Do Go On - 238 - A Tale Of Two Dream Teams

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the only team anyone could talk about was the US men's basketball team, AKA 'The Dream Team'. It was the first time NBA players were allowed to compete at the Games and they were expected to dominate the tournament. At the same Olympics, Lithuania was competing for the first time since 1928, less than 18 months after declaring independence from the USSR. They had a lot of talent on their basketball team, but the country had no money to send their players. A story of revolution, a rock n' roll band and a whole load of tie dye. This is A Tale Of Two Dream Teams.Subscribe to Stupid Old Channel for our upcoming web series: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2f_65yf2SCW4O7WKw1TsZQOur website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:The Other Dream Team (2012)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606829/The Dream Team (2012)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2292576/https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/fall-of-soviet-unionhttps://www.gq.com/story/dream-team-20th-anniversary-1992-olympics-usa-basketballhttps://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuania/Settlement-patterns

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnikey and as always, I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. Or as they call us in the biz. Oh, SaaS Twins. Oh, yep, thank you. Oh, no, we should let her just have a little bit more of a second than to think about what she was going to say. Hey, sassy, Jess. I was going to improv and that's never good.

Hey, little Dave. How's it going, everybody? Hey, it's going. Isn't it good to be alive? Yes, it's great. I'm ready to be sassed? Yep. Prepare yourself.

For new listeners, when Dave does the report, Jess and I combine to create the SaaS twins, a very powerful duo who take Dave down with sass. I'm imagining like the Hulk. Like, we get quite big. We're also pink, so no copyright issues. Yeah. But we're conjoined twins.

I really hope someone out there is going, oh, actually the Holkin series 32 was pink due to a colouring issue at the inkings. So you are going to have a few copyright issues. I also hope that's the thing. But you had no other objections to how I imagine the Sastewins. No, I love the rest of it. Wonderful.

Also wearing loin cloths. And you can join so you combine sort of power ranger style and become one. Yes. Love it. Yeah. Hey, Dave, people can watch a new, fantastic new web series from next Friday. Is that right? Yes, that is absolutely right.

You look so confused. You told me to bring this up moments ago. Well, it looks like the sasser has become sassed. You're about to plug the West Wing or something. Yes. Let me bring up the date it airs on Channel 9 here. No, we have been working on for the last six months, somewhat unsecretely. I can't remember we've talked about it that much,

but the web, a web series version of this show, which will be coming out, yeah, Australian time. Friday, May 22nd, which is next Friday, a little bit over a week away, and we are very excited. I'm excited to see it again because we filmed it at the end of last year, so it's been a while, and I've forgotten it all. So I'm excited to watch it. It'll be like, bro new for me.

I remember it was nine of the best ever. topics we've ever done. Yes. And these are exclusive to the web series. And nine of the best ever outfits we've ever worn. Oh, we look so good. We look hot. We got a set put together and everything.

It's real cool. Yeah, we had a great time. Well, it's weird me saying this is real cool. Okay, do you want me to say it? I really want the listeners to say it to me. Okay. What about it was fun? It was fun.

I think I can say fun. Yeah, it was fun to make. Hopefully it's fun to watch. And it will be debuting, because we made it with the good people at stupid... Debuing. Sorry, debuting. Debutting. Debutting.

On the stupid old channel on YouTube because we made it with the great people at stupid old studios. Yes. So head over there and subscribe right now so you don't miss a thing. There'll be a link, I guess, in the show notes. But I think if you just search stupid old channel, you should be able to find it. If people are looking at YouTube things, I'm doing some YouTube chats to them on the day a few weeks ago. doing one with Jess soon. I'm talking to my people. They haven't got back to me as yet.

So you're not talking. You're leaving messages. Yeah, well, it's a one-way combo thus far. Call me back. But I've done one with Dave, one with Evan Munro Smith, one with Cass Page, and you can see them at YouTube.com slash Matt Stewart. And there's some old stand-up stuff's on there as on bits of pieces. So you're going to be seeing a lot of our mugs coming up. Oh, yeah. We've gone mug-heavy.

Should we print mugs? Yes. Okay. That's mug-heavy. our mug's on a mug That's good That's good That is good

Anyway the way this show works Jess always explains it best So My name's Jess That one over there is called Dave The other guy is Matt Hello Together we are Do Go On

And what we do Here at Do Go On is that one of us Does research on a topic Brings it into the group Reports back to the others in this case the SaaS twins annihilate Dave at any opportunity we can. And hopefully we'll do a little bit of learning and a little bit of laughing.

The full name is Savage Sas Twins. Yeah, the SST. Oh no. So, yeah, that's how the show works. I think I was beautifully described. Thank you. Now let's see if this poindexter can come good with his part of the bargain. The other thing we should mention is, yeah, sometimes we do interrupt and it's annoying.

Anyway, Dave, we normally start the report with a question. What's your question this week? All right, I got a question and then a follow-up question. Oh, two questions. So you can get a point each year. The question is, first of all, which team was the talk of the 1992 Olympic Games? The dream team. It is the dream team.

One point, but follow a question for you, Jess. A lot harder, but if you get it, I'll give you two. Fuck you. It's not going to be. I'm not going to get it. Which other countries' 1992 basketball team should we all know? Is it Croatia? It is not Croatia?

I mean, they did well at the Olympics. Is it the boomers? It's not the boomers. Oh, is it going to be, is it like the, is it the equivalent of Eric the Eel sort of thing? Like they'd never seen a basketball court before? Well, almost. Oh, who could it be? Iceland.

I keep wanting to say China. I don't know why. It is not Iceland or China. It is Lithuania. Oh, Lithuania. Yes, and I've written Lithuania, baby. Okay. So this report is about Lithuania.

Well, it is about... So I've messaged you guys saying it's my longest report ever. Yes. That's because it is about not one, but two topics basically in one. Incredible. We are going to be talking about the 1992 Dream Team and also the 1992 Lithuanian men's basketball team. Fantastic.

We haven't done a sports stopping in a little while, I reckon. I think, I kind of chose this one because the fact that there's no sport on at the moment, I figured, well, maybe people are looking for a sports story. Yeah, great. And I've got one that I personally, especially the second half of the story, I'd never heard anything about before. Have you watched any of the Michael or the Chicago Pool series, the last dance? I have watched a bit of it.

I purposely skipped ahead just so I watched the, there's an episode that mentions the Dream Team. It doesn't cover it too much, but I was like, imagine if I hadn't watched that bit in two weeks. When I get to that episode five, I'd be like, oh, I wish I watched that. So yeah, you've been watching a man? Yeah, I have you. It's really good. It's really good. I've also seen bits of it.

Yeah, obviously you're the only basketballer in the trio. That went without saying. Yeah, you're a real be baller. Where were you in 92? Were you on the dream team? Of course. No. She was dribbling, that's for sure.

My brother used to have a poster of Michael Jordan in his bedroom. when we were kids. That was cute. Now that I think about it, I think he also had a Yahoo Serious poster. Like a, what was the, what was the Ned Kelly one? Reckless Kelly. Reckless Kelly.

I think he had a Reckless Kelly poster as well. I've just remembered that. Yeah. Not relevant. That sounds like an 80s or 90s basketball player to me, reckless Kelly. Yeah. He had some wicked names,

which we'll talk about a few of them. All right. So the 1988 Olympics were held in Seoul, and it was pivotal to both teams in this report. Going into the competition, the USA had only ever lost one match at the Olympics. Whoa! In 1972, they lost the gold medal match to bitter rivals, the Soviet Union. Team USA won silver that year, but every other Olympics since 1936, the men's team walked away with gold.

That's nine gold medals and one silver, so they had an incredible track record. Then in 1988, it was again the Soviet Union that had them unstuck. The Soviets beat them in the semifinal And then went on to win the gold medal over Yugoslavia So the USA played off against Australia for the bronze medal Sadly, Australia, including our great hero Andrew Gaze, lost And the Americans got the bronze Have I talked about how much I loved Andrew Gays as a child?

Maybe I fucking loved Andrew Gaze Who didn't? I mean, I still love him Gaze. I named the goldfish Gaze. Yeah I bet he was probably the

The star of that pond. Big time. I loved Andrew Gays. Andrew Gays for non-Australians. He's sort of like the Shakespeare of Australia. Of the Australian basketball court. Absolutely. He's the Michael Jordan of Australia.

He's, he was, I think, maybe the second ever player to win an NBA championship ring when he was on maybe like. The second ever Australian player. Australian player, yes. I think Luke Longley was the first. Maybe he was the second. I don't know if you saw any court time, but I think you got a ring for sitting on the bench. We'll take that.

We'll take that. And that is the sweetest way to win a ring. Fact check required. I want to get it. I'm actually on that as well, please. I'm actually... And now he commentate sometimes. Yeah.

And he's great. He's so fun to listen to because he just gets very into it. I love him. It's a fun guy. Love him a lot. His dad was a champion coach. Yeah, I think one between them, they did eight Olympics in a row with something absolutely incredible.

I have a sign. copy of his autobiography, which I got when I was about 10, and I was too young to read it, but I have it. But did you get the signature, or did it come with a signature? Came with the signature. Nice. So does Gaze come up much in this report? Sadly, Andrew Gaze does come up in this report.

Oh, sadly, he does. Not a good way? Well, sadly, it's never good news for Andrew Gaze at the Olympics. Let's just say that. That's true. Okay. So at the 1980, 1988, America got the bronze. At the 88 Olympics and every other games before,

the USA weren't allowed to send professional players that had played in the NBA. That's because traditionally the Olympics had been started for amateur athletes to compete. Of course. That's why you still don't see pro-boxers compete. Often they'll compete when they're young like Muhammad Ali did, win a gold medal like he did.

I think George Form did the same. And then afterwards they turn pro, you're not allowed to go to the Olympics anymore. It's a strange idea because it's not across the board. Tennis and golf and... Tennis and golf and you say gold? You're telling me he's not. professionally.

Yeah, some of the highest paid sports people in the world would go to the Olympics. So it is strange that it's held up for boxing and for a long time for basketball. Yeah, so between 1936 and 1988, the US sent college athletes to compete on their behalf. Often these players would be future legends of the game, for example. Michael Jordan, who Matt has done a fantastic report on. I mentioned him a couple. There's a little bit of crossover here, but not too much. So he was part of the gold medal winning team in 1984, and then obviously went on to be a pro.

Who is this? Andrew Gazee. Sorry, the Andrew Gaze of the American Corps. Oh, cute. Michael was it? Yeah, they've got their own basketball scene over there as well. Do they? Yeah, they do.

Oh, that's nice. So Dave's mentioned the NBA a couple of times. That's their version of the NBL. Oh, the NBA. Oh, that's fun. It's weird. Why do they change L to O? I think we got in first and got NBL.

And then they're like, oh. Shit. Now what do we do? Association sounds stupid, but, you know, leagues taken. Damn. Right, okay. So I didn't know they had their whole thing over there. That's nice.

They had the whole thing, but their whole thing wasn't allowed to go to the Olympics. But by the late 80s, a double standard had emerged. The other countries had started sending athletes that really stretched the meaning of the word amateur. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia entered teams of athletes who were all, for all intents and purposes, state-sponsored, quote, full-time amateur athletes. Gotcha. On paper, there were students or soldiers or working in a profession, but all of whom were, in reality, paid by the state to play in well-developed leagues with modern facilities and they were training all year round. Yeah, right.

They never stopped. I am accountant. That's my accent. That's my nondescript accent. Right, was that Yuxlavian? Yeah, it was Lithuanian. It was American. That was my American accent.

No, I do not play basketball. I do taxes. That's good. I don't know what it is, but it sounds spot on. So it can't be problematic if you're not entirely sure who you're impersonated. That's right. That's definitely true. These players were even allowed to play in pro-European leagues.

Right, okay. They could go off to Italy and play in Spain and all these different places against other pros. But the American people, they're only college people. Suddenly, these 19-20, 21-year-old American college athletes were playing against grown men with serious talent and a lot of experience. Yeah, okay. So the Soviet Union won gold in 1980. The athletes who were awarded these medals were often referred to colloquially as,

oh, the Russians won the Russians. But four of the five starting players weren't Russian at all. They were Lithuanian. Oh. And four years, as I say, is a long time. And a lot changed between the Olympics and Seoul and its follow-up in Barcelona. The amateur rule would no longer be enforced

and the Soviet Union would no longer exist. This left space for the emergence of two very, very, different teams. One would be the greatest team ever assembled in the history of sports. The other, one of the most inspiring you'll ever hear about. This is the tale of two dream teams. That's a good line, Dave. Thank you so much.

I thought I'd call the episode The Tale of Two Dreamtube. Love it. Fantastic. Workshop here. Support that. No, no, no, no, you've nailed it in one. No need to workshop here. I'm on board.

I was thinking, the Dream team and the Dreamer team. No, that sucks. I have to shout out to Rob from Perth who suggested the topic of the dream team. Thanks very much for that. And as for the other team of this story, Lithuania, I can't remember how, but recently I came across a fantastic documentary called The Other Dream Team, which was released in 2012. I'll link to that in the notes of the episode because I use it as a big source for this report.

