to Daktronics to continue to work with Kawhi Leonard. So is it fair for me to now officially say we have evidence that Steve Ballmer is a liar?

We have been fact-checking Steve Ballmer for a year and we expose false statements quite often on this show. And so in this case, what Steve Ballmer was speaking about was aspiration, right? Tellingly, Zaz, to answer your question directly. He has not publicly commented on Daktronics. Daktronics does not respond to our request for comment anymore. There was a crisis PR firm that they had hired, which we revealed upon questioning of the, the crisis PR firm that they had actually previously worked for Steve Ballmer. They don't talk to us anymore. So the Clippers have not commented on Daktronics publicly. Daktronics has not. Kawhi and his representatives, we get sort of requests for comment for all of them, and none of them have commented. And so the reason I say it's so important to know That was his position on Aspiration, is that if you went through this entire saga with Daktronics and you wind up in a scenario like Aspiration, where the first thing I reported is that this was known backstage as clear capser convention, but not known publicly, it's a hell of a thing to find yourself in the same quagmire twice in the span of months.

When you know exactly what you needed to avoid this being the quagmire.

So while you're covering one Los Angeles basketball team's ownership situation, there's another one unfolding right before our eyes in— with the Lakers. And this one reeks of just the, the run-of-the-mill backroom deals that we've seen with this administration. All right, so there's a federal investigation, there's an owner that might have spent too much money. Um, from what Ramona told us, it took two phone calls to convince, uh, the existing owner to sell the team, and that owner gifted, uh, Donald Trump a gaudy World Series ring just weeks before, which is pretty funny now, uh, given what we know about how Donald Trump likes shiny things. So what can you make of this without diving as deep because you've been consumed by the other stuff?

I'm, I'm deep in this one too, for the record. I, I continue to investigate. But the thing everybody needs to understand about Mark Walter and every character here is kind of a fascinating extreme character study. Everyone. Mark Walter, of course, Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi, which is all up in this story in ways that I don't think the public fully realizes. Mubarak, Adam Silver. Mubadala, I believe. Yes, that is— that is the— is that— is that— why am I correcting Amin on such pronunciation? This is why he's on. This is why he's a Pulitzer Prize winner. The whole— and Edward R. Murrow Award winner. The whole thing here, Mike, from the beginning, people did not know, and I'm talking about in finance before we can get to the NBA. People did not know how does Mark Walter have all this money? That was an active question in the world of finance. People did not understand Guggenheim Partners. And so when a whistleblower last year leads to the seizing of a cell phone and the now federal scrutiny of internal records, and it gets to this scenario in which it seems, allegedly, according to reporting, the Financial Press, that there is roughly $20 billion of his money tied up up in what appears to be, according to the reporting, effectively round-tripping him using companies he owns to create financial benefits for himself.

We begin to get the answer to the world of finance's curiosity. But the NBA part of this from— I'm starting at the beginning because it's really important to understand the framework. How does he afford the Lakers? And what happens is the the sovereign wealth fund that Amin just named that represents Abu Dhabi, they back Mark Walter to the tune of billions of dollars, and then he goes and gets the team. And so the question I have, right, when it comes to how did, how did, uh, a $12.5 billion transaction happen in 72 hours— I mean, meanwhile, by the way, over the course of 3 months, we have emails in which the Clippers can't get Kawhi Leonard to do anything. How do you make a $12.5 billion transaction appear like this in ways that have never been seen before in in the history of sports. And by the way, in finance also, this is crazy to people. That's 20 times revenue, right? So the question of why was it $12.5 billion? Who benefits, right? It makes me wonder, where is Abu Dhabi in this transaction, which might have concerns about, are they going to get paid back?

Are they on good financial footing with Mark Walter, the person they got into business with? And also who is invested in Abu Dhabi. And so now I want to remind you guys of a couple of things. Where do you think Bob Iger put the new Disney? Abu Dhabi. Where has the NBA been playing preseason games for years? Abu Dhabi. Who has a jersey patch sponsor very prominently on the New York Knicks chest? Abu Dhabi. My point here is that, and by the way, what's the NBA trying to do next year? They're trying to open NBA Europe. Backed by sovereign wealth funds. The Athletic did a piece last— I think it was now months ago, maybe it was last year— in London. There's a meeting and it's Adam Silver and he's trying to stir up interest for financial backing for these new franchises. And the sovereign wealth funds are there. So the question of, does everyone here want to service one particular party in Abu Dhabi? And also, by the way, who's really good friends with the people in charge of that of that entity, of that sovereign wealth fund. Well, I urge you to Google what Jared Kushner's relationship is like with Abu Dhabi.

I encourage you to see what his scope of responsibility is as the guy in charge of Middle East policy for this administration. And then I urge you to see what his brother Josh— who went to college with but don't know personally— why and how Would one brother have a connection to the other in business while he also calls him his best friend in life? And so all of it, I, I'm just saying that's just one angle. That's the one angle, right? There are a zillion others.

