The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Polishing David's World Series Trophy (feat. Ryan Cortes)
Thu, 06 Feb 2025
We continue our quest to have more fun than everyone in New Orleans by bringing in Ryan Cortes from Japan to give us the Miami Heat fan perspective after the Jimmy Butler saga finally came to a conclusion. The rebranded Cortes tells us why he's jacked up about PJ Tucker returning to Miami and how he feels about Jimmy Butler following all of the drama that has taken place over the last couple months. Plus, Mark Williams was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, Jimmy Butler and Bernie Lee are the masters of making a mess, and owners always think they're the coolest guy in the room. Also, David Samson tells us about walking through New York City with his World Series trophy to get it polished. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hey folks, it's Mike Ryan and I need to talk to you about something that I use religiously. Anytime I'm hosting a big dinner party, I want to impress people and I get food from some of the most iconic, famous places in the country. You know what helps me do that? Goldbelly. This amazing site where I order from all the time.
where you can get all these amazing foods from all across our great country. They will ship free to your door anywhere in the U.S. of A. Gold Belly will ship you Philly cheesesteaks from Jim's or Pat's in Philly. I'm treating my office right now to a cheesesteak party from Pat's, courtesy of Gold Belly. And on top of that, I threw in some original buffalo wings from Anchor Bar in Buffalo.
You can get Kansas City's most legendary barbecue from Gold Belly. And if the pizza near you sucks, they will ship you New York style pizza from John's on Bleecker or Chicago deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. I do that all the time. Or even New Haven or Detroit style pizza. If you are truly gluttonous, though.
They will ship you Guy Fieri's famous trash can nachos, which I kid you not, are the ultimate game day centerpiece. So if you're looking to host an epic Super Bowl party, or any party for that matter, go to goldbelly.com and get free shipping and 20% off your first order with promo code DAN. That's goldbelly.com, code DAN, for free shipping and 20% off your first order.
Welcome to the Big Suey, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there.
That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar. Dude.
OK. Boy, you looking good, bro. It's something I'm always wondering. It's like me when I go to sleep. Right when I lay down, I start thinking about the stuff I haven't done. For the first, like, month that I was taking Adderall, fans were, like, emailing in saying, wait, what is happening? Is Stugatz smarter than Levitar? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow. Believe it or not, guys, I have a fishing team. What?
Really?
I'm part owner of a fishing team.
Wow.
Yeah, but I do fish, though.
I mean, how about we get a rod in the water, Raheem?
Let's go.
Let's do it.
He's the same guy that was supposed to be going out there golfing with me, right?
One question was like, if you could change closets for the day, who would it be with? I said, the Pope. And I said, I love his look. I love to be able to anoint. The Pope's look.
You should have dressed like the Pope today. That would have been great. Oh, my God. That would have been better. Well, no, the Pope has to be bad. Oh, you're right.
I forgot about that. No, my tattoo. I got to show you my tattoo. It's right here. Wow. So that's the 2025. Even though the game hasn't been played yet, you have so much confidence.
And then also, I got to tell you. I'm reading between the lines. Here's to God. Ed didn't say this. He'd never say this. But he kind of said it. A little bit easy for Christian. He had all these genetics. I mean, all he had to do was fulfill his destiny.
Right.
Unlike Ed.
Yes. Ed had to come in here.
It had to work. So Larry Zonka got stuck at sea one time, like, in the Bering Straits or something. They had to come and rescue him with a helicopter. He did, for real. I think Rob Conrad was out, like, on a boat by himself, fell off the boat. No, the boat was drowning, and he had to swim to shore.
Don't scare me. When Mike Tyson tells you to do something, you do it.
I got to. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe buddy system, do something. Don't go out by yourself on the boat and maybe be careful when you're out fishing because the franchise does have a history of problems on boats.
Well, guess what? What? I know two guys that's going to join me.
Yes, co-owners.
31.
How much longer are you thinking you want to play?
I mean, I got like, man, whenever these wheels fall off.
Back to you guys.
This has been unbelievable.
And then behind us saying, wrap it up. So that's what we're going to do. We could have went all day. Listen, this is my new co-host, Levitard. Bye. Back to you, Dan.
This episode of the Dan Levitard Show with Stu Gatz is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings. The crown is yours. Who's Ed? I don't know.
He was pitching something, I bet. There was... At Radio Row? I came in with the stated goal of having more fun than everybody in New Orleans. We're a split squad this week. And I don't know if we can have more fun than Stu Gatz was having fake laughing. That's Sean Stilato, agent for Tommy DeVito.
Oh, I thought this fake laugh was Funny Marco where they're having a fake laugh off. I was like, that's amazing.
That guy was Christian McCaffrey's dad, for the record.
That's Easy Ed McCaffrey?
Ed McCaffrey?