And if you want to watch it, there's a... Yeah, it's awesome. It's really good. Okay, so let's talk about Lithuania. Do you guys know anything about it? I could not find it on a map. I'm so sorry. Well, I think it was part of the Soviet Union, which split up in between the Seoul and Barcelona Olympics. That's true.

Was it kind of when the wall came down in 89? That was a big part of stepping away from the Union, yes. And Lithuania. So I reckon it's somewhere in and around Russia. Probably southwest of Russia. God, he's good. It is found in north-eastern Europe. It's above Poland and Belarus and below Latvia.

Dessna, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, now I can picture it. It is the southernmost and largest of the three Baltic states but has a relatively small population of only 2.7 million people. Like a lot of other countries in the area, it had a tough time for most of the 20th century. And even before that, to be honest, from 1795, Lithuania had been annexed by the Russian Empire.

Where it was a part of that for a long time, it claimed independence at the end of World War I in 1918, and this freedom would last until 1940. During these decades, basketball emerged as the nation's favourite sport. Basketball was an obsession. A way of life. Kids played on the street, making hoops out of barrels, and erecting courts wherever they could, dreaming of making the local team and beyond. And as a country, they got good.

In 1937 and 1939, Lithuania won the European Basketball Championships. beating much larger teams or countries with much larger populations. Yeah, so their population's tiny. You know, that's smaller than Melbourne's. Yeah, about half the size of Melbourne. Yeah. And they're, you know, smashing France and Germany and stuff. Sadly, in 1940, Lithuania's brief 20 years of freedom

and time at the top of the basketball table was stolen from them when they were invaded by the Soviet Union. The Soviets first made them sign mutual packs that allowed them to build bases in Lithuania and the other Baltic states then they forced the local government to resign. So they were like, yeah, just let us build some bases there. No problem, no problem.

And then once the bases, they're like, yeah, we've got the army here now. You've got to go. Shit. And it was not good for the locals. Thousands of Lithuanians were then deported to labor camps and gulags in Siberia where many perished due to inhumane living conditions. Holy shit. Then things went from terrible to worse when the Nazis invaded in 1941.

And during the battle, between its two occupiers, Lithuania was hit by unspeakable massacres. In 1941, 10% of the population of Lithuania was Jewish. This is unbelievably awful, but according to Britannica, quote, by the end of the year, 1941, only 40,000 Jews of the original 250,000 or so remained alive. Oh my God. So in one year, they were absolutely decimated. Terrible stuff.

And I'm afraid after World War II, I should say, things didn't get better for the country, because in 1944 they were incorporated into the USSR, which was, of course, under the tyrannical influence of Joseph Stalin at the time, and the deportations to the Gulag started up again. What was Stalin? He was a good guy? Terrible guy. Huh.

Huh. Yeah. Though I believe it was once a Time magazine person of the year, so there you go. Yeah, they've had a few duds on that, I reckon. Yeah, a few duds. But, I mean, in their defense. Like the computer? Yeah.

Or you? You, the mirror. The mirror. That includes me. If Joseph Stalin was still alive, he'd be like, I got it again. You got it again? Two time. Then Hitler get it?

Yeah, I think in their defence, it is often the most influential. It's not the best person. Yeah, it's the most influential sort of person. You know, I think they probably were in those years. So you were? Yep, sure. Thank you. Yes.

I understand that, yes. My eyes just rolled into the back of my head. And my brain, which is the type of computer, I believe, a super computer, if you will. Person of the year A computer Crazy, what's next to horse? Sports woman of the year It was a horse

You know that happened in Australia? The sportswoman of the year was a horse Was a horse That, I mean, that was an impressive horse But a little offensive It was a very impressive horse Which aren't we talking black caviar Or McCabe Diva here?

Black caviar Sportswoman of the year Sportswoman of the year Fantastic Yeah One of the few things that offered Lithuanians' freedom and enjoyment was basketball. Its popularity never waned. In the fantastic documentary I talked about the other dream team.

A survivor of a Siberian camp is interviewed, and he speaks how basketball basically saved his life. At the camp, one of their only freedoms was playing basketball. They built a makeshift court in the camp, and the game gave him back his dignity, gave him a sense of purpose, and allowed him to retain his sense of humanity. Oh, wow.

And this is the sort of passion associated with basketball in Lithuania. It's just a way of life. Cool. Just like Aussie rules is here for the bottom corner of our country. Not a bottom corner. It's everywhere but the top corner. Rugby leagues, two states. The rest is Aussie rules.

This isn't like a split where Aussie rules is half and rugby leagues the other half. Dave, so don't make, don't paint it like that. He's a vendor. Tasmania, Aussie rules, Victoria, Aussie rules, South Australia, Aussie rules, Western Australia, Aussie rules. Northern Territory, you could make an argument as a split there, but I'm going to call it Aussie rules. That leaves, I can't ever remember the names of the other two states.

Other, who cares. We were kicking the footie at the park the other day, as were a bunch of other people, because it is the national pastime, and I may have accidentally kicked the footy into the river. So. Wow. And did you wait in to get it?

No, we followed it for a while. We followed it down the river for a while. And then it got stuck in like a catchment thing built for catching like rubbish and stuff. And it was just out of arm's reach. We couldn't get it. So I have to go by footy. So you left it?

Well, yeah, we couldn't get it. So it became rubbish. Yeah. How offensive to the national pastime? That is fucked. I know. Oh, Jess. No, but now the first.

Fish have a footie. Oh, that's true. You've got to think about them fish. Yeah. I've kicked a few footies in the rivers. You always go get them. Although I don't live on one of the filthiest rivers in Australia. Yeah, it's a gross river.

And it was getting dark. And I was like, no, this is going to end badly. If one of us tries to get in, it's going to be one of those horror stories where it's like we were trying to get a footie and one of us dies, you know? Oh, that sounds like a boring horror film. Don't go in there. Why? You might drown. Oh, all right.

Do you come back as some sort of a football ghost? Yeah, I would assume so. Okay, now I'm interested. Now you're terrified. Mate, as if a horror film based around an AFL footy isn't your dream movie. That sounds so good. I want to watch it. Anyway, back to the dream team.

Well, so basketball, it's a way of life. Yeah. Rather tragically, if they got good at the sport, Lithuanians were forced to compete for the USSR. And it was like that for over 50 years. years. And as a team, the USSR were very successful. At six of its nine appearances at the Summer Olympics, the Soviet team ranked first in the total number of gold medals won. And it was second overall for the other three. Oh, wow. I knew they were dominant, but that's amazing.

Yeah, very powerful. I guess they were a lot of countries. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you've got a bigger pool to pick from. Yeah, we're representing, you know, a third of all the countries in the world. Is that about right, Dave? Yeah, well, it's not quite that many, I think. But if you were, you were, you these days we're like, oh, we're the Southern Hemisphere team, we'd still maybe make the top five. Yeah. Well, you know, the Southern Hemisphere isn't, it isn't what it used to be, you know. Yeah. Back in the 90s, the Southern Hemisphere used to kick ass.

Yeah. Like, remember when the boomers played off in the bronze medal match? And lost? And lost. Oh, that's good shit. So it's pretty amazing. Australia came forth in basketball one time. Yeah.

What have I told you was not just. one time. I was twice. Poor old Gasey, as we'll talk about. But I mean, yeah, you're saying it's like... Yeah, they were so close to winning it. I mean, the Australian women's basketball is seen as being like up right up there. Yeah.

And the men's... But I mean, the men's has been as well. And it sounds like the next men's team's going to be the best Aussie basketball team ever put together. Andrew Gays is coming out of retirement. One last time. last game. Get me in there. He just like starts running and goes,

oh God, why I think this is a good idea? Oh my God, I'm 50. Oh God, I'm so old. Oh, Gazy. Lindsay's in there too. Gaze's dad is in there. An 80-year-old man.

On the court. Yeah, they're coached by the ghost of Lindsay Gaze. This is a Disney movie ready to go. Ghost dad coach. Ghost coach. There too much going on there? Ghost coach dad. Ghost coach dad.

I reckon they've got to also have like... Coach ghost. Oh, yeah. They've also got to have like a pet or something that gets involved. Yeah. Like the cat makes the winning three point or something. Nah, it's got to be a kangaroo, doesn't it? Yeah, kangaroo.

Of course, a kangaroo, yes. And it would keep the ball in its pouch. But it's not like in cartoons. It's a lot of goo in there. It can't keep the ball in its pouch because then it's travelling. You got to bounce the ball. Oh, well... But they're bouncing.

They're bouncing with the balls technically bouncing. Okay. Where's that double dribble? A lot of questions. Yeah, there are. Look, there's some technicalities to figure out, but I think we're still going to be millionaires. Anyway, Dave.

What's that, skip? What's that? You need to make a free throw? Okay. To tie the game, go at overtime. All right. That's Andrew Gaye's being asked by a kangaroo to come down for one last free throw. It's space jam, but Australian.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah. I can't think of a name because we'd call Jam Jam, you know? Well, because it would be Space Vegemite. Perfect, yes. Space Vegemant. That's good. That's good.

All right, so back to Lithuania. So if you got good, you got to compete for the USSR. That was your reward. But obviously competing for the people that are, one, oppressing you, occupying you, denying your countrymen freedom, the people that sent your grandparents and uncles and aunts to force slavery. Well, to put it extremely lightly, it wasn't great for the athletes themselves. No.

Who's still very much identified as Lithuanian. So when these guys won for the USSR and ADA, people would start speaking to them in Russian at the press conference and they'd say, oh, I don't speak Russian, I speak Lithuanian. And people would be surprised. Right. But you're all from the USSR, but like you're saying, Matt, there's so many countries that are all spread out. A lot of them have their own cultures, own languages.

Of course. Isn't it weird that it didn't work? People tried a few times where one country just. just try and make other countries in their country. And they're like, oh, we don't really want this. Ours now. Eventually it all fell apart. Weird how they didn't just make, you couldn't just make them be part of you.

It is weird, isn't it? Yeah, crazy. It's weird. Because you'd think on paper, fantastic idea. Very good. I mean, if everyone was one Olympic team, you'd never lose. Yeah. So on paper.

Very good idea. Well, until the monsters come down. Oh, no. I forgot they were monsters. Play against us for our vegamine. Yeah. No. Not the vaguely.

Gaze's secret water bottle, but it's just full of vegamine. And he licks it. My secret ingredient is vitamin B12. Gives me me rosy cheeks. And my pretty reliable jump shot. Yeah. What a guy. So these Lithuanians, they dreamed of freedom and playing for their own nation,

but most of them doubted it would ever happen in their lifetime, especially. But back to the USA and the NBA, in 1989, a decision was to be made by Fiber, the International Basketball Federation, on whether NBA players should be allowed to compete the next Olympics. But not everyone in the NBA was keen. The association itself was lukewarm to the idea because they weren't sure if their players would be that interested anyway. An associated

survey Associated press survey of NBA players at the time found to 63% favoured open eligibility and only 58% said that they'd actually

want to play in the games Why is that I wonder because they're, I mean they're making They're already playing at the top level so it'd be like going to a thing

where you're already playing in a higher level they talk about in the AFL as well like bring back the state of origin which I'd love for them to do but I've already played at the highest level in the world

so going to the Olympics to play against teams that aren't as good as, you know, the Minnesota Timberwolves. But that's interesting because I think, well, I'm obviously not a professional sports person. What? I know. Yet. Yeah, working on it. She got a great jump shot.

You would think that, like, going to the Olympics would be exciting. Yeah. I'd want to do that. Well, I think, I think this turns around and they get a pretty good team together, but. Well, it's true. And also the NBA, they were worried that no one would want to go And then it would be embarrassing for them Because they are allowed to send the best

And then the best didn't want to go And maybe they'd still lose Yeah So they were a bit like, oh, no, don't worry about it, I don't know Yeah But it was decided in 1989 by fever That the NBA should be allowed to compete Just to make it more of an open field

It's almost like saying Let's just let them drug cheat as well You know If you let If some of them are drug cheating anyway We're not figuring it out Probably the bloody USSR You know they're bending the rules

Let's just go Open up so anything goes NBA players can play They can also be jacked off their heads Let's make the Olympics truly The competition for the best of the air In fact, let's supply the cocaine Yes, the cocaine, fantastic

Let's just see what happens You know? I think that's a great idea and I assume that's where the story is going but I was pretty young at the time my memory isn't that clear but I think it was a big drug dream team

yeah they had all the drugs you could dream of yeah that's what that's what they got in there I do dream of a lot of drugs yeah just piled in front of them I don't take any of them I don't want to but they're just a big pile of them it's crazy

so the decision was made that NBA players should be like to go. So now the NBA were under pressure to put together a talented team to give to the Olympics. It would be embarrassing if they sent them and lost, like I said. And in that era, when you're building a team of the best basketball players, there's one name at the top of your list. Jess Perkins.