Do, do, do, do you know when Pablo's cooking?

Yeah.

When he starts talking like Adam West in the Batman series.

Pablo, one of my favorite things was the LA Times.

Come on, guys.

The LA Times piece that came out and it said, Josh Kushner, lifelong staunch Democrat. Yeah, that—

dude, so that was hilarious. That started coming out with like the private equity stuff, but yeah, the spin, like, ah yeah, he's a lifelong Democrat, and Bob Iger—

staunch.

Come on, man.

Look, I bet if you asked Josh, he could say, look, here's my voting record. I voted for Dems. I'm not a Trump guy. Of course, the thing that I remind everybody here is that this administration is, and this is not even editorial at this point, it is the most open for business administration in the history of American politics. Some call that corruption, right? So the question here of like, can you be not a Trump guy, quote unquote, can you be the good Kushner, quote unquote, but also have an absolute sense for how your new, I mean, this is thrive eternal. This is—

Oh, there goes Adam West. Let him cook.

This is his private equity firm that is meant to, by the way, do things like, I don't know, spin off FIFA. So the whole idea of like, oh, he's a Democrat. We just saw him try to do the FIFA thing with Gianni Infantino.

We don't have to—

that was last, that was like last week. Like two things could be true. You're not a Trump guy ideologically, but you love doing business with Trump's friends. We literally saw that happening in the news cycle. That's not invented. And so they pivot from that, right? Because Europe says, "Fuck all this shit. You can't do this to our most precious thing, the World Cup. How can we let someone like this do that?" That just happened. And so it's not a question of like, "Man, is he in favor of like universal healthcare?" That's not the question. The question is, is he open for business? And of course they are. We just talked about it. And so that's the same people now. And by the way, here's the funny part. Mark Walter, after this federal investigation gets reported in the Wall Street Journal and then Bloomberg, the Financial Times, right? This is what happens. He shows up very coincidentally, and it is coincidental, I think, because the Dodgers win the World Series and they go to the White House. And days after that report, what does Donald Trump get, Mike? What does he get from Mark Walter?

A big, gaudy World Series ring.

I urge you to find an owner of a sports team that has ever received a ring sorry, has ever given a ring to a sitting president. It just isn't a thing you see. I've asked around. No one's like, oh yeah, remember that time George Bush got a world— no, he got a jersey. They get jerseys. David Sampson gave Bush a jersey with his name on it. You don't get a ring.

To be fair, how many presidents have won a Peace Prize?

I mean, it's a fair point. He loves— they love, right, to transact. And so We're living at a time in which not only is this administration more open for business than any administration in American history, they're also, also wielding the power to influence federal investigations and then on the back end, on the back end, sell pardons in ways that are documented. So all I'm saying is the incentive structure here is obvious. If you follow, I think, the news, it's even crazier when you dig into what people who know these people are saying about how any of this would happen in 72 hours at a price of $12.5 billion when it didn't seem like there were other bidders.

Well, to tie it together, Pablo, to some degree, it feels like a lot of this is based on the sense of the, of the actors involved that there's never going to be consequences. Are the— go back to the Clippers thing. You know, I saw a headline, Pablo Torre says Steve Ballmer probably is going to get off scot-free from all of this stuff. Is that— are there ever going to be consequences for Ballmer, for the Clippers? I know it'll be satisfying to some degree if Kawhi gets destroyed irreparably, but what about the, the real power players, the billionaires involved?

Well, this is, this is exactly the experiment we're running in real time and why we've reported the story the way it is. I mean, that is an essential question. If the people in charge of investigating the people who've done things to break the cardinal rules of the sport that they are partners in, if they're the ones who are investigating such an owner, and Ballmer is the richest owner in American sports, what are the incentives here to tell people what's really happening? What are the incentives when you might rely on that very same person who is, by the way, on the NBA's audit committee, meaning he is one of the people in charge of oversight of league vetting and finances, by the way, during this era in which Mark Walter has been welcomed in, which other owners like Tom Dundon, you know, car lender guy, has been welcomed in, Matt Ishbia, you know, these mortgage kings. What is there to gain if you're the league? And so the experiment we're running is if you show a story that cannot be rationally explained absent cap circumvention, which you guys say you care about, which you punished him for in 2015, and investigated and cleared him for in 2019.

And now you have two simultaneous multimillion-dollar alleged hidden sponsorships that we've been unveiling over the course of a year. Is that enough to do something? And I don't know if it is. And that's not because it's an evidence question. It's because we are, you know, we're, we're, we're in the, we're in the realm of politics. Everything that we've been talking about is encased by politics.

Pablo, excellent job as always. Last night, the latest episode, so easy to follow. Even Chris understands it. Great job, Pablo. Thanks for hanging out.

Go to college.

Thank you guys.