In the Big Easy. How about that? NFL Blitz legend. Was that guy, DeVito, was he wearing a championship ring?
Yeah, I think he's wearing his Italian American Sports Hall of Fame ring.
That is a great, you found out. You just did Pablo some justice. We interviewed him. He was wearing the same ring?
No, it was like right before he was about to be enshrined in the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. Of course you interviewed him. Yeah, man. This show, we did it here.
I know, of course. Look, Cortez, is he here yet? Speaking of attention-seeking gas bags whose throats I want to hear noises from Cortez. Go on. Yeah, that was not a great intro. There you are.
What the hell was that intro? You're a professional podcaster and journalist. I'm embarrassed by that last 20 seconds. I don't know what you're doing.
Where's your PJ Tucker jersey?
Oh, my God. So I just want to... Where are you? First of all, don't worry about where I am. I'm in Japan. Nice staircase. Beautiful background. David Sampson was right. The text I sent you was alarming. It was not meant for air. I sent it to you at a time where I did not know we had P.J. Tucker. That's what happened. And then I found out we got P.J. Tucker and everything's okay.
Like, today's a good day. I don't like how you guys are talking about this trade. Not only did we get P.J. Tucker... We got a lockdown defender. Do you want me to read you some stats? It's PJ Tucker. You just told us. Well, no, no, no. Not just PJ Tucker. I'm going to read you some stats. These are players' shooting numbers when guarded by Andrew Wiggins. Luka Doncic, 5 for 16.
Anthony Edwards, 7 for 21. SGA, 5 for 12. Donovan Mitchell, 5 for 12. Cade Cunningham, Tony's favorite, 0 for 6. LeBron James, 3 for 9.
Boy, those are locked down. It's a big sample size.
Well, those are all individual matchups this year is what Cortez is reading. And? Well, no. I mean, the sample sizes are obviously small. It's more the idea of going up against the other team's best offensive player, having someone in that starting lineup that's like, you know what? I don't want to team myself with Cortez.
He's doing stuff. What I can't get over is that when Cortez is, what you're doing is moving around revealing that you're not in Japan.
What? It's a Japanese, what are you talking about? No, don't move. Just stay perfectly still.
Look at his glasses. Does that look like the glasses of a man who isn't in Japan?
I do love those glasses. The glasses are an incredibly effective upgrade.
How is anyone going to score at the end of a game when it's Hero, Wiggins, Jovic, Bam, and Khalil Ware? How are you going to score a point?
If they have a lead, they won't need to.
It's a good point. We're going to have to score on our own. But defensively, it's in the making.
It started with Hero, though. I'm sorry, Cortez. I spent most of this week reading your posts, and they were all about how, you know, Pat Riley doesn't have it. Jimmy Butler, you were on his side. This is, come on, man.
It's been a wild swing of emotions. I have, in the past 24 hours, tweeted about Pat Riley needing a new job. I have blocked Jimmy Butler. On Instagram. And I do think Pat Riley's at fault here. I think he should have either paid Jimmy or traded him a year ago, bringing him into this year with no new contract, no new teammates that are any good. Not a good idea.
But now that we're here, I mean, Andrew Wiggins, go ahead to me.
Cortez, I want to ask, because I have to know what your emotional level was like for those few hours where it was... Oh, it was Durant? Durant for Jimmy Butler straight up.
Where it got so heightened was I was texting people, would you trade Hero for Durant? Would you trade Bam for Durant? That's how bad I wanted Kevin Durant. I was willing to trade Bam out of bio for him. So, yeah, the... Pablo was asking, where were you when you heard the news? To me, that was an interesting question.
I was watching The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City reunion part three, and I got the news about Jimmy.
I cannot believe you produced my show.
I had to turn off the show because what I was trying to do is read text while watching the great reunion. I couldn't do it, so I had to turn it off. But that's what I was doing.
All I'm seeing is Ryan Cortez tweets from 2022 where he asks, at KDTray5, have you ever had a guava pastelito?
That's not how you pronounce that. Guava pastelito.
Ryan Cortez, Minister of Information.
This is ridiculous.
Amin said something interesting to me too, where he was saying Jimmy and Bernie are masters at making a mess of this. Great point. I think in retrospect, if Dame Lillard had done this playbook in Milwaukee, not only did the heat get him, but then domino effect, Jimmy no longer wants to leave. And then you've got Dame and Jimmy.
At the time this was happening with Dame, I was saying you need to make a mess. Dan was saying the same thing. It has to be Miami or nothing and you make a mess of it.
It's exactly right. Damien Lillard is the example of professional, do it the right way, good soldier. And what happens? He gets sent not where he wanted to be and has been generally miserable pretty much over the- Who wouldn't want to be in Milwaukee? I love Milwaukee. Do not impugn Milwaukee. I love Milwaukee too, but that's not where he wanted to be.