Yes. Really? No, Andrew. Folling closely by Shaquille O'Neal. No, the face of the new generation of basketball. And by that time, already three-time MVP and 1984, Olympic gold medalist, it was, of course, Michael Jordan. of course

who Matt did a full report on and also spoke in length about space jam what a journey and Larry Bird stealing from his pesky or something but Michael Jordan was hoping the USA weren't going to ask him

to play on the national team to quote MJ quote I was trying to figure out a way that I could graciously decline Oh he didn't want to do it Yeah he was like

nah I don't want to Interesting I wonder if some of them were like it was it's almost like a stepping stone I got to do it as an amateur on the way up, you know, if we start doing it now, it takes away the chance. I don't know if he was thinking that selflessly about it.

Yeah. I think it was a bit, I've been there, done that type thing. Oh, what? I've been there, done. You know, you've done one Olympics, that's enough. How lovely is that that you can make so, you can work so consistently through the year that you don't have to take the, like so many other sports people are working their asses off between.

Olympics just to get to the Olympics. Like that's the pinnacle of their sport. Yeah, I guess I think that's the difference. That's the pinnacle of their sport. And for him, it's not. He hasn't won an NBA championship yet. That's what really drives him. He's like, I've already won an Olympics.

It was pretty fun. Fuck, that is mental. Yeah. Like you think of like track, like athletics and stuff like that. Like there's what's higher than the Olympics. And often it comes down to one 15 second period. every four years. Totally.

Whether you make the final, whether you're metal. Yeah. Between the gun going up and up in 15, 20 seconds later. You're like, oh, that was the worst run I've had in four years and I didn't make the final. I missed the jump. Yeah. I'm off to the airport.

Crazy. I'm running to the airport. You just keep running to the taxi. Well, so the NBA, they wanted Michael. So they reached out to him and asked, and he wanted to know who else was playing. Basically, he didn't want to be the only super. superstar on the team. He was worried it would be him and then a bunch of college people and he's like,

I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not carrying this team. I already carry another team. So they made another call to three-time MVP, five-time NBA champion, 12-time All-Star and absolute legend of the sport, Ler Laker, Magic Johnson. Oh. And he was in straight away. No questions are.

Really? Magic's like, yeah, man, I'm for hang on. Let me check the sketch. Yeah. Yeah, I'm free those dates. Well, he was because he was the first puzzle piece to fall into place, and it made the other sit up and notice, because he's a legend of their sport.

Yeah, Jordan looked up to him when he was younger. And yeah, because he was older at this time. And it was seen for Magic himself as the last hurrah, because he had announced it was HIV positive at the end of 91, where he also announced that he would retire immediately. Because not a lot was known about HIV at the time. Right. He was like, he thought he'd never play basketball again.

He played in the All-Stars game that year after being voted in by fans, and many actually objected to his participation because again, people were ignorant about HIV. They were thinking that they might get it if they played with him. But he did, and he played. And he wanted his career to go out with the bang, and he thought, what better way to do it than getting a gold medal? So by the time the Olympics came around,

it was a bit more known that HIV wasn't. Yeah, and I also think that, yeah, there's a bit more education. He'd played and nothing had gone wrong. So it was a bit like, oh, okay. He probably didn't get this. It's quite a lot of blood or saliva. that has to be exchanged. And he didn't get this playing on the court.

So it's all good. And once Magic said yes, they had no trouble recruiting other players. And I'm going to list them now with some of their achievements. Let's see if we've heard of any of these names. It should be noted that these are their achievements at the end of their careers,

which for most of them wasn't 92. But this is just to give you an idea of the talent in the team and the caliber of the players that they put together. Can you give them all their nicknames if they don't have a nickname come up with a nickname? Okay. All right, we're starting with three-time league MVP,

12-time NBA All-Star, and the sandwich lover, Larry Bird. Larry Bird. For the Boston Celtics. What was his nickname again? The Hick from St. Lick or something else. Yeah, it was. At 35, he was the oldest on the team

and had back problems by this stage of his career. But like magic, he was keen to go out with a bang, and he was such a legend of the sport, that no team would be complete without him. Oldest on the team at 35. 35. Which, like, when you're a teenager, you think 35 is so old. But, like, I've had back problems since I was seven.

And he's like, oh, I'm 35, my back's gone. Really? I haven't been allowed on a trampoline for like 20-something years. Is that how you doing it? You did it on the tramp? Yes. And I fucking love trampolines. Every day.

If you look at me, I'm the type of person who would, like, I'd be on a trampoline so fast. I look at you, I think, tramp. You know when those bounce places became very popular? What in the 90s? No, like a few years ago. No. Under 10 years ago. People would go to bounce.

It's an indoor trampoline place. I remember when I was a kid. No. And it was exciting. Just these in-ground trampolines. So cool. Amazing. There was one in the small coastal town we used to go to.

Anyway, they became very cool again a few years ago. And like friends were going. I'll sit this one out. I can't be on a trampoline. I'll hurt myself. Anyway, get on you Larry Bird, 35. And a veteran. 35.

It's amazing, isn't it? But, yeah, basically, he was past his best just because of injuries, but they were like, we've got to pay respect to this guy. We've got to get him in. Next player was Scotty Pippen. Yep. Pip or Robin to Michael's Batman. People sometimes called him.

Michael Jordan's teammate and fellow six-time championship winning player at the Chicago, Bulls, seven-time All-Star. He later said he didn't think he deserved the call-up. But didn't admit that to the selectors. He was just stoked to be asked. Oh, that's nice. And he's got a, which you'll see in the Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson.

Very different. Michael Jordan documentary. He's got the deepest voice. It's awesome. I knew the name, but I don't think I knew what Scotty Pippin looked like somehow. All right. So I was like, that's Scott Pippin. When I was a kid, he was almost the cooler one to like, I think.

at primary school, I remember Scotty Pippen was like, I guess that just showed you had slightly more knowledge than the surface knowledge that everyone in Australia had when Michael Jordan was so big. But he, yeah, he apparently is alone in this doco series that he signed a long-term contract early. Well, you might have seen this as well. And he was one of the lowest paid players in the, or he was way down the list. It was one of the least paid players on his team because he signed a. the contract so early and they wouldn't renegotiate because he inked it up and he's like

I didn't want to take any chances I just want to make sure my family was looked up. I could get injured next week if I hold out and sign a contract in a couple of years. So yeah, that was fascinating to learn. Yeah, wow. But yeah, he does a disappointing nickname. So you're saying Pip or Robin. I love Pip. Yeah, Pip's okay.

Anyway, Scotty Pip, who else we got? Oh, we got Clyde the Glyde Drexler. That's the best nickname. Yeah, that's amazing, actually. I love that so much. From the Portland Trail Blazers, he would go on to be NBA champion in 95 and was a 10-time All-Star. Wow. The centre was David Robinson from the San Antonio Spurs, nicknamed the Admiral.

Yeah, he was the best. Number five, he was one of my favourite players when I was a kid. The Admiral. He'd served in the Navy. Oh, okay. He's the only, still to this day, the only person that's served in the Navy that's played in the NBA. Yeah, right. That's interesting.

At 7 foot 1, he was the tallest player on the team. Whoa. He was 1995 NBA NBA NBA. He's playing centre, yes. For some reason, for a second there, I was thinking netball. And I've never played netball in my life. How funny. But of course he's put the seven-foot guy at the centre.

David Robinson was a wing attack? I was imagining him standing in the middle of the court and not being able to move much. Ozzie rules, the centreman would be one of the smaller position on the field. But yeah, basketball centres. Oh, this is my sport. Pay attention, Jess. That's great. So he was MVP for the league in 95 and two-time NBA champion and 10-time All-Star.

So these guys are phenomenal. Patrick Ewing from the New York Knicks, aka Hoyer Destroyer. Fuck, that's pretty good. So he was from the Hoyas, which is a college, Georgetown, I think. And he was actually, he was born in Jamaica and moved to the USA at 12. He'd already won a gold medal in 1984 with Michael Jordan, and he went on to be an 11-time NBA All-Star. Next up we have the mailman Car Malone

Oh yeah Because he always delivers From the Utah Jazz Second highest scoring player In the history of the NBA Is that true? Wow Behind only Kareem Abduljabbar

He was two-time MVP 14-time NBA All-Star I think Kareem Abdul-Jubah Has the best name Of all time across everything A huge call And I agree Thank you so much

I have my back there And I know you've got a bad one. I've got a bad back. It means a lot. It means a lot. There is another US athlete whose name is Barquevius Mingo. Oh my God. Matt, take back what you just said.

Kareem Abduljabar. Barquevius. What was it? Fucking Mingo. Barquevius Mingo who plays in the NFL. That's incredible. Mingo. Barheavius.

I mean, that is fantastic. That is fantastic. I love that. And it sticks with me. It sticks with me that name. You know Maggie Simpson from the Simpsons? She was almost named Cool Mo D Simpson. If Bart had his way.

We're getting them. The Malman Carmelone was joined by a long-time teammate, John Stockton. Oh, High Shorts, John. Nickname? High Shorts. Stock. It's pretty gross. I love that.

He was the only one who held out. We talked about the Michael Jordan episode. Oh, the kid. Michael Jordan changed the shorts fashion forever in basketball by wearing them longer. And John Stockton never, he never followed that trend when the rest of the league did. He was one of the only ones who held out on the short basketball shorts. Nate. At 6'1, he was the shortest player on the team.

6-1, the shortest player. Shorter's player. Mugsy Borgs wasn't available. Mugsy said no. No, that's not true. Sadly, Mugsy. I don't think I got the call. But John Stockton's team made the playoffs.

in each of his 19 seasons at the jazz. Wow. 19 seasons. That's amazing. And you've got some players who will never play finals. Every year. Every year. For nearly 20 years.

Did he ever win a championship though? I don't think so, no. But he holds the ending. They must have been close at some points, him and Malone together. I know. We've got the high scorer. But unfortunately, they came up against six years where Jordan was unstoppable. I mean, it is obviously a great, you know, we're really cool.

momentous thing in basketball, but also you do think about the people that never got there because they were blocked out in 60 years. John Stockton holds the NBA records for most career assists and steals by wide margins to this day. Ten-time All-Star. Wow. And Chris Mullins from the Golden State Warriors. Great shooter. Also part of the 1984 gold medal winning team nickname. Big Three.

Yeah, I guess he's the three-point shooting. Judah. Also had a great flat top from memory. Oh. I supported. I jumped around different teams in the NBA when I was a kid and I went for the Warriors for quite a while. Obviously jumped off them before they became a powerhouse. Of course.

I don't feel comfortable. I don't feel comfortable going for a championship team. I'm just looking at up here because I didn't look up the nickname of him. But he was part of the high-scoring trio of basketball teammates. Hardway, Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullen, who together were called

Run TMC. I think Littreel Spreewell played with them around that time as well. It's a pretty sick team. And finally, from the NBA, a man with the greatest nickname

in the history of sport, in my opinion, the round mound of rebound. Sir Charles. Charles Barkley from the Phoenix Suns. Awesome. Ninety three league MVP, 11-time All-Star.

Charles Barkley was then and still is famous for saying whatever he likes. He was a popular player but also quite controversial at times. His talent was obvious but the selectors were worried about him representing his country and courting controversy during the games. When he was told that they were considering him, he was so honoured that they would even

consider to put him on a team with these people he convinced them that'd be no problems from him. Oh, that's great. He was truly honoured. He features a little bit in the docker because they were one year they were pretty close there was Bulls versus Sons

in the final and he went to Chicago when they just needed to win Chicago wins they win the series and driving into the stadium all of Chicago had like basically they were already celebrating the championship and then the sons upset them

that night and won to keep the series alive and the one of the reporters goes there any messages for the people of chicago he says you can take all those posts and shit down for tonight you don't need them tonight it's good he's so good there's a line in it where like this is he's talking about it sort of now and he said something i can't fully remember the context we said something on lines of like that was the first time in my life i thought someone was better at basketball than me like first time in your life amazing playing jordan and thought that someone could be better than you

you were at this sport. I imagine the, but wouldn't the NBA be full of those people? What an amazing thing to be, like every battler on the bench probably has played most of their life being the best. Totally. It must be a strange feeling to, you know, every level. You go, maybe I, you know, I'm best at this level, go up one, still the best, still the best.

Yeah. And eventually like, oh, shit. Yeah, you hit a limit. But Jordan never hit that limit. But did you, you're a big fan of the Conan podcast, Matt, have you heard the one with Charles Barkley? No. It's really good because he just says whatever he likes. And he talks about how hard it is.

It actually made me appreciate how hard it is to make it as a professional athlete. You know, obviously I respect how hard they work or that sort of stuff. But you forget about how many talented people don't quite make it. Because he talks about all the time people come up to him and say, oh, my son's Mr. Florida this year. Like he's going to make it. And then Charles's response is he always thinks himself, yeah, great. There's 50 of those this year.

Yeah. Every state's got to miss to someone. Yeah. And they are the best in their state, but that doesn't mean... Yeah. And he says there's only 450 professional spots in the NBA at any one time. Maybe 40 jobs a year come up. Amazing, yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing. And it... Yeah. Yeah, that is crazy. And in American sport, it feels like more than over here, there's so much player movement during seasons. Players will rock up and hear that they've been traded to another team mid-year. And they're always just being chopped around.

