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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Cuervo in the podcast?
Now's a good time to remember where tequila's story truly began. In 1795, Cuervo invented tequila. Cuervo. What are you doing here?
Cuervo. Anytime someone says Cuervo, I show up.
Cuervo.
Cuervo.
This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz Podcast.
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Chapter 2: Who is Brian Windhorst and why is he important?
An emotional Amin keeps talking during the break about his and our beloved Brian Windhorst, inaugural member of the Jonathan Zaslow Toole Hall of Fame. Amin is friends with Brian. No, I've never heard him say it out loud. I like Brian Windhorst and I know him a little bit. I cannot call myself a friend of Brian Windhorst, but I have admired the work that he has done for a long time.
And your defense of Brian Windhorst during the break, what were you getting mad about while you were staring at your phone?
No, it's just the number of people who seem to think that Brian went to high school with LeBron, like he was off the school paper covering LeBron. And I'm like, no, Brian Winters is like my age. We're much older than LeBron. Brian Winters was out of college and a grown man working in newspapers when LeBron was first coming up as a phenom.
As many local newspapers, I know people don't read newspapers anymore, but once upon a time, kids, newspapers had writers that were assigned beats. The beat was the thing that you covered. And some people covered The local NFL team, and some people covered the local hockey team. But the entry level in the sports department, Dan, was you were covered what? What would you cover?
Not for you, but in general, a newspaper journalist. I mean, you could cover high school. High school. You cover high school. So Brian worked for the Akron Beacon Journal, I believe, and he was covering high school. I wonder who was playing high school sports who was really good in Akron at that time. Not really good for Akron. Not really good for Northeast Ohio. Not really good for Ohio.
Good nationally. So of course he covers LeBron James, right? And then LeBron gets drafted. And so what does the Akron Beacon Journal do? Hey, the most impactful high school prospect ever, perhaps, is going to the local team Hey, guess what beat you're on now, Brian Winhurst?
The Caspian. But what are you defending him against? Because our show can thank its economy to LeBron James. Sure. The entirety of our show, given what South Florida sports has been for 20 years and given what ESPN built for us specifically upon LeBron's arrival in Miami, what are you objecting to? Brian Winhurst is exceptional at his job, hard stop.
Brian Windhorst is an incredibly hard worker, hard stop. And Brian Windhorst is also disliked because people simply think that he has been at the economy of LeBron since he was young, which he has been. It has been very profitable for a lot of people to be around the economy of LeBron.
Brian Windhorst exists in this weird space where half the people hate him. Because, oh yeah, you hate LeBron. You're always hating on LeBron. And the other half of the people who hate him are like, you're always in the tank for your guy, LeBron. And when the populace hates you for two completely polar opposite reasons, you know what that means? Sounds like you're pretty fair.
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Chapter 3: Why is journalism misunderstood today?
Dan, I don't want to turn this into the poor media. Right. defend the media or whatever. I'm just saying, like, it's one thing to say, I don't like you. I don't trust you. Your information is wrong. Like, okay, I'm with that. There are people, media people, that I don't like. I don't trust. Their information is wrong. Or it removes context. It is manipulated, right? That happens, yeah.
What I'm having a problem with is people are like, why is this dude writing books? Like, what? Do you not understand how any of this works? Like, if he's not his friend, why does he write four books about him? It's just, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. It's not even like, I don't like you or I don't trust the media. It's like, why are you writing books?
But isn't that happening all the times in arguments where there's a confirmation bias on you want to just reaffirm your feelings?
That's a next level confirmation bias.
I think the thing, too, that's weird is that LeBron put voice to it. It's different when other media people or people on the internet are like, oh, Brian Windhorst is so weird. He's always following LeBron. For LeBron to voice that in an interview, that's the part to me that was like, man, LeBron, you know Brian. You know what the deal is. He's been building your lore since you were 17 years old.
And all of a sudden, now you're going to switch up and be like, oh, no, he's weird. He's trying to act like he's my best friend. I'm a big fan of Brian Windhorst. I used to produce his podcast. Very nice guy. Well, thank you. Friend of mine, actually.
That was good journalistic disclosure from Tony. He has a personal... Thank you, Tony.
I have a personal relationship with Brian. Well done. Thank you. Why don't you think you're friends with Brian Windhorst, Dan?
I just don't know well and know him well enough to I would say we're very friendly, but friends like I don't you know, you got to you have to if you have someone who you consider a friend, isn't that a person you've gone to dinner or lunch or coffee with once like or that you've done something socially with them outside of work?
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Chapter 4: What did LeBron say about his preferences on flights?
But were there together, all three of us would be...
Back and forth, back and forth.
You need a life of the party. Tony's great at doing the jump rope. You jump in and jump out. He's great at that. So I could see Tony holding his own in the three-man weave.
Yesterday, when you guys talk about some of the stuff that happens around Windhorse and journalism, and do you guys not know how this stuff works? I found myself somewhere in the center of this yesterday, appropriately enough around the food, because a lot of people were informing me. that something that I quote-unquote reported was also rebutted by LeBron, and people believe LeBron's side now.