So Cortez, can you speak for Heat fans then? And how do we look back on this Jimmy Butler era? Do we feel bad for Jimmy Butler on the way out because it doesn't seem like he'll be embraced as much? Or is this kind of the bed that he made?
No, I mean, look, at this moment, he's a trader, and I don't want to retire his number, but the zoomed-out view is obviously it's an enormous success. Zach Lowe wrote two months before the Jimmy Butler trade that the Heat had the bleakest future of any team in the NBA, and he wasn't wrong. I mean, it was insane that they got Jimmy and got to finals.
I mean, when they got Jimmy, as Dan has pointed out, that was supposed to be move number one, and then you get two or three guys. So the idea that just Jimmy... It was an enormous success. And I hope one day they do retire his number. But for now, he's dead to me.
I don't like sober Cortez.
Cortez put on these circular glasses and he woke up trying to be level headed. And I just am not. Look, I am. The one thing I am not today is fooled by Ryan Cortez.
I'm not fooling anyone. I mean, look, I would have preferred to have Kevin Durant. I think if we get Kevin Durant, you get me with sunglasses today, you get a different version. It's hard to put on the sunglasses when it's Andrew Wiggins. But lockdown defender. And what I'm really excited about is P.J. Tucker. I can't lie. I like P.J.
Tucker more than LeBron James when it comes to what they meant to the Heat. That's a legitimate take that I have.
That's not a take. That's idiocy. There's two rings from LeBron. Two. How many rings from PJ Tucker?
Well, if you count the one that I count, which is they were up in the first nine minutes of game one against the Lakers in that finals, and then bam, and Goran got hurt, I count that as a ring. So technically they have one to answer your question.
I love you.
Two to one.
That's the Cortez I like. I don't like the Cortez where he's giving me stats and stuff like that. Very monotone. Well, that's Cortez. Oh, he seems medicated.
He's always medicated. Well, he's ooze tanking.
Ooze tanking, bro. You know what it is. No, I don't.
Can we get him out of here? I don't want this anymore.
I can't believe you're still talking about this. Before I leave, just mention P.J. Tucker more. He's one of the all-time key culture players. For the love of God.
Nice glasses, Cortez. It's on the bottom down. We don't need to hear this anymore. We're crushing Dan right now. Get him out of here.
Nobody, can we get someone in Miami who will just admit to feeling the deep fear of irrelevance? The deep fear that we are not going to care about talking about this even a fraction as much anymore.
Pablo, hold on. I got to explain this for everybody, not just the listening audience, but also the YouTube audience because the cameras don't capture everything at the right time. You started your statement, can we just get someone in Miami who, and Jeremy stood up like, this is my chance. And then you said irrelevancy, and he just had this look like a dog that you fake threw a ball for.
And it turns and it's like, wait, there's no ball. What happened? Just confused. Just utterly confused. Irrelevance?
We're going to be talking about, you guys got to manufacture gin up PJ Tucker and Andrew Wiggins takes.
It's not. That's what we're doing. No one cares. We've been doing it too long. We haven't spoken about Pete Alonzo. We haven't spoken about the Lakers. Nobody wants to hear about Pete Alonzo.
I gave the best Pete Alonzo stat that's ever happened, and they kicked me out of the show.
No one cares. The Lakers have pulled off a deal. By the way, okay, I have another question for everybody. Raise your hand if you knew who Mark Williams was before he was traded to the Lakers.
I feel like Amin, Izzy, and Jeremy have to raise their hand, whether they have or not, just because that is what they trade in. It's their job. He was a first-round pick for the Hornets.
He's really good.
Oh, he's not really good.
Turns out you have not seen a Charlotte Hornets game since.
He's always injured. You don't think the Lakers overpaid for Williams? I'm sorry? Did the Lakers overpay?
No. In a win-now situation for the Lakers, needing a center, no.
The reporting was that Luka really stressed to Palenka, I need a lob threat.
Which is kind of what Anthony Davis was saying. Hey, can we get someone to play center so I don't have to?
But, you know, and it's true. If you look at everything that happened for them last year, it happened after they acquired Gafford, pretty much to go alongside Lively. So... He is Mark Williams fits that bill. He's an incredible rebounder. He's a body in the paint and he's young. A lot of other names that they were talking about were guys that were kind of over the hill.
And if your thing is this isn't LeBron's team anymore, this is Luka Doncic's team, then yes, you go out and you get young. You don't get Jonas Valanciunas. You don't get Nikola Vucevic. Now, the problem is what they gave up is what David is talking about because they gave up. Dalton Connect, who a lot of people like, is a pretty good shooter.
They gave up a 20-30 first-round pick that's unprotected and then a pick swap as well. Now, when you talk about those things, they're far enough in the future where, on the one hand, you can say, Luka's in his prime. Those picks will never be anything higher than 18. He'll still be in his prime at 29. Yeah.