Oh, so he didn't make the cut. You're gone. What a full on time. In the NFL, you're like, you got your spot for at least two years, I think. It's sort of the minimum contract. But over there, you might rock up for a few months and you're like, ah, you cut. Move your family's whole life. Yeah, crazy.

An ex-Saint's player has got drafted in the NFL as a kicker or a punter. Awesome. That's cool. recruited at the Saints, beautiful long kick, but you never quite made it. I was so big on him being a big star. I, Facebook memory came up recently where he got named in the team after playing the reserves for, you know, for the first half of the year. And I'm like, finally, you finally made the right call. And, you know, he got dropped a couple weeks later because he didn't quite make it. I named my, I used to do dream team, AFL dream team, you know, the fantasy football.

Yeah. And I called, his name is Aaron Siposs. I called my team the Sipossi. Very bullish about him being a big star. And now? Well, look, he's probably one of the highest paid ever AFL players because he's got a short contract in the NFL. Smart.

As like a second string kicker or something. Yeah, but that's kind of cool. He's playing for Detroit. I think he got picked up by Detroit Lions. That's really cool. We've had a few Aussie people go over and be a kicker. Is that right? Yeah, because I think,

Australian rules kicking is a big skill and most professional players can kick 50 plus meters with a much bigger ball. So it's just the skill you're born with here. Is it more smaller? I think it's a little bit smaller. It's a different shape, pointier and I think it's a bit smaller, yeah. Yeah, cool. I didn't know that.

They've got to throw them. Oh, yeah. We just throw the footy. You throw yours in the river? Yeah. Dick it. It was so far away from the river. Just kept bouncing.

Anyway. Dave, you said this is your longest report ever. Geez, we've gone on some side track. I'm so sorry, Dave. Sorry, everybody listening. Who gives a fuck about Ozzy rules? Well, these 10 men locked in. Sorry, just do you appreciate?

That's an amazing lineup. All those people are... Where's Isaiah Thomas? Well, we're going to talk about him just a second. With these 10 men locked in, they went back to Michael Jordan. He was keen to play with the guys he usually plays against. So he was in. He was offered to the captaincy but declined

in the two senior members of the team, Barry Bird and Magic Johnson were selected as co-captains. That's nice, yep. I believe actually they said to Jordan, you can be a third captain. Yeah. Which is about three out of the... Three out of eleven to the captain. He's like, stop. I don't want to be captain.

I barely want to be here. No, you can drive the bus if you want, or you can have the biggest room. Yeah, I know. They let him drop the bus. They're just trying to throw in any kind of perk they can. You can... I want to do... Less, not more.

Okay. All right, yeah. Michael. Great. We'll carry you. You don't have to walk. We'll carry you everywhere. We'll let you zoom in.

You can just Skype in and play via Skype. We'll put someone out on the court and you say which hand had touched the ball with. We'll just do it that way if you like. Okay, that's not enough. We're trying to change the constitution to, so our country is now called Michael Jordan. What do you think? What do you think? Crook Malma.

Do you love us? Please love me. September's been changed to Jordan. These 11 men, 10 of whom would be listed as part of the top 50 NBA players of all time in 1996. Sadly, Chris Mullins missed out. Sorry, Mullins. He does seem a bit like the old one out in that team. Sorry, Mullins.

And all of him, though, would go on to be Hall of Famers. And who were the most famous names in the world of basketball were joined by one more man. As an acknowledgement to the previous amateur system, the US Basketball Committee decided to include one college player on the team. Fuck off. Shaquille O'Neal was considered. He was to be the number one draft pick that year. But the player that was selected was Christian Leitner.

He was the star player on the back-to-back national championship teams of 1991 and 1992. He would later go on to play in the NBA and be named an All-Star in 1997. So there's no doubt that he's very talented. But imagine that. He's 22 years old. Playing with your idols. You're playing with college people. And now you're on the same team as the best in the world.

How would you keep up? It's crazy. Yeah, you wonder if that's good or bad for you long term. Well, I saw an interview with him and he said at the time, there were all the egos, everyone assassinate each other on the court, and he was like, I just stood back and I was just happy to be part of it. Of course, yeah, you'd be stoked. You wouldn't want to say anything wrong.

You'd be like tiptoeing around. Just like, please let me stay. Magic, all right. Yes, sir. Hello. Oh, be crazy. Thank you, Mr. Bird for passing to me. Yeah, anytime you like, if you fumbled over one of their passes,

you'd be like, idiot, idiot! It'd be so intimidating. As Matt said, pretty controversially, Isaiah Thomas from the Detroit Pistons, was left off the team. It was rumoured that Michael Jordan had asked Isaiah Thomas be left out. Isaiah Thomas was seen as the ringleader

of the so-called bad boys that had won championships in 1989 and 1990 for the Detroit Pistons with some pretty physical tactics, often at the expense of Michael Jordan. Right. So, All-Star, and he's like a 12-time All-Star himself, like, insane. I think even Jordan called him the second best point guard of all time.

Yeah, after magic? After magic, yeah. Yeah, pretty big praise, but he was not selected. And I think it was more than just Michael that didn't want to work with him. He had rubbed a few people the wrong way, and he wasn't selected. I think a big part of it was that they wanted people that were talented that also would mesh as a team. Totally, yeah, that makes sense. They are trying to please, Michael, there's no doubt about that.

But I think other people in the team were also like, Isaiah Thomas is a bit of a dirty player. I don't want to be his friend. And if a team isn't meshing, if they're all out there playing as individuals, you're not going to get very far anyway. You know, you have to be able to work as a team. So he wasn't selected, but his coach was.

The Dream Team's coach. Lindsay Gaze. The ghost of Lindsay Gaze. I'm alive. I'm afraid we will have. to kill you, the prophecy foretoldness. The dream team was coached by Chuck Daly,

coach of the bad boys at the Detroit Pistons. That's me. I chuck daily. You okay? No, I'm very sick. Help me. He was a seasoned veteran and he was known for handling the bad boys well. What a fucking dumb riff.

I'm so sorry. He was known for keeping the The bad boys. So it was basically seen as if you keep the bad boys in control, you can deal with anyone's ego. Yeah, right. Yeah, interesting. And yeah, I wonder how that affect his relationship with his star player, Thomas, as well. Come back from a summer of coaching Michael Jordan and Magic, these people that don't like you.

And also, they're like, we don't like their dirty playing. It's like, well, the coach, I reckon had something to do with that as well somehow. Yeah, and people were worried that Michael wouldn't like him as well. because he'd coached the team that had been dirty to him, but they ended up getting on really well and played a lot of golf together. It makes sense that you'd have the champion, like, he's like reigning two-time championship coach at that point? Or who won in 91?

I'm not... You said they won in 89. 89 and 90, yep. But yeah, I mean, that makes sense that that's the coach you pick, I suppose. Yeah, and like, because these are the biggest personalities in the world you want, whoever can deal with them. Gordon does come off as a bit. He holds a grudge as well.

He still hasn't forgiven Thomas in this documentary that was filmed a guest last year. So it's, yeah, it's pretty wild. I reckon that's a Michael thing. Right. My brother holds grudges. Okay. And any other Michael's listening?

If you're a bit pissy over that, see if you're still pissy about it next week. You've proven me right. 91 was the Bulls' first win. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, right, 91, 92, 93. And they beat the Lakers. There you go.

So, that's the USA team. Superstars, in their own right, all of them. Over in Lithuania, they had some amazing talent of their own. Three players that I'll really focus on in this report, who all won gold medals for the Soviet Union in 1988, and were all Lithuanian, and amazingly, were all from the same city. Oh, wow. Canoas, which is Lithuania's second largest city.

So it's not even like, of course they're often there. That's the biggest city. It's the second biggest. And it's just a really big basketball city. The first one is Arvidus Sabonis. At 7'4'3, he was the tallest man on the team. 7.3. That's so big.

He's 2 inches taller than their tallest guy, David Robinson. As a teenager, Sabonis had grown 4 inches in one summer, over 10 centimetres, and remembered returning to class that year and not being able to see anyone's faces anymore. He just... He got facial blindness. He was so close to the sun. He wasn't wearing sunglasses.

He was like, where'd everyone go? He was literally head and shoulders above everyone else in his school. That's like the summer holidays I got braces, you know. Came back to school. Couldn't see anyone's teeth. You know what I mean? It was the talk of the town. Where they go?

You've just got gums. Why don't any of you have teeth? Hello, Jess. Stop gumming that sausage roll. It's disgusting. Oh, you're just salivating on it. It's not going to break it down. You got to shake.

I'm getting there. A bit of tomato sauce. I reckon I'll be able to swallow this. Stop using tomato sauce as lube. I'll loop it up and I'll get it down there. It's like a snake. You still see it in your throat? I just have to dislodge my jaw.

And now I just don't. Gest for six to eight weeks. I went to school with a lot of snakes. Let me tell you. You're your school and mine, am I right? A couple of social climbers. So, Subbonis, he was a big, big man, 7'4 3, ridiculously tall. He was considered by many in the late 80s and 90s to be the best player outside of the United States.

NBA Hall of Famer and former NBA MVP, Bill Walton. Bill Walton once describes the bonus as, quote, a 7 foot 3 Larry Bird. Oh wow. Take that Larry Bird. Yeah. You're 35. Get out of here.

Little Larry. This is a big bird. Meet big bird. It was an all-round player and a natural team leader. Then we have Veldomaris Hochemis, the 6'3 point guard who was five years older than Sabonis and seen as an elder statesman of the game. Not as famous in the long run as the other two old mentioned.

but still an integral part of the team. Hohemachus. I had to look up the pronunciation of several of these names. And finally, we have Seroonis Marcellonis. Sport was an obsession from a young age for Seroonis Marcellonis. Early on, he had played tennis, but he'd later changed to basketball. A firework had exploded in his face at the age of 13, and he was badly burned. Metaphorically, speaking.

They were a real firework. They were apparently big in Lithuania. Yeah, right. Especially over New Year's Eve, they'd all sit off their own fireworks. And he set one, he lit it, and then it didn't go off. So he went and was like, oh, touch the fuse. And as he did that, it exploded in his face. Oh, no.

You do hear sometimes you hear, like, successful people will say it early in their life. They had a firecracker lit under their ass. And that really motivated. I always thought that was a metaphor. But maybe that's just something that successful people do. Yeah. Get exploded early. If you see Michael Jordan's ass, he was horrifically burned.

That's why he wears big shorts. That's why. It's painful to wear time. Yeah. The short shorts, I rubbed a little too much. He's there. He's a room to breathe. But Marsolinas, yeah, he'd been burnt and he prayed to make a full recovery, which he did.

And from then on, he decided to apply himself to sport. Yeah. And he chose basketball. So he sort of had a firecracker lid under his ass in a way. But then it didn't go off, so he turned around to look at it and it exploded in his face. Unlucky. still worked out in the end. He and some other friends

had installed their own basketball court made from paving stones in front of their apartment building and then made a backboard from nailing together old planks of wood. Oh, wow. And from there... My parents just bought us one.

He got good. That's privilege. Yeah. Oh, now I get it. And you'll see in this next sentence, Jess, because as a teenager, he left his city to move to the capital, Vilnius, to go to college

and hopefully to try. buyout for the Soviet national team. When he left, all his parents could afford to give him was one bag of clothes and one bag of apples. And then they're sending money's worth. A whole bag of clothes. A whole bag. That's great. A bag of clothes.

And what kind of apples are we talking? Rotten. Oh. They're one of the worst gone. Yeah, that sucks. Still take them over Red Delicious, but yeah, pretty bad. Rotten's like second or third worst. Yeah, I reckon.

Red Delicious. They don't rot. They just become even more concrete. They will not rot. Great building material, like red delicious. Wow, so a bag of clothes, bag of apples. Off he goes. What is your horse with a bag of clothes?

This is a well-dressed horse. A horse with a panache for fashion. A panache for fash. What am I meant to wear the same outfit every day? Oh, look terrible. I need options. Where's my winter water? the farrier back here these shoes aren't doing it for me i want to wear heels if you look down

in the he's wearing platform shoes with uh goldfish in him discoes do living and cluffing along so the difference in lifestyle enjoyed by the lithuanian stars when compared to the members of the dream team is hard to overstay first of all they didn't have multi multi million dollar sponsorships at the top of the sport michael jordan had million dollar deals with nike gatorade Haynes, underwear, Coca-Cola, the list goes on. Patrick Ewing's annual salary in 1991 was $4.2 million. The next year, David Robinson was the highest paid player in the league, earning $5.7 million.

And yet, it's true that salaries in the NBA would actually explode over the next few years, and Michael Jordan pulled in $30 million a season by 1996. Fuck! But still... They actually said that this dream team's got a bit to do with that. The worldwide popularity exploded because of the dream. team. Totally.

That was just massive. So more money was injected in. So it's amazing how important in that way this team was, whether or not that's a good thing, I don't know, because it feels like $5 million is... That should be enough. That should be enough. It just creates, yeah, you wonder if it creates more issues when money gets so huge. Yeah.