After Dwayne Wade said it and after Mario Chalmers said it, now LeBron has confirmed it. So this is the only sound I actually want to play from that LeBron and McAfee thing.
The plane that we were getting on, the ladies on the plane were making chocolate chip cookies. Oh, man. Oh, man. Yeah, so they were making them and bringing them because we had the same ladies all the time. You know, it was a party of six. You know, they were rotating. Every time they knew I loved chocolate chip cookies, they would get on and I would, hey. Soft, soft.
Soft with a little crispy edge. Perfect. Yeah, perfect. And I would get on and they already knew. They'd bring me two cookies and I would get to gambling with the guys and I got my cookies and we good. And then one flight I got on, I looked at them, and they looked at me, and I'm like, oh, that didn't look familiar.
But I asked him, I was like, do you, we got the, he was like, no, we're not allowed to, no more cookies on these flights. What? When Wade County had to leave and go to Chicago, I looked at the cookie situation. I was like, oh, shit, maybe it wasn't that bad.
i mean d weighs millions and my cookies i was like okay maybe i made it all the same i was like okay it wasn't that bad so uh what happened yesterday because i had uh said that never in my life covering the heat had i heard from so many people saying that that story was not true so people hear lebron say it and say see lebitard you're wrong and i'm like i don't
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Chapter 5: How does the public perceive media and journalism?
But I'm telling you, though, that people assume because of what they think of journalism that that's me speaking wrong. Through Pat Riley for Pat Riley. And I'm telling you that it wasn't that that's not that's not how any of that came to be the denial of that story. And the reason that story is being denied is because it's being told 10 years later at a time. Right.
I understand why those people are reaching out to me because they see the heat and crisis and they see at the end of his career that Pat Riley is, is being portrayed in a way that's not in any way player friendly. Like that, that, that is, that is hostile to someone who is valuable that you don't want to piss off.
And it, I understand that he players believe that, but there is a real disconnect between whatever it is LeBron thought that was or whatever it is that felt to around his teammates and who was actually responsible for doing that to LeBron.
I think, Dan, I want to clarify one thing for everybody listening. So-and-so is a mouthpiece for so-and-so. If you preface the information with people from... the Heat reached out to me, and they said this. That's not a mouthpiece, I'm just being a messenger. If Dan said, it wasn't this, it was a nutritionist, and never clarified where you got said information from, that's being a mouthpiece.
And I don't think you've ever done that. You've made it clear every single time, hey, they hit me up, they let me know about this, and I'm merely passing it along. And so this goes for everybody. Like, when someone presents you information, whether they're a journalist, a former player, whatever, And they're telling you, I spoke to so-and-so and this is what they said.
That doesn't mean that this person is espousing that belief. They're just merely being a messenger. But you're expecting people to. Yes, I am. I don't think it's too much to ask people to burn a calorie, a calorie. It is.
You're asking them to understand journalism when they hate media. Not understand journalism.
You also just asked the Heat side, right? You didn't ask Mario Chalmers his thoughts.
I didn't ask anybody anything.
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Chapter 6: Is Dan Le Batard a mouthpiece for the Miami Heat?
But people will always have that question about you because they know you have high up relationships with Miami Heat.
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Chapter 7: What are the benefits of using BetterHelp?
Oh, I was watching Kobe warm up. And I swear I told a turn around. I told, oh, I think he's just got 81 today. Like, come on, man. Like if there was anybody that this could be a legitimate thing thrown at.
What's the semantics of I'm not going to say that someone's a liar, I'm going to say that they're lying? If someone's cheating, are they a cheater? No, I would not go that far. I'm just saying they're cheating. What's the difference?
The semantics is, in this case, Stephen A. Smith says that what LeBron is saying is a lie. So if I say he's lying, I'm focusing it to just this, right? Versus he's a liar, that makes it mean every day of his life he's walking around lying to people, which all of us do, by the way.
That's pathological lying. I mean, I feel like if you lie, you're a liar.
I think the distinction is if you're writing it and you can get sued.
Put it on the poll, please, at Levitard Show. If you lie one time, are you a liar?
And also, who's lying, LeBron or Pat Riley? Or the nutritionist.
A long, long time ago, Dan was a prodigy and his writing used to make him smile. And he knew if he had his chance, he'd rat out UM for bogus Pell Grants and maybe learn from Cody for a while. But network money made him sell his soul. Now he shows all his bias to the Heat and now the Panthers. Dan's fake news, oh, have you heard?
I can't remember if he cried when he told us with his face so wide that all his morals were a lie. Journalism die. So Dan would say, oh my, ow, I'd love to eat pie. Oh, but if it has some gluten, then I think I may die. I'll shoot my integrity straight into the sky, banging panther's drums as a Cuban-born guy. Panther's drums as a Cuban-born guy.
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