Won't he? What? The 2031 pick. Yes. Luke is 25. It's 2025 already. Yes. He'll be 31. Is that past his prime?
No.
It'll be deep in his prime. The end of his prime.
I don't think it'll be end of his prime. He doesn't have it.
It does depend on the question of how in shape is he going to be going forward.
That, but also, if he's healthy, he has a type of game that is not really... Reliant on explosion and athleticism. So his game will age better than the way Russell Westbrook's game aged, by way of example. But the problem is, when you have an unprotected pick that far into the future... It's a massive futures gamble. We're basically betting.
The Hornets are betting, I bet you're going to F this up by the end of this, by the time this pick is available. And the Lakers are saying, no, we won't because we got Luka Doncic. The other part of this is, as I look at that roster, and Izzy, back me up on this. Luka, not a great three-point shooter. He's a volume shooter, but he's not a great shooter.
LeBron, good three-point shooter, but mostly off the dribble when he's got the ball in his hands. Austin Reeves, not a great three-point shooter. Obviously, Mark Williams, not a three-point shooter at all. So you're looking at this roster, it's like, well, beyond Rui Achimura and Dorian Finney-Smith, neither of whom are really volume shooters, where's the spacing for this team?
They could use Steve Kerr. Yeah, they could use a 58-year-old Steve Kerr.
This is me backing you up. That's all true, I mean.
Mark Williams, 43 games in 22-23. 43 doesn't sound like 81, but maybe there was something different. 23-24, 19 games. It's box score stew over here.
Look, if you've watched the games, you recognize this guy as a talent. He is exactly what Luka needs. There are plenty of people who I believe have been wasting their careers in Charlotte, and he is early one of them. I'm glad he's gone somewhere else. But unless you think Dalton Connect is going to be, I don't know, even J.J.
Redick or some sort of, you know, laser of a 2-3 combo guard or small forward. I don't think you overpaid for that. The Lakers are one of those teams where picks don't matter. It's just like the Miami Heat. Picks don't matter. I'm going to be good all the time.
That's been the thing, right? That's what's come back in this build. That's actually been what's come back to bite the heat a couple of times is, oh, no, we gave up these picks to make moves earlier on. And now what do we do come this moment at the same time? You need to maximize. Look, you have LeBron James and Luke.
This is the moment. This is the moment. So one of the most honest things that people have kind of made fun of and ridiculed. But I thought it was an amazingly poignant point by Nico Harrison was when he said the future for us is three to four years, 10 years from now. probably won't be here. And everyone's like, oh my God, I can't believe you said the quiet part out loud.
But the reality is, that is how the majority of teams do business. Like, when Sam Hinckley, your beloved Sam Hinckley, was doing what he was doing in Philadelphia, our good friend Henry Abbott, who is... the head editor for ESPN.com for NBA coverage, was singing the praises of Sam Henke and what he was doing. And I told him, I said, Henry, it's all great. The math checks out.
Too bad Sam won't be around to enjoy the spoils. And Henry told me, no, this ownership group is different. They're from Wall Street.
That was the mistake.
And my thing is, Henry, this thing is the same everywhere. Everyone thinks they've got the great math until their kid comes home from school crying because everyone made fun of them.
You said Sam Hinckley and Pablo has never been more lit.
But the thing Amin just referenced, perhaps hypothetically, was actually a thing that I am told was happening in Philadelphia. Yeah. that Josh Harris, his kids were being made fun of because the Sixers were that bad.
Pablo, I called it before any of it happened. I told Henry, I said, look, this is how this shit works. It's not on paper. These are real people living real lives. You can't tell everybody. We're just going to lose, and then we'll figure it out.
But the real people... living real lives thing not on paper, typically that was an argument made on behalf of the players on the team, which was missing, I think, a through line from the two episodes we've done of this show, the two days we've done, which is follow the money.
The owners are the ones who have these pressure points, whose incentives should be different from the people they employ to run their front office, right? They're gonna be around in 10 years, but the people they pay to run the team statistically are not. And so the question is always, what's your time horizon? How long is this going to take?
Will the people who you pay to be the stewards of your organization act as if they're the stewards of a future or a present? And the conversation right now about like in the NBA, has it ever been cheaper? Has a first round pick ever felt cheaper? Right. Like just like the market value right now.
Nico Harrison said, no, it's actually pretty expensive. Only got one.
But it's a funny thing, right? Mikael Bridges. Right? Five first rounders. Rudy Gobert. Go down the list. That is an example of people saying, take our future.
The present is what matters to us. But the Nets have been doing that back in the Pierce-Garnett days. I think the Nets did the same thing. They mortgaged their future. It didn't work. Then they had to start again. And it hasn't. It's forever. But the question of who has the ability to start again, right?