Although I don't know. I'll never know. I'll never know. And I won't find out. But still, so the money would get even better, but still in the late 80s, early 90s, NBA stars still got paid a heap, especially when compared to the USSR counterparts. In the USA, they were sponsored by McDonald's, whereas as in Lithuania, they didn't always have meat and sometimes people fought over bread.

Cool. So a lot of the time, they went without. That was at the McDonald's. Yeah. They didn't always have meat. Some of their bread. Veggie burgers again. I just realized when we were saying, you were saying we'll never know about money, millions.

making a difference. I meant I'll never learn by reading about it, but you meant because we'll never earn that much money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That didn't even come into my mind as a possibility. I'm like, I'm never going to read a book about rich people, but you were like, we'll never earn no other. It was like moments later like, oh, yeah, I guess people can do that.

Ever make millions, I guess. Yeah, I mean, that felt obvious. No worries, yes, I got it Yeah Alright mate You didn't know what a fucking sugar bowl was Don't you try to jump on with intellectual bopp over here One week ago

You were confused for quite a while About a sugar bowl All the info is You know That you need is in the name It's self-expertory Well unlike you guys I do make 150 million dollars

You know when you make that much money You don't need to know what a sugar bowl is That's true Someone gets it for you I assume the sugar bowl man one of my many servants has something to do with it. I just don't know what it is. And I, frankly, I don't want to know.

I'm above that. Yeah, you are above that. I pay someone else to know what a sugar bowl is. There's one guy who knows what a sugar bowl is and that's his only job. That's the only fact he's allowed to think of man. How much do you pay him? $50,000 a year. Can you, can I have that job?

All right, well, you're going to have to forget everything else I've ever told you. Easy. But I know what a sugar bowl is. Is you going to fire that man? Oh, I'm going to have two. There's a backup backup sugar bowl person. I used to be worried what would happen if he died. Yeah.

Who would know what a sugar bowl is? I'd have to train someone and I don't know what a sugar bowl is. It's a very complicated system. Okay, great. Always have two. For when one inevitably dies. You need an understudy for every role. You'll the sugar bowl swing.

I love that. Sugar bowl swing. That's my cool dance move. I'm famous on TikTok. So if any of that doesn't make sense, this is in the last week's episode, the North Pond Stranger. Also known as the Sugar Bowl incident.

So the players on the Dream Team could afford Lamborghinis and Ferraris, but in Lithuania you had to receive a permit from the government to buy a car and there was an up to 10 year wait on actually getting the car. 10 years. You had to get a permit to buy one and then you'd have to wait 10 years to get it. To get the car. They're made to all. And not many people could afford them.

I don't know what I want to do next week. I couldn't jump 10 years. I'll put in an order for that for 10 years. There's a famous joke that Ronald Reagan, the US president at the time, who was obviously throwing shade at the Soviet Union, he would bring out jokes that he was saying that, oh, this shows that the Soviet, the people there,

they know how to have a laugh. And it also makes fun of the regime they're living under. And the joke is that a guy got told he was going to get a car in 10 years. And he said, oh, thanks. Is it in the morning or the afternoon I'll get the car? And the guy says, well, why does it matter to you? And he says, well, the plumbers coming in the morning. I've seen a clip of Reagan tell this joke.

Big laugh. Actually, it's in the other dreamtie documentary. Yeah, it's very funny. The crowd goes wild at this show. The plumbers coming in the morning. Yeah, but it was, honestly, that was part of their lives. They would have to wait to get the car. In the USA, luxury cars were a luxury item.

In Lithuania, any car was a luxury item. Wow, that's fascinating and awful. It's awful. Even as a team, things were different for members of the Soviet basketball squad. Before the World Championships, they were taken to Soviet hero and former leader Vladimir Lenin's tomb in Moscow to see his dead body as a source of inspiration. Yeah.

Let's go check out a body. Let's go dig up a body, hey Was their coach also a ghost? That seems like he's trying to do some sort Is he trying to reunite himself with his own body? Yeah, I think so. Reanimate. Coach is just like, you guys want to see a dead body?

It'll inspire you. Dave Lennon, good guy, bad guy. Oh, complicated. It's all black and white, Dave. Quick, give me an answer. He's more complicated than Stalin. He's not, yeah, well, because he started the revolution and was the early leader, but then he got sick and died and then Stalin stepped up and then became very authoritarian.

Lennon's one of those people that I think has great principles, but I don't know. Then a lot of people say he laid the groundwork for the regime that would kill millions of its own citizens. So can he be that good a guy? And I'm not, I'm not educated enough to tell you one way or the other. I'm just saying some people really like him and some other people say he's a dog. Got it. Well, that's my new knowledge on Lenin. Can't wait to bust that out next time someone asks.

Yeah, so some people... What a grey area on that one, actually. I mean, he paved the way for Stalin, who most people say is a bad guy. And... Yeah, still just against. Most people would argue... Some could argue he was a bad man. And, but at the same time, had pretty good principles.

But, I mean, what are principles when they just paved the road to Stalin? killing a lot of people. Is that what he did that? Yeah. In summary, you've got to say, he might have been a dog. Okay. Might have been a dog. But so the Soviet players, they went around and saw the body as inspiration. The Lithuanian players apparently thought that this was a bit weird,

and inside were laughing. They weren't laughing outside. They're getting a lot of trouble, but they were a bit like, why are we seeing this dead guy? Why are we going to go check out a body? But their lives were controlled by the Soviets. Before they were allowed to go on tours, they had to undergo a character analysis

that declared them morally sound enough to represent the USSR. Fuck, hell. And once they passed that test, whenever they went abroad as a team, they always had a team manager assigned to them by Moscow, someone who was almost certainly a KGB operative. Shit.

Just keeping an eye on them. This person's job was to monitor their movements. Bale movements. Yeah. They go through a little stick. Huh? Huh? Pee's? We don't have peas!

Before the tours, they were told how to behave and where they were allowed to go and what they would be allowed to say publicly. They'd be followed wherever they went, especially when they were playing games in the USA. Okay. So, always someone watching over their shoulders. And the USA blew their minds when they played there. They had new and interesting foods like chicken, orange slices, and banana.

Oh, yeah. Banana was on the grades. It blew their minds. Wow, banana. They didn't have it. Imagine. So when is this in the 90s? In the 80s, yeah.

Imagine being blown away by banana. Oh, the first time I came across banana blew me away. I'm assuming. You remember that? Well, no, but I can assume. I can almost certainly assure you it was a mashed banana, am I right? Ah, yes. Mash banana, mash banana.

Yeah, the wiggles delivered it to me. But the first time you have spaghetti, you do not want it to be cold. I remember avocado the first time. That blew my mind. It looked gross to me And then when I finally had it I was like, holy shit I'm the same, I was a teenager

By the time I actually gave a shot Oh, I was late to avocado Very late Early 20s I reckon I mean I'd had it before But I didn't like it Or big fans I'm obsessed with it

I've had it every morning For the past week Holy shit Sorry, Craig Found some Hasse avocados In the supermarket HASS, not even that Shepard's shit Fuck off Shepard

You're dying a whole shepherds Fuck you Rubber avocado more like it Yeah, nothing complicated about that argument. If you had a dinner party, Hasse, yes. Yes. Shepherd, fuck off. Fuck off.

For a while, only Shepherds in the supermarket and I said, well, I'm done with this life. But then Hasse came back. Just in time. Just in time. I was nearly done. You walk back from the ledge. I said, all right, then. I'll stick around.

You followed a trail of Hass avocados. Yeah. You're eating avocado every day. I mean, they're like, you know, two for five. and one had last me two days. It feels like I have oats and milk for breakfast. I'm Lithuania and you are the dream team. Because I can afford avocado.

Wow. If you believe those boomers who draw cartoons in the newspapers. Yeah, well that's why you own several properties. Boomers. Andrew Gaye. Gays, he's writing those articles. No. Okay, boomers.

Obviously, international listeners would be well aware the Australian basketball team's called the boomers. Obviously. And obviously, international listeners would be aware that Andrew Gays is kind of like the Albert Einstein of the Australian basketball court. Yes. Yes, thank you. He's the genius of the layup. That's sort of what he's known as here.

Oh, yeah, the genius of the layout. Can't dunk, but man, he can push it in off the backboard. Oh, yeah. That little square's there for a reason. Yeah. But he used to... It is. He used to pass to a guy who could dunk for the Tigers.

That's how good. Gaze to Copeland. I was a great alley. I get every point that Copeland scored technically should go to Gaze because without him, there's no Copeland without Gaze. That's teamwork, baby. Gaze is number one in my opinion. Just like Scotty Pippen, Pastor Michael.

Good work. Good decision. Scotty Pippen, MVP. When Scotty was out and they talk about, show this in the doco a bit, he sat out for a while kind of because he wasn't being treated super well. So he took a, he got surgery. mid-season when maybe you could have got it out of a season as a bit of a quiet protest or a loud protest and the team really suffered without him and with jordan still playing it's interesting to say

you can't even on a five-man team you got to have pretty handy players yeah with you can't put it all on one play to carry everything just imagine if they'd kept ander gaze what could have been who the NBA yeah well yeah I'm pretty sure. I'll look that up. I'm pretty sure we want to ring for the Spurs. Maybe even with David Robinson, the Admiral. No. Oh, that is, that's impressive. If true. I mean, either way, it's impressive. It's impressive if I've been able to come up with that fake fact. That is impressive. Gaze is a bit like Steve Martin and that he's looked old from a young age.

Yeah, Silver Fox. Yeah. Silver Fox in his 30s. Just maintained it. Oh, you better believe it. He won with the Admiral in 1999. Well done, Maddie. Well, done, Gaze. Look, I mean... You can take credit for this year. Well, yeah, I think it was a team.

It was definitely a team effort. I did as much on court as Gaze in that win, but... Anyway, Dave, still getting distracted. Do you go on. Sorry, we've got to go. So, the Lithuanians and the USSR, their players, they're always watched, but this didn't mean the young men didn't attempt to make the most of their situation. Did they, they were, their main industry was making batteries, is that right?

And these basketball players? Is that a thing, Lithuanian batteries? Oh no. Am I right? Saying that? Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. So.

How quickly you hated yourself there? Well, I'm just starting to doubt it. Dave looked at me like that might not be right, so I'm not sure. But you're confusing the word lithium, with Lithuanian? I'm hearing you say the same thing twice. So they tried to make the most of the situation. Most of their countrymen weren't allowed to travel outside the USSR at all.

So they've got to, you know, enjoy it as much they can. I mean, eat the chicken, the orange slices of the banana. Try banana, you'll love it. Dave, remember that tiny, tiny banana you had in Thailand? It was so small. It was so tiny. It was so small. It was crazy, so it looked like a fake banana.

It was a real banana. Dave, remember that? What a country. So exciting. After we talked about oranges last week, I bought a couple of oranges. I'm going to get to eat them. Wow. We should be responsible about the Fruit Council.

Ooh. Does that exist? I take fruit free fruit for life, I reckon. What is? Is this becoming my other podcast getting fruity with Matt and the boys all of a sudden? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry to step on your turn.

You have a patent on that idea. Remember I said David Robinson salary at the time was $5.7 million a year? That is over $100,000 a week. Well, a Soviet. athlete's salary at the time was $100 a month. Oh my God. David Robinson would earn their yearly salary every two hours. Their yearly salary.

Yearly salary every two hours. Oh my God. But the cost of living in America at that point was a lot higher. Than Lithuania. Yeah, they got such cheap power because of all the batteries. Yeah, they stored it up. Yeah. So the Soviet athletes weren't well off by any stretch.

So to make even more money on their tours, They would go shopping and fill their suitcases with as much as they could. They illegally take the purchases back to Lithuania and sell the items on the black market. Oh my God. They risked jail time doing this because it was smuggling, but they went for it nonetheless. It became a competition as to who could pack the most in their suitcase. Wow. That's a fun competition.

That is sad that they have to do that. I bet Jordan would have put money on it though. Yeah. I bet I can pack more in mine. He loves a gamble. Michael, stop taking money off us. You have so much money. I bet you I own more money than you.

No, I'm not taking that bad. Where they went would depend on what they would buy. In Italy, they'd buy jeans, in Spain, shoes. In Japan, electronics and TVs. And America, well, they had everything. They buy food. Were they allowed to bring it back? Yeah, secretly.

That smuggled it back. Once computers became popular, that was the must smuggle item. Once it became the person of the year. Time really influenced the world with that. Oh, you simply must smuggle the computer. And the athletes could triple their money if they brought home a computer. Wow. But you buy it for 500, sell for $1,500.

When Serunis was selected as the Soviets' number one athlete in all of the USSR, he was asked to make a speech. This is the basketball player, Serunus, Marsalonus. They handed him the speech, and he was told he had to read it word for word. He disagreed with what it said, because they had lots of praise for the USSR and their way. of life and how free they are. He refused to speak.

He was told, your wife is about to graduate university. If you don't do this for us, we'll make life very difficult for you and your family. So he had to speak. So a high point in his career, being named the best athlete in the land, quickly became a low point because he had to spout all this bullshit. Oh, wow, that sucks. And he was ashamed of himself for a long time after that. That's awful. I would have just read it kind of sarcastically.

You know, they didn't say anything about what tone it had to be in. I would have been like, oh, the USSR is so good. I would just done inverted. I would have done question, like, fuck, what am I trying to do? Thank you. It's so good. Oh, man, I love it. I love the USSR.

Love it. I love the US. SR. You pretend to turn the page. Yeah. I love that dark club. US, I'll turn the page. Esar.

Basketball sometimes got political. Sabonis, one of the other great players, is part of a club called Zelgiris, where Lithuania's best players played. They played a match against the Central Red Army Sports Club, a club that was made up of players from all over the Soviet Union except Lithuania. Zelgiris was seen as a team

representing a political movement, a movement that wanted freedom for all of Lithuania. Zelliris was expected to lose After all, Lithuania had 3 million people And the rest of the Soviet Union Had over 200 million Okay Zelgiris fans packed the stadium

And watched them defeat the Red Army Wow It was massive Wow And which was bad news to the Red Army team Because they were told Under no circumstance Can you lose to these guys

And then they did Oh Oh they all Wait did they all get to show No it wasn't quite that bad But it was It was yeah They were pretty upset with it

They all got spanked and not in a sexy way, like an owie way. You know it's a fine line. An owly way. Between, oh, an owl. Too much. It was owl. Oh. Yeah, no fun spanking.

It was a massive slap in the face of the union and a huge morale boost for the Lithuanian team and its supporters. It was actually seen as a big step forward for the country. That's how big basketball was in Lithuania. Shit, I would never have thought. They were thinking there was no chance of them actually beating the Red Army. We just beat their basketball team. So fuck you. Our Subonis also made history in 1985 when he was selected by the Atlanta Hawks as the 77th pick for the NBA draft.

That year, Patrick Ewing, future dream team member, was the top pick. Unfortunately for Zabonis, he was disqualified for not being 21 as the rules were acquired at the time. I was too young. He was only 20 and a few months. So the next year, he was selected in the first round with the 24th pick by the Portland Trailblazers. he was now old enough to play but the Soviet Union wouldn't let him leave to play for an American team

so he missed out No So did the Hawks not know his age Yeah I think there was some confusion over that Because he was so far away And then the next year Trailblazers tried to pick him And he didn't know that he wasn't going to be allowed

No he knew He was like People told me You just been off of the contract And he was like That means nothing to me because I know They're never going to let me play Right

They won't let me leave And, you know, that would have been a million-dollar contract. I wonder if he could, he, yeah, that's why the KGB doesn't let him out of his side in America in case he makes off. Yeah, just defects and runs away. But also in 1985, during a game in Villanious Lithuania, the other absolute gun player, Marcellonis struck a friendship with one of the opponent players, a guy named Donnie Nelson. Donnie Nelson was an American player participating in the friendly match, and Marcellonis absolutely smashed him that night, scored 40 points. He was supposed to be manning up on Marcellinus, and he just dominated him. But he was super impressed by the talent of his opponent.

And as he's often the way, it's not what you know, but who you know. And Donnie Nelson's dad was Don Nelson. And he got him a six record recording control. Crazy. Never picked up an instrument in his life. But it was a ticket out of there. Straight to the top of the country, Charles. Couldn't believe it.

No, his father was Don Nelson, who a couple of years later became the head coach of the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. Donnie told his dad, Donnie. Oh, you got to check out this Lithuanian guy called Marcellonus. He's awesome. It was a complicated process, but the Golden State offered Marcellonus a contract. He was told he couldn't go, just like he's made the bonus. But he consulted lots of lawyers, and he decided to sign the contract and risk being thrown in prison. Wow.

Sort of hoping, it became a media story, and he hoped that the media hype would keep him safe. Yeah. Golden State coach Johnny Nelson was able to secure the contract. This is over several years. And in 1989, Marcelinus became the first Soviet player to be allowed to play in the NBA. Oh, shit, he did it. It was a three-year contract worth $3.8 million. Oh, my God, that's insane money.

He was making $100 a month previously. This is more money than he could ever dream of. Wow. And it was a culture shock for him and his family when he got to America. He couldn't believe that he could just buy a car on the spot. And perhaps even more amazingly, on his first trip to the supermarket, when he noticed that there was no rationing on fruit and vegetables, he started crying.

Oh, my God. You mean I can buy all of this? You can have anything you want. It's fine. Oh, amazing. Far out. He was making a hundred bucks a month. I make more than that a week.

What? Holy shit. I wouldn't declare that out loud. The tax people are going to come for you. I make more than a hundred bucks a week. Is that true? I don't even care who knows it. I bet you get mugged on the way, huh?

Yeah. I'm driving my Maserati home. Thanks very much. There, unmuggable. $100 for that, Maserati. Thank you very much. I paid a hundred bucks. I paid a week's wage for that.

Weeks wage, wow. So, 1989, it's a big year. He became the first player to make the transition and not get punished. It was also a big year in world politics. The Tiananmen Square massacre took place in China. The bill in war fell in Germany. The Romanian dictator Nikolao Chalchescu was executed by his people. And Lithuania.

really began to push for independence from the Soviet Union. I think a few of those things have never been said so cheerfully. All brushed over so quickly. Well, I mean, it's just amazing that it was a... Sass twins. There they are. Well, there you go. Andrew goes just set one up.

Copeland. Comet. Slammed it in. And laid it up. Thank you very much. No Australian has ever dunked in there long. Well, Copeland. No, that's not true.

No, it's not true. I think I think Copeland might have been born elsewhere. I don't think. So that's why gay is Australian born. He ali-ooped it to someone. I don't know. I feel like Copeland might have even been American born. Yeah, but Copeland's American.

American. So that's... Do you think that there's a country out there where no one has ever done a slam dunk and you could theoretically become the first person in your country in 2020 to slam dunk? And it makes you like you're instantly the president? So that, Ricky Javees filmed the invention of lying. The invention of dunking. How did he do it?

How are they doing? What was that? What was that? Yeah, of impossible. I might remember incorrectly, but I think Liz Cambridge was the first woman to dunk at the Olympics. Oh, yeah, maybe. Is that like in 2000 or something? Yeah, no, not 2000.

That's too long ago. More recently. I don't know that feels believable Dave keep going and I'll look it up I'm pretty sure that's right All right That's cool So Lithuania

The takeaway from that paragraph That I really brushed over was They began to push for independence from the Soviet Union And all these other places We're also pushing for independence and more rights A movement headed by Vitalis Lansbergus

Incredible name. So many of the names sound like Roman Empire-ish. Yeah, totally. Lansbergis, Vitalis Lamsbergus. Totally. He declared Lithuania's independence. Did he have the ability to do that? No.

But he went for it. I love it. And on August 23, 1989, approximately 2 million people joined their hands to form a human chain, spanning 675 kilometres, 420 miles, across the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Two million people joined hands. What? Well, this was pre-COVID-19.

Yeah, it certainly was. I'm never shaking hands again. No. Let alone holding hands. Oh, I'm looking forward to shaking hands. No, you can't do. Can we hug again one day? Absolutely not.

In a year. Okay. We can hug in a year. Ten years. Morning or a day. afternoon. Because the plumber is coming in the morning. I'm hugging him.

Lithuania officially declared independence on March 11th, 1990, but it wasn't strictly that easy. The USSR weren't going to let them go without a fight. First they put in an economic blockade and just tried to make life difficult for the independent seekers. You reckon you've already done a bit of that with the gulags? But then now they're like, no, I'm not going to give you anything. So absolutely cut them off from the rest of the world. inflation soared and it was a very difficult time to be in Lithuania.

Fuck it. Hoping to capitalise on the unrest caused by the inflation, the USSR sent in the tax. Send in the tanks. I'm honestly starting to quite dislike the USSR. Oh. Here we go. Crazy opinion alert. Here it is.

What's the up to? And what about Lenin? What do you think? Dog or not dog? Well, it's tricky. You know, there's a lot of grey area there. He had a lot of good principals, but he paved the way for these tanks

that ended up going into Lithuania in 1990. I reckon a good school principal will set anyone right, so I'm glad he had a few ones. The Pone King's back in town. You got Pond. You got Pond. I looked it up. Liz Cambidge made Olympic history

by being the first one to dunk at the Olympics. Oh, sick. In 2012, not 2000. She was nine years old in 2000. That would have been more impressive. That would have been awesome. I was Duncan by 10. Also in the year 2000,

that was the first time they allowed ladders at the Olympics. So it wasn't that impressive that Liz got up there. The Harlem Globe trial has won every medal. Yeah. That was amazing. So they're hoping to capitalize on the unrest caused by the inflation. The USSR sent in the tanks. They thought they'd be welcomed, but they totally misjudged it.

Lithuanians flooded the city to defend their independence. When would tanks ever be welcomed? I thought basically they've already told them to fuck off. They thought they'd... Well, they thought they'd make the inflation so unbearable. Oh, they'd be welcomed back, please. Your system actually wasn't that bad. Right.

Our new system, I can't even afford bread before. There was some bread. But they would also probably be aware that it's only that die because of those... Yeah. The powers of those tanks represent. They did not do well. And Soviet soldiers unleashed violence across the city and shot and ran over hundreds of...

hundreds of people. Oh my God. Fourteen of whom died that night. Oh my God. This was under the cover of nightfall, but the atrocities were well documented. There's a lot of video footage out there. Shit. The leader of the Landsbergis called for his people to occupy the city the next day

and following the attacks, large crowds of more than 50,000 people supporting independence gathered around the Supreme Court building. People started building anti-tank barricades and setting up defences inside surrounding buildings. The Soviets realized that they'd lost, they left for good, and independence was recognised by other countries on that day. Lithuania became the first country to leave the USSR, and Landsbergas became chairman of the country, basically their new leader. They were finally free.

Wow, it's such an inspiring and brutal story. Awful. It's crazy, and they were the first of many to regain their independence. In fact, by the end of 1991, so not that long later, The entire Soviet Union was no more. Yeah. That was the first domino to fall kind of. Yeah.

And it had been sort of fracturing for a long time, and that's what Lithuania sort of sense there. This is our, if we're going to go for it, this is it. Wow. When did Turkmenistan and the Turkmenbashy? It wasn't too long after that, I think, that they... I guess it was a... Yeah, it was it...

Mid-90s, I think it was early... I feel like 92's a number in my head, but I don't know. It was a while ago we talked about him. Fascinating story though. Yeah, it's just you can't imagine. You don't go any of those sort of stories, just like, what a wake up call to how lucky we are. Totally.

And a lot of the... To live here and now. A lot of the basketball players in the story, they had to watch on TV because, you know, they're either in the NBA or a few of them had moved to different USSR nations to play in their basketball squads. in their leagues and watched their country and they were kind of like, are we going to win this or are my family going to be in trouble? Yes, that's full on. Back over in the USA, the Dream Team got together for the first time for a training camp in California.

It was time to see how the best players in the world would actually play together as a team. There was a whole lot of talent and a whole lot of egos. They practiced together and everyone played like they had something to prove. A few days later, they had their first time of playing, taste of playing on the same side, when they played a closed exhibition match against some college players who were of course stoked to be playing against these legends of the game.

Oh my God, I'd be terrified. These college players in Spain, is this all in Spain? Or is this still in America? This is in California. California, yeah. The dream team coach was Chuck Daly, who I mentioned earlier,

who had been hired for his talent at handling and managing large personalities and egos. And this was his first chance to see how his players would go together as a team. It was expected that they'd all go for the ball and basically hog it as they showed off to sort of impress each other. But actually the opposite happened. They all passed a lot.

No one wanted to be the first one to go for it in front of the other legends. And they played sort of like sheepishly. Oh, wow. That's interesting. I would have thought it would be definitely the opposite. Yeah. They were like, oh, if Michael's not going to go for it, then I'm not going to go for it. Or if Carmelone's not going to go for a three hour, maybe I won't.

The Dream team didn't know how to play together. and at halftime they were getting trounced by these young people. Holy shit. That's fascinating. They're crazy. The assistant coach Mike Kruzuzki asked head coach Chuck Daly what they should do and he said, we're all right. Don't worry about it.

I suppose like this is just like a practice match. You would kind of let that happen. Yeah. You know, you wouldn't be like, get to show them all. You'd be like, alright, all right, let's keep these egos in check. Yeah, well, the game went on and by the end of it, the college team had smashed the dream team. Wow. The best players in the world were beaten by a bunch of college kids.

What a great story for those college kids. Yes. They still dine out on that story. I watched a video. The media were let in after the game, but they tried to keep the fact that they lost a secret. They made sure to clear the scoreboard. Yeah.