Which teams, which markets allow that? That is a key part of that privilege.
There's two pieces of math here. Piece of math one is do we have a realistic chance of the ultimate success? Not to be good, but to win it all, right?
Because that informs why, for instance, the Warriors will give up a first-round pick for Jimmy Butler because they think his addition can give them a realistic chance to get one more of these or to actually prove to Steph Curry we're doing everything we can.
They're betting on themselves.
Right. That's one. The other math is the people making the decisions. Do I feel job certainty? The reason why Sam Presti can do what he did was because Sam Presti knew I'm not going to lose my job over this.
Well, and that's where I mean, again, when I talk about markets, right? Oklahoma City versus Philadelphia. Yep. Like we're talking about, when I say who has the competitive advantage, David, of I'm in a market in which the pressure point is not gonna feel as painful.
Did you forget about Chicago? The Cubs did it with Theo. They lost 100 several years in a row. Baltimore's a big market. They lost, and guess what? They were there. Wonder World series, it can be done. You just have to do it right. And it's not as market related. Owners don't necessarily think the way you're saying.
They don't have a GM in place saying, oh, take me through the tank and I'll fire you right when the tank's done and I'll have someone else.
But I think the argument has been the argument from Philadelphia to a means point and to my experience has been owners tend to overestimate their rationality and they underestimate how much it sucks to be made fun of.
They're stomach for this. They don't have the stomach for it, and nor should they. You just paid billions of dollars to be the cool kid. Remember when you talk about Mark Cuban? There's no way you could sell the team and still run the team? It's all built on that. The reason I'm spending billions of dollars on this is not because I'm going to flip it 20 years from now and make X fold.
It's because I want to be the cool kid. I want when people come to my parties, how do you have Usher here? Oh, well, you know, he's a good friend. You don't get to be friends with the cool people without this cool entryway, which is I own the team. And so if that's your starting point, you own this property because you want to look cool.
Yeah, the opposite of feeling embarrassed. No owners feel embarrassed, though.
The real winner here is Chris Cody, who now knows what Kyle Anderson and Mark Williams look like.
That's two. That's good work. And you were late today.
Why you got to bring that back?
Crushing it.
It's still bothering me. You know that sound. It's the sound of money hitting your Venmo account. A friend paying you back. Or maybe it's getting cash back from your favorite business when you pay with the Venmo debit card. Or it's realizing you can pay with Venmo at checkout at thousands of brands. Now, there are so many more ways to answer the question, what's your Venmo? Download Venmo today.
The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Pursuant to license by MasterCard International Incorporated. Dosh cash back terms apply.
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Hey folks, it's Mike Ryan and I need to talk to you about something that I use religiously. Anytime I'm hosting a big dinner party, I want to impress people and I get food from some of the most iconic, famous places in the country. You know what helps me do that? Goldbelly. This amazing site where I order from all the time.
where you can get all these amazing foods from all across our great country. They will ship free to your door anywhere in the U.S. of A. Gold Belly will ship you Philly cheesesteaks from Jim's or Pat's in Philly. I'm treating my office right now to a cheesesteak party from Pat's, courtesy of Gold Belly. And on top of that, I threw in some original buffalo wings from Anchor Bar in Buffalo.
You could get Kansas City's most legendary barbecue from Gold Belly. And if the pizza near you sucks, they will ship you New York style pizza from John's on Bleecker or Chicago deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. I do that all the time. Or even New Haven or Detroit style pizza. If you are truly gluttonous, though.
They will ship you Guy Fieri's famous trash can nachos, which I kid you not, are the ultimate game day centerpiece. So if you're looking to host an epic Super Bowl party, or any party for that matter, go to goldbelly.com and get free shipping and 20% off your first order with promo code DAN. That's goldbelly.com, code DAN, for free shipping and 20% off your first order. Don Levitard.
There's sunglasses in boxes today. But in my bed in the hospital, ending our lives all the same. Stugatz.
It's the final night, gal.
This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stugats.
You were saying, David, no owner. When owners walk into a room, they're cool. People take photos. They want autographs. They're not like, oh, my God, you lost 100 games.
David, why do they want to.
They want to be near ownership.
No, no, no. Why do owners get autographs and give autographs and take pictures? Because people want to be near power. Near power of what? of anything. Hold on, these guys are billionaires, right? So before they owned a team, they should have walked in the rooms and gotten photos, right?
No, go back to Steve Ballmer. Steve Ballmer's the number one example of this.
But David, David, David, there are some exceptions to, I think, your point, which is, in general, these guys are living great lives. The team tends to outlast all of the temporary news cycles. They get to be a steward of the thing that is wired into people's childhoods. But then, of course, I think of, I don't know, what's it like to be John Fisher? What's it like to be, at the time, Dan Snyder?