Because it would be a huge embarrassment to the league. Yeah. They've just picked 11 of their best and they got beaten by some college kids. It's since been speculated upon by Mike Krasuski, the deputy coach, that Chuck Daly could see that this would happen and basically through the game by not subbing in players

or making any tactical adjustments in order to get his players egos and check, as you just said, Jess, and also to realize that despite the hype, they weren't invincible. Yes. The players did start listening to him more after this. And the next day, they played a rematch

with the college kids and the dream team beat them by nearly 100 points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was all, and from that time on, they had the mentality. We've got to play with our hearts and properly because we could lose. Imagine how embarrassing that would be.

One of the main changes they made was a bunch of the players, Jordan organisists. They got a VHS tape of Andrew Gays' famous layout. And they brought that in as a tactic the following day. And they laid their way up to victory. Yeah, they did. Actually, I believe that Nike slogan is just a shortening of what they would say. They would say, just do it like Gaze does. Yes, that's right.

That's what they all said. Carmelones like, just remember. but do it like gaysie does. Charles Barkley, I'm doing it like gazing. Yeah. Like gasey, if I could be like gazy, is one of the, one of the, team tattoos.

They've all got them on the left butt cheek. Yeah. Yeah. What would Gazy do? Win with a layout. That's what it says on the right butt cheek. Win. Win.

In brackets, in case it wasn't clear, Gaze. He won a lot of NBA championships. He won the original NBA. I mean, like, do you want NBA? Do you want NBA? NBL. Champion chips.

So I mean, what are the... So I guess all the country around the world have NB something. So, you know, Spain's MBD, the National Basketball District, that sort of thing. Is that true? Yeah, their whole country is one district. Yeah. Is that... Wow, that is fascinating.

I stumbled across that fact. Right. The more you know. You really set me up Andrew Gay's style. Yeah. You Copeland me. What a sweet dunk that was. Well, not a dunk.

They can't dunk. District. Lay up. You set me up for that layer. Yeah. No Australian player has ever dunked. Even though he's not Australian. Still, no Australian players ever dunked.

He was living in Australia for quite a while by that point. Lost the ability to dunk. Right, once you enter our country, you have to leave your dunking abilities at the door. Yeah, you will be fine. We cut your Achilles tendon so you can't jump anymore. It's a brutal country. We've got lovely beaches. Yeah.

Beautiful. Wonderful cafe culture. That water will sting your Achilles if you don't let it heal first. Maybe you wait. It's beautiful. With dominant performances in the Olympic qualifying tournament of the Americas, the dream team was ready to play. But they couldn't have been as keen to represent their country as the Lithuanians.

Now the country was free. Lithuania's basketballers who were playing around the world were determined to represent their country at their first Olympics since 1928. Wow. That's epic. I'm so shocked that basketball was in the Olympics for that long. When did you know when it came in? Oh, so it came in in in 1938, but Lithuania hasn't been at the Olympics as their own nation since 1928.

But even 36 is surprising. Yeah. Awesome. But there was one big problem. Oh. The country had no money. Oh. So often, yeah, these things come about, like, you know, they change leaders or whatever,

and it's like, yeah, freedom. But it takes a while to actually get things going. So they didn't have money to say. send a basketball team over to Barcelona. Now playing at the Golden State Warriors, Serunis, one of the star players, reached out to Donnie Nelson, the guy that discovered him and his father was Golden State coach.

And they started running some fundraisers, speaking at events, and basically going door to door to raise money for the Lithuanian team. Every dollar they got, they sent it back to Lithuania. Imagine that, a multi-millionaire coming to knock on your door.

Do you mind if you give us some money to send over some of my mates? Mate, you earn multi-millions of dollars. He's earning three point something, which is insane. I'm guessing they probably need a little more than that to bring everyone over. But that's fucking crazy. So they're fundraising. Yeah, they're raising money to send their brand new country.

But you're allowed to be sponsored in the Olympics, so they couldn't get like a Nike or someone on board. Well, looking back, it would have been a great move by them, but they did not. They did it the hard way. one of the local riders of the Bay Area, George Shirk, wrote about the Lithuanians' plight in a local newspaper. The headline was, For a real dream team, take a look at Lithuania.

The article was read by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Mickey Hart, who were all huge basketball fans, but also members of the rock band The Grateful Dead. Soon after Serunus was playing basketball in Detroit, the same night the Grateful Dead were playing, sorry, the night before the Grateful Dead were playing. sorry, the night before the Grateful Dead were playing in the same stadium. Oh shit. So Sirunus and Donnie Nelson, they went a little bit early and they went to the gig. Serunus was fascinated by the smell of the smoke in the arena and wondered how he'd be able to play there the next night.

People lighten up a few doobies in the crayon. A few deadheads. Oh, yeah. I didn't realize, yeah, I knew they were a big band, but I didn't know they were like a stadium band. Yeah, big time over there, big time. Yeah, one of those bands is way bigger in America than they are here, right? Yeah, because... There's a few of those kind of bands.

Rush is another band that's apparently real big in America and Canada. Yeah, these bands that I'm like, I know who they are, but I couldn't name the songs on their greatest hits, yeah. But yeah, no, they were big time and they were playing at the same stadium that the NBA players played at. After he went to the concert, Serunis met the band who were again smoking something backstage. I see.

Ice. They moved on to something a little heavier. The band was sympathetic to Lithuania's plight, agreed to sponsor the team and pay for their transportation costs. No way. The Grateful Dead sponsored the Lithuanian basketball team. So they wear Grateful Dead logos on their uniform? Because of an article they read.

Yeah. And they were big basketball fans and they were like, oh, yeah, we'll help you out. Far out. So that was a huge gift. They offered to pay to get them over to the Olympics. But that was not the only thing they gave the team. They also had some T-shirts and shorts designed as an eye-catching uniform. They sent over a box of tied-eyed shirt.

No. Designed by New York artist Greg Spears. The shirts feature a skeleton slam dunking a ball. And the rest of the shirt is this amazing tie-dye. Not a typical Olympic uniform, but the Lithuanians, who under the Soviets, were used to grey and dreary colors for absolutely everything, they were stoked to wear them. Oh, that's so good. And they wore them everywhere to the games, to the press conferences around the city. Oh, you've got to share photos of those.

That's so good. You can still get them. I really want one. Amazing. It meant that they were visible at the Olympics. So they'd go everywhere they'd go. And obviously most of them are very, very tall men. Seven foot three.

Yeah. And they're wearing these really, really bright shirts. So everywhere people went, they're like, oh, that's the Lithuanian team. And they sort of got a rep that way. Awesome. It became branding for them. And it created a lot of buzz around the team because people would look into and be like, oh, I haven't played at the Olympics since 1928.

That's amazing. And it became like the must-have souvenir at that Olympics was one of these stylish shirts. So, yeah, it really helped put them on the basketball map. At the 1992, Barcelona Olympics, 12 teams qualified for men's basketball and there was split into two groups. Groups. The top four of Group A were USA, Brazil, Germany and Croatia. It also had quite a story having declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

So they were also a brand new country. Yeah, right, yeah. Group B included Lithuania, Puerto Rico, Australia, Australia, Australia, and the CIS, also known as the unified team, which was a team made up of the countries of the former Soviet Union, except the Baltic states like Lithuania. So they were in a group with their former peers, including Russia, which they saw as their former oppressors.

Right, damn. I think because everything had happened so fast, rather than those other countries that had just declared independence, they were allowed to, for one last Olympics, compete under one banner. And the players are like, I don't want to miss the Olympics. Yeah, all right, cool, yeah. And they were still seen as a big dominant force

because there's still 190 million odd people that they're drawing from. Just not the Lithuanians and made up the majority of their team. Yeah, that's right. And they're like, we don't want to lose to these guys because they're our oppressors. In group A, the dream team lived up to their hype.

Matt mentioned this on these Michael Jordan report, but they won their games by an average of 44 points. The hype that followed them was unbelievable. Everywhere they went, they were treated like rock stars. Magic Johnson recalls it. Yeah, he's such a fun, smiley guy. Everywhere he's like, we'd get on the bus. Yeah, we'd wave from the bus.

Yeah, we'd leave. Yeah. They'd move a little bit. Yeah. The round mound of rebound. Charles Barkley also lived up to his reputation of saying and doing whatever he liked, despite his pledge. He promised.

He said, I'll be a good boy. Before the team's first match against Angola, he said to the media, I don't know anything about Angola, but Angola's in trouble. Okay, that's not that bad, I guess. And he was right. They smashed Angola, both on the scoreboard and on the court. This is the controversial bit. At one stage, the score was 46 to 1.

Okay, mercy rule. Barclay courted huge controversy for violently elbowing an opponent, who he claims, to this day, had been elbowing him throughout the match. He said he albored me three times. Let it go twice. He did it again, so I cracked him. It was portrayed in the media as a superstar lashing out as an amateur from Angola. Barclay later said, somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back.

Even if it doesn't look like he hasn't eaten in a while. Oh, Charles. Michael Jordan recalled the incident, said, that's the same guy who just asked you for an autograph, Charles. you think he's not intimidated by you? Because that's the thing. Before the match, the other players would want their autograph.

No. They'd get photos with them after the match. And Charles even said about this, he's like, I'm about to whoop your ass. Why you want a photo with me? But they were just, that was like, you know,

the biggest thing in the world. Wow. And despite the controversy, Charles Barkley gained legions of fans during the Olympics, and he became one of the most memorable personalities of the entire games. Because, mostly because of these press conferences,

and he would travel around Spain, Barcelona, and people just loved him wherever he went. So his profile was really raised during the games. And the scores were amazing. They beat Angola 116 to 48, down Germany, 111 to 68, smashed Croatia 103 to 70, took care of Brazil, 127 to 83,

and outshone host nations, Spain, 122 to 81. Long story short here, the USA smashed everyone and easily made the semifinals. Lithuania, on the other hand, were more of a quiet achiever, but they had a great start to their games. They beat China, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, no worries. Their fourth game was against the unified team

made up of the Soviet players. The evil empire to them. It was a lot more personal. Sadly, they lost against their old rivals, 92 to 80. But they went on to beat Australia, so they made it to the semifinals, but it was a real dash to the pride

the country. Did they make it past them though? Yeah, so it was... CIS were eliminated, but... No, so there were... CIS, Australia and Lithuania all progressed to the semis. So there was six in each group and the top four after playing everyone, playing the other five, went through to the semifinals.

Yeah, right. I'm picturing two versus two in the semis. How many games in the semis? I said semifinals. I meant quarterfinals. Gotcha. And then the winners of that go become the final four for the semis. And then that goes on to the gold medal match and the bronze medal match.

Yeah, cool. Who's the unlucky sucker who drew the dream team in the quarters? Sometimes in these kind of tournaments, you're like, if we win this game, we have to play the dream team. So it must be strange sometimes, but you know that kind of thing. You want to know who the unlucky suckers were? Oh, was it us? No, we got through to the...

It was poor old Lithuania Oh We made it about us He's been talking about Lithuania For a couple of hours I thought it was going to be us Even though I knew that they ended up No was this the year they

No I'm confusing a different year Anyway So it was the dream team versus Lithuania The winner would go into the gold medal Match and the loser would play off For the bronze medal Oh right

So this is this is the semi- So they made it through the semi-so They both won their quarters obviously Yep The Lithuanians knew the talent of the Americans and had seen what they'd done to every other team and basically had no fantasies about beating them but they didn't want to put on a respectable showing

and they did they were just stoked to be playing against such amazing talent only Marcellonis who played in the NBA had ever played against anyone that good one of the younger Lithuanian players Arturis Casanovis even started taking pictures with a camera from the side of the court He's now like a high-up NBA exec.

At the time he was like, no one else has taken photos, so I figured I'd try. And they all turned out terrible. That's awesome. The Dream Team did smash them 127 to 76, but it wasn't embarrassing. The Dream Team were smashing everyone.

Yeah, it sounds like a pretty similar score on to all the other games. Yeah, so they did pretty good. That meant that the USA went on to the gold medal match against Croatia. Croatia Croatia put up a big fight and got closer than any other team but the margin was still 31 points with the USA triumphing 117 to 85.

Wow. Triumphing. They lived up to their reputation and put their country back on top of the basketball world. The team had averaged 117.3 points per game. Chuck Daly hadn't called a single timeout throughout the entire tournament. What?

They just wiped the floor with everyone. He didn't need to. Amazing. Michael Jordan was the only player to start on court in all eight games. They let everyone else cycle through and they all started part of the starting five, but he was the only one that was always part of the starting five. But he was the second highest scorer. Charles Barclay was the team's highest scorer with an average of 18 points per game.

18 points a game. Scotty Pippen led in assists and Carl Malone and Patrick Ewing tied with the most rebound. The round man got out to rebound. But what about Lithuania? Yeah, what happened to them? Well, they played off for the bronze medal and fate would have it. They had to rematch the only team that had beaten them. Their former country, the United team.

Damn. Oh, that's perfect. I know. They were told they had to win at all costs. You're saying Australia didn't ever make the top four this time? I thought that was our spot. Not this time. Sorry, Gazy.

Poor Gazy. Poor Gazy. He deserved better. He deserved a gold. Better he averaged more than 18 points a game. Croatia knocked them out, I'm afraid. Oh yeah. Beaten by a pretty decent team.