What was it like to be Josh Harris when the Sixers were tanking? What's it like to be these deeply unpopular people who get booed? Jim Dolan!
Getting booed in the garden. Jim Dolan does a lot of things. Listen, our owner used to get booed, and there were negative things. Me, there were negative things from this very show. Believe me, it did not in any way get into my life.
Why are we talking about the emotions of rich people?
Seriously, where did this go wrong? The mistake is— Why do we care?
Pablo brought this up. He's trying to lead the show. No, the point is a good one that Amin and I have been raising. The mistake has been, the mistake, look, the question is why are decisions made and how? It's because people tend to have a market inefficiency when it comes to, ah, you can feel embarrassment.
Our mistake was asking David Sampson to be a focus group on what it's like to feel embarrassment. Yeah.
Is that like a stew laugh? No. What was that? That was a laugh. I'm laughing at you.
You are the person who feels the less. That's a good stew laugh. That's a pretty good stew laugh. Or funny Marco. Nobody feels less embarrassment than David Sampson is my point. I do not feel embarrassed.
You don't feel embarrassed. You're not a billionaire, though. No, I'm not. I'm talking about the guys that own the teams.
They have thin skin, most of them. I would grant you that. But what we're really supposed to be talking about is the Lakers. And did the Lakers make this move because they're in win now? That's why they were willing to overpay in order to get with LeBron?
Again, it's overpaying by your opinion. I don't think too many people are assuming that.
And again— I'm the only one saying it's an overpay right now?
David, anybody who's seen Mark Williams play, probably not agreeing with you.
David, the overpay—I'm going to go down your side and say, yes, it's an overpay. But the overpay isn't Dalton Connect. It's the first-round pick because it is unprotected and it is far enough in the future where we don't know what that team is going to look like. It should have gone to Dallas. Right? Sure. The point I'm making is that Rob Palenka— doesn't give a f*** about 2030.
He's like, who cares? Am I going to be around for that? Probably not. Maybe. If I am, cool. I'll worry about it then. But for him, the future is in the next three or four years. That's real. What Nico Harrison said applies to every general manager named Andy Ellsberg, R.C.
Buford, and Sam Preston. Yesterday, he said, I can't wave a wand and manufacture a big man. Did anyone else see the quote by Rob Palenka? We need a big man, but I can't wave a wand and make it happen. Well, of course you can wave a wand. All you have to do is overpay. and they did it to Charlotte, and all of a sudden they got a big man.
Overpaying though is, I'm with Izzy. I do not think this is an overpay. I think this is an example of one team needing one thing, another team needing a different thing.
Why are you holding your phone? I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is the perfect time for this. I just got the email confirming the polishing of the World Series trophy. Oh my god. Yeah, because we're all after that. I'm sorry, you sent your trophy out to be polished? You have to.
That's got to be a Venmo. It has to be a Venmo. Like, this is the worst phone interruption of all time. We were talking about basketball, and now we're talking about polishing your trophy?
No, we're actually talking about winning it all, which I thought was exactly the through line of what the Lakers are doing to win now. What does it cost to get a World Series trophy polished? I'm sorry, did I misunderstand what the conversation was? All the time. You misunderstand it all the time. To me, we're talking about the Lakers trying to win it all.
Did you Google World Series Trophy Polishing Company? How did you figure out?
No, it's from Tiffany. You bring it back to Tiffany. Tiff. So is the NBA trophy.
Sounds like we're having a Tiff.
It comes in that. Of course I knew what we were talking about because I'm paying attention and I'm on time.
My only surprise is that David Sampson did not demand to be in the room so he could watch his trophy getting polished. What?
Hmm.
That's a horrifying. In a towel? Dear God. Definitely not in a towel. Wearing only an apron.
Oh, this is a true story. I brought the trophy to Tiffany wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and I was stopped by, Tiffany has a ton of security in the New York store on 57th Street, and I looked schleppy. I had a toque on, and I had a hoodie and sweatpants, and I was carrying a World Series trophy, and the assumption was that I had pilfered it.
The World Series trophy?
You're just walking down the street in New York with the World Series trophy? I would have to bring it. Unboxed. No cover, no sheet.
It doesn't come in a box. Yes, it does. It was in a Tiffany bag, but it falls down so the flags are poking out like a little groundhog on February 2nd.
David, there's a carrying case. That's where they wheel it in and wheel it out.
So, no.
Wait, I just want to process this.
I'm surprised David could carry the World Series trophy.
Sometimes when I go to a friend's apartment building and I'm carrying food that I brought over, I am asked what restaurant I'm delivering from.
yes david samson finally got to feel that because he was holding the literal world series trophy in the tiffany lobby yes and i was stopped multiple times and the only way to prove it because i had no there's no receipt for it i had to have them google and that was hugely mortifying dude I just love the idea. And then they let me through. There's a penalty for this, right?
There's a penalty for this?
Major asshole.
Yeah, major asshole.
Can we do that one? Is he? Yes, it's on your stream deck.
You've got the little device there. You're in charge. All you have to do is hit the button. You don't have to ask permission. White woman, white guy. It's not a white guy thing. Why is it a white guy thing? Sports ownership mostly. CNN. Oh, wait. Other menu. Oh, my God. There's another menu.
Oh, there it is. There it is. We've got a penalty. Five minutes. Major asshole. Major asshole, yes.
You're letting this go to your head. There it is. Proof that David and the trophy are not the same height.
It looks like David climbed out of the trophy. That was the picture that was used that enabled me to get it polished.
Why are you still here? Yeah.
Easy, man. Hey, he's got a good point.
five minutes uh... that i love the idea by the way this man stole the world series trophy and where the first place he went with the tiffany's i gotta get a positive wagon fences this guy who clearly doesn't actually on this thing does want to make sure it's very well taken care of to reshape a little bit of what david was saying and to maybe give him a defense is boy charlotte can feel good about the move they need
I don't think that it should be the Lakers feeling like they overpaid.
And why should Charlotte feel good?
Charlotte can feel good about getting a first round pick, a pick swap and a young player in Dalton Connect for moving on from a guy who has often injured and maybe won't be working with the core that they're building right now. They kick the can down the line. It's a timeline thing. It's a timeline thing.
This is what I'm saying.
That's the thing both of you were trying to say.
My co-host yesterday on the radio was like, how could Charlotte do this? Am I the only one who likes Mark Williams? No, I like Mark Williams too. It's just, is Mark Williams a franchise player? Well, no. Is moving him going to materially impact the Hornets' future? Well, no. What? It's nice to have, but you go get some stuff that could be even better.
What I was trying to say to David, and David tried to fight it, which is the idea that the Lakers make that move in part because Rob Pelinka doesn't care what happens in 2030.
Yes, yes, yes. This is, by the way, to bring it all the way back around to our frustration as to why Kevin Durant didn't get traded. Right. The Phoenix Suns have been the number one example in sports history of saying all we care about right now is the present. Everything else. We will take a payday loan from Danny Ainge. Take three first rounders, whatever it is. Right. Give us that.
We'll give you everything. such that 2031, basically we're behaving at the Phoenix Suns organization as if the apocalypse will come in 2030. We'll all be wiped off the planet. It's the global warming theory, just it's happening in five years.
And like I said, there's two parts of it. One part of it is that I don't give a shit. We're not even going to be here anyway, right? But then there's another part of it, what Golden State is doing, what I think Phoenix in theory was doing, which is we've got a special talent. We owe it to them to give them every tool possible to go out and win right now.
It's the same thing for the Lakers with LeBron. It's hard to look at this guy who's an all-time great, who's still playing at a high level and say, yeah, we're just going to pump this year and then we'll see how it goes next year. You can't say that to those guys
at that age so they're trying to say the window's open now we need to we can't just expect it to be open forever mike d'antoni used to tell the story all the time that dan marino told him he went to the super bowl what his second year in the league or whatever and they lost and he said that's all right we'll get him next year and then never went back to the super bowl you can't sit around thinking oh shit we'll just get better and eventually we'll get back and it'll be all right
You don't know how long this window's open. So they've got to force their way through. But also what reinforces that behavior is the knowledge that, hey, if this doesn't work out, it doesn't matter. Because I'm not going to be holding the bucket when that happens anyway. It's some other poor schmo who's got to inherit that situation.
I mean, you want to hear a scenario that's going to either make you laugh or drive people crazy? I hand it over to Jeremy. So Phoenix is terrible, right?
There's more. I thought just handing it over.
Yeah, just me in general is not great for everyone listening. But Phoenix is in a terrible spot now, right? Because they've shown Kevin Durant they were willing to move on from him. And their team is relatively mediocre. And Beal has been, as is obvious, an impossible guy to move, a contract to move. So what's to say that this offseason they don't decide now's the time to blow it up?
That they look at Houston and they take Devin Booker and they say, hey, we'll take all of our picks back plus more. Buddy, let me tell you something right now.
I know we're on the week of like Luka Doncic got traded, but Devin Booker. No, let him get there. Let him get there.
All of this was to set up is the idea of is Durant not an equally depressed asset come this summer and why overpay now and know that that type of guy could be available.
Is Pat Riley eventually going to land Kevin Durant?
This is a fifth pursuit. No, I think that Phoenix is the most interesting team at the end of all of it. At the end of all of this, it's Phoenix that's most interesting because of the lack of movement, not the additions. They're the team that I'm looking at and going, look at those two guys who are now sitting right there on that roster.
They're denying reality.
And they've been doing it for a year. For everyone who looked at the Heat and said the same thing, it was a team that was forced to look internally and decide to go with a younger core in Miami. But Phoenix is in one of the strangest positions of any franchise in the league.
The Suns are catastrophically run. Their owner, we've done this, of course, on Populatory Finds Out. We did an episode about Matt Ishbia, about how he runs his organization. It is uncoincidental that he runs his organization like someone who is familiar with mortgages. He is the mortgage king of America.
Subprime.
I mean, look, the details are in the piece. It was lawyered, and for reasons that are, I think, going to be obvious to you. But in terms of timelines... He has run that team like he is going to disappear in 2030. And this raises many questions. But one of the questions I have is, is it the case now, motivated by Jeremy's observation, Amin, that Kevin Durant actually was too good a soldier?
He needed to be a worse soldier. The bad soldier theory of getting what you want. He needed more Jimmy Butler in him.
What did Kevin Durant want, though? He didn't want to go to Golden State, and that's why no deal was made. Because he didn't want to go there. What does he actually want? I don't know. And I think he would probably hazard all of us from guessing what he wants. Because you guys don't know who I am and how I think. I'm like, okay, dude, relax.
But he flexed the power to not get to Golden State and probably just didn't want to do any more than that. And Miami was sitting there and those two teams couldn't come to a deal. So he says, all right, I'll chill out in Phoenix, which is where I wanted to be to begin with. That at least seems to be where Kevin Durant is at.
It makes all of this that much more interesting that a player like that was available and now goes into a year where he's an expiring contract next year for anyone around the league to look at what's going on in Phoenix and go, is it? Is it worth moving something to go get that guy?
And would Phoenix be willing to do it now another summer into a season that, unless they go on some sort of really ridiculous special run that no one anticipates, will be another disappointment?
I mean, I think you look at it and you've got an expiring deal. As you said, he's in the last year of his deal next season. Beal has proven to be difficult to move. Booker's not going to get moved because he is everything for that franchise.
And despite them acquiring those picks a couple of weeks ago from Utah in order to give themselves some flexibility, they don't have a whole lot of flexibility in terms of what they can make happen
savory that upgrades that roster and that second apron looms large above them Durant might be their only way out in terms of getting out from under this and trying to run this the right way are we just the second apron thing right before we just fully feed yet more Miami propaganda the second apron thing I mean and David
I don't want to get into the weeds of explaining what that is because it's just I guess the summary is it's an even more punitive tax on top of the tax teams used to pay. But what we're saying is that this rule has changed the economy of basketball transactions.
Yes, but not because of the financial impact. That's what the problem or the explain.
Please, please explain.
So once upon a time, the league said, we're spending too much. We need to curtail spending. How are we going to do it? If you spend beyond this number, which is way above the salary cap, we're going to institute a dollar for dollar luxury tax. Ooh, that'll stop guys from spending. But guess what? It didn't. People kept spending.
So they said, in the next collective bargaining agreement, we got to do something crazier. I know what it is. It'll escalate. So after $10 million above, it'll go to $150 for every dollar. At $20 million, it'll go for $250, et cetera, et cetera. That didn't do it. Then they said, oh, we'll have repeater taxes.
So if you've been in the luxury tax habitually, your tax is actually even bigger of a jump from threshold to threshold. That didn't stop. And they realized, you know what's going to stop people from overspending? It's not money. It's not fines. It's taking action. away the ability to improve the roster. Hey, we're going to stop you from signing and trading.
Hey, when you do a trade, it has to be 100% salary for salary match. Hey, your mid-level exception, way smaller than everybody else's. And that's what this is right now.
This is the fully realized, if you do these things, you can spend however much you want, but if you do, you better hope you love your team, because if you don't, like the Phoenix Suns, changing becomes immediately very, very difficult.
So it's working?
Yes. It's finally what they wanted.
This is what you tried in baseball. It was called the cone tax. And the irony is the cone tax is now the Dodgers tax. It's a level of threshold that is punitive. And now there's picks involved, draft picks, placements in the draft, and in a capped sport. it becomes even more critical to have these punitive things. And I would argue it's been working. You have an owner right here in Miami.
Mickey Arison, for all the love that we give him, is the best owner in South Florida. He focuses on the luxury tax tremendously year over year. Izzy just will not agree with anything I say today. That's fine. That wasn't me singing. Are you going to deny that Mickey Arison is... How is David not aware of how the show works?
I will not hear Mickey Harrison hatred because somehow he's been able to own a team and still be fiscally responsible while allowing Pat Riley to do his thing for 30 years. And they've been relevant for a long time. So maybe he's doing it right.
So what you're saying is that maybe. OK. All right.
No, we're still in the air. You can go a little bit longer. Is there a penalty for that?
I have been trying, David. I am trying to do the show. I'm leaving. That's it. Chris, play the sound.
Press the button.
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