So they were told they had to win at all costs. For the pride of the new nation, their first matches as a proper country, not just some Soviet colony. That's how people used to view them. And they were like, no, we're our own team now. Yeah. We're big boys.

They couldn't be beaten again. head coach told them, men, you're playing for the people of Lithuania. People are watching you, losing sleep over you. They were told the whole country was either watching them on TV or listening to the game on the radio. Think about that pressure. Even making the top four is so impressive, where they had to fundraise just to get there. It's an amazing story.

It's wild. I had no idea. No. It's amazing. It was a close game the whole way through. Just before half time, the United team were up. by four points, but the Lithuanians clawed it back to be up by six points

when the buzzer went. Final buzzer? Half time. Half time. Oh, wow. So they piled it on. Up by six. Valdemaris Hochemus had been struck in the head during the first half and he was bleeding quite badly. Ah, head injuries bleed a lot. It's fine. The leader of their country was their chairman

Lanzbergers, the man who'd started the revolution that got them free from 50 years of Soviet domination. What a funny change he's gone. through. He's leading a revolution and soon after, just sitting on the side of a court, which is a basketball. And then it would, like, he'd be

on TV and it would come up with a chairman of Lithuania. So, what? He went up to Hohemus and asked him if the injury hurt, and Hottemus replied, I can't see anything through the blood. Chairman Lansberg has told him, don't worry about it. You're spilling blood for Lithuania.

Bad ass. Somebody help him. Better. Put a fucking bandage on him. genuinely a little cart on your head will bleed like a motherfucker just wipe it up find the source of the blood whack a bandage on it for Lithuania for Lithuania Do it for the country

You're spilling blood in your head for Lithuania You're creating trip hazards for everyone else For Lithuania Your blood's clotting for Lithuania Your blood isn't clotting We should get you tested For Lithuania The man hit the court for the second half.

And the second half overall went to the United team. But would it be enough overall? With six minutes to go, there was only one point in it. The United team outscored Lithuania in the second half 45 to 43. But it wasn't enough to overtake. Lithuania won the bronze medal by four points. So good. Yeah.

Bronze would look good with their tie-dye as well. Yeah, it looks good. The Lithuanian stars really shone that match with Marcellonis scoring 29 and Sabonis contributing 27. Whoa. It was the proudest moment in the country's athletic history.

There were huge celebrations in Lithuania and in the locker room. The chairman came in and sprayed Marcellonis with champagne and then they all started singing the anthem. It sounded terrible. But they did it with pride. So good. It's one of the weird quirks of these kind of team tournaments

that bronze you get to win where silver you'll lose gold. Yeah. So it'd be more satisfying to win the bronze medal than to go in with the silver. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Funny thing.

So it's almost perfect for them. Yeah. It worked out really well. I reckon, I remember, we don't have time for another tangent, but I'll tell it anyway, because I've started. Going, like, as a teenager, going into a grand final game, and I got there as the game before us was finishing, and they were doing, like, a medals presentation.

And I was like, wait, if you come second, you still get a medal. And they're like, yeah. I was like, ha! And I was so relaxed that whole game because I knew either way we were getting a little trophy or something. I was like, oh, this is going to be all right. The other team were like making mistakes because they were really nervous. And I was just like, fuck yeah, going home with the trophy. And we won.

You won a silver medal. Got it though. So pretty sick. Yeah. Anyway, I just think, yeah, that's such a good point that you win bronze or you. I would go into a gold medal match like, well, I'm getting a medal out of the way. You know, I'd be stoked, I don't care. I want a medal.

And that's why I'll never be a professional athlete. That's why you made it at the top. That sort of ruthlessness you have. You know how competitive I am? Yeah, Michael Jordan was, he was stoked the times he came runner up. You mean I get a participation award? I love that. Well, in 18 months, the small nation of just 3 million had gone on

from declaring independence to winning on the world stage. Wow. A team sponsored by a rock. rock band from a place many had previously never heard of won the bronze medal for their people. Lithuania added a gold medal, also that tournament, when a discus thrower, Romus Eubartis won gold. Yes, Romus. They're all such Roman names. He sounds like the Caesar's off the side.

Romus Eubartas. That's great. I feel like this is a win-win for both dream teams. I'm glad the American Dream Team won, and I'm glad Lithuania got the... They needed it. dream team. They needed it. I bet they had a, you know, that would have been good for their egos because they

they needed a little boost. Well, it actually meant the Lithuanians stood on the podium next to the world famous members of the dream team. Of course. And you better believe they proudly wore their Grateful Dead tie-died t-shirts. Yeah. Serunas Marcellan said, the Grateful Dead believed in us when we were nobody and we're going to pay tribute to them.

Oh. When you started telling this story, I thought it was just going to be they, they made it and they played in the Olympics. I didn't realize it was going to be them winning a bronze. Sick. So 12 men received bronze medals. Three of them already had gold medals from the previous Olympics. But they'd won that for the USSR.

This time they'd won bronze for Lithuania and it meant a lot more. Wow, that's nice. Yeah, I forgot they'd been in the Olympics for the USSR. So that part isn't so new for them. But playing for Lithuania would be pretty special. And they had to beat Andrew Gayser's, boomers to get there. That would have, I imagine, I mean, you've breezed over,

but I imagine that would have probably been the biggest moment for a lot of... A very tough game. Yeah. Beating your hero like that? Oh my God. I hope they got a photo with Gazey after that. He would have been very obliging.

Yeah, he would have... Unlike Charles Barkley. He asked Gaze for a photo. Yeah, of course he did his Gaisy. I reckon, yeah. I imagine that Gazy would have made a... a funny little quip as well.

Oh, I would assume so, yeah. He used to do the sports shoes on Channel 10, and then he'd do his footy tips, he'd do his tips for the AFL, and then shoot a basketball over his head or something. What man? Did he ever get it in? Oh, probably every time. Three out of five times he got it in.

It's gaysy. Of course he did. I reckon he probably did okay. Has he got an order of Australia yet? I assume so. So Andrew Gase to you, please. Just to wrap it up here, after the Olympics, all the members of the dream team,

except for Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, returned to the NBA. The dream team had taken the NBA to a whole new level and interest in basketball exploded around the world. So as Matt was saying, it really did put it on a new stage. Yeah.

Since 1992, the USA has won gold at every Olympics, except in 2004 when Argentina won gold, and the USA won bronze that year. Bronze, that's a big drop. Because they still think of this as the full dream. team because after this they did find it hard to get the best of the best to play in they and this was already a golden age in the NBA as well but I think usually they wouldn't be able to get the but I'm pretty sure like Lisa the bronze won a gold medal

right uh Lithuania won bronze again in 1996 and 2000 well both times beating Australia and poor old Andrew Gaze Gaze he competed in five Olympics and came forth three times that's such a I'm I knew I I remember a couple, but yeah, to me, that's pretty cool that Gaze went top four in the Olympics three times. It's sick. And as for our Lithuanian guys, Veldemaris Hotimus, the man who bled for Lithuania, went on to be an assistant coach on the Lithuanian national team and still coaches the top team in the top Lithuanian league. Serunus Marcellonis, he ended up playing eight seasons in the NBA, scoring 4,631 points. He later founded the Northern European Basketball League

after being president of the Lithuanian Basketball League for 10 years. He's an inductee of both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and became a member of the Fiber Hall of Fame. Wow. So he's really well respected. And then there's Arvidus Sabonis. Arvita Sabonis finally debuted in the NBA. This is the guy that got picked in 1985.

Yeah, but could get there. He finally debuted in 1995. Ten years later. Wow. See, that was some quick math. So, wait, as a 30-year-old? He was a rookie at 31. That's so good.

He had injuries in his knees, and he was well past his prime. One of the doctors that gave him a medical before the signing said, Arvidus could qualify for a handicapped parking spot based on this X-ray alone. Oh, my God. But they still signed him. Despite this, he played seven years in the NBA and scored 5,629 points, and his team made the playoffs every year. Seven years till he was 38.

Yeah, and he was already shot. His legs already shot at 31. He's in multiple Hall of Fames, and in 2011, Sabonis was voted as the next president of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation. Just finally, current basketball fans might know the name Sabonis because his son, Demantus Sabonis, was born in Portland while his father was playing for the Trailblazers. Well, his son Demantus currently plays in the NBA for the Indiana Pacers

and was named an all-star this year in 2020. Oh, cool. So the future is very well. very bright for basketball in Lithuania. That's awesome. That's what it lives on. Oh, that is the end of my longest report ever. Dave.

What a great report. Did it go that long a breeze by to me? I think we're sitting at nearly a couple of hours here. Right. I felt like that absolutely flew by. Yeah, that was great. Hey, can I give you a couple of quick Andrew Gay's stats? Yes, please.

No better way to finish the night. Because I just quickly looked these up and some of these. blew my mind. If you could just text me some random Andrew Gay's facts over the next few days, I would love that. We should make a website called Random Andrew Gay's Fact Generator. We were joking about how good he was, but he dominated the NBA. It is wild. Oh, yeah.

He, which obviously is the original NBA. Yes. The NBA won. Yeah, exactly. He averaged 44.1 points in 1987. He averaged 44 points. A game. Yeah.

Fuck me. That's the highest ever single season points per game average. That's the record season. Eight-time NBL three-point field goal leader. Ten times NBL free-throw percentage leader. Obviously, NBA champion, 99. Who cares? He was the NBL MVP between 91 and 98 every year apart from 93.

Fuck. Say again. 91, 92, 94, 94. 95, 96, 97, 98. MVL MVP. Wow. 15 times all NBL first team. 14 times NBL scoring champion.

14 times. He was the NBL rookie of the year in 84. I love this. This is maybe my favorite. Eight times NBL most efficient player. Oh, yes. What does that mean? He uses energy well.

Was the, did people even bother going to the awards for you're running? He says after 1997, the award was discontinued because Andrew Gage was the only player winning it. I just stopped giving it out because he was the only one. Six times gaze medalist, which at the time wasn't named after him, but now is named after him. And that's the best international Australian player of the year. Yeah. Far out. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, an incredible player. That's wild, what a freak. Could never dunk. You're sad. Yeah, so he averaged over 30 points, like, for the first 15 years of his career almost. 29 is first, sorry, then from 85 all the way through to 2000, he averaged over 30 points a game. That's fucking...

Peking it over 40 in 87. That is bad. That is so much. Yeah, wild. And then obviously, yeah, NBA. champion in a 98 99. Anyway, he should have had his own bloody report. But that's a mini-gazy report, a little bonus report there at the end.

So worth it. Well, that brings us to everyone's favourite section of the show, the Andrew Gay's stats section. Now that that's done. Every week we have to do it. But we also have a fact quote or question section of the show. And it has a little jingle, I think. Fact quote or question. Ding!

You never forget the ding. Nobody ever forgets the ding. So in this section of the show, if you support us at Patreon at patreon.com slash do you go on pod on the Sydney-Shaunberg deluxe memorial edition level, you get to give us a fact, a quote, or a question. I'd read out two a week. I don't read them until I read him.

You also get to give yourself a title. This week, Larry First is the first one we're going to do, and he's given himself the great name, by the way. Larry. Yeah, on you, Larry. I love all of that. He's given himself the title, Director of Foreskin Tabulation and Wally.

wedding planning. Okay. Well, let's see if this quote he's given us, gives us more context there. What's a four-skinned tabulator? Don't ask questions. I don't want to know. I mean, it's quotes from the Bible, so maybe this will help us out here. From the Bible, one Samuel 18 to 27, quote, David took his men with him and went out and killed 200 Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king. son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter, Michael or Mishal, in marriage. Bible's got a lot of stuff in there. You go out, you bring back a whole bunch of four skins, you count them out in front of this

man, and then he says, all right, you can have my daughter. In exchange, for 200, four-skins. That tradition has evolved over time to the wedding ring, but it used to be 200 human skin wedding rings. Is there a chance that if it was 190, he would have said, not enough. Not enough. Go back at 10 more. I was certain that story was going to go. He said, these are 200 Fawskins.

He'd say, thank you. And it turned out that the men were still alive, that they just chopped off their fore. And that started circumcision. Yeah, that was like the way that they survived or something. Because obviously, 200 four skins, that doesn't mean the men are necessarily dead. You haven't chopped off their head. They're in pain, though. Yeah.

You better believe they're limping for two weeks. No, I'm pretty sure in biblical times there was great anaesthetics. Yeah. So it would have been fine. Wow. Larry first, fantastic quote. Thank you for that. A memorable one, an inspirational quote.

First, we're all taking something different out of that. First quote from the Bible and first, uh, foreskin quote. So thank you. Yeah, you're a couple first, sir. Uh, secondly, Stefan Headley, uh, giving himself the title of do go on brewer extraordinaire. Whoa, that was the end of this. Got a question. The question is, if you were to make your own do-go-on beer, what kind of beer would it be and how would it taste?

I think Jess and I will handle this one if you don't mind, Matt. Yeah, Matt. Take it back to sit here, champ. We'll go with a West Coast IPA, I believe. Oh, great. Because the East Coast is a little bit too hoppy for me, is that right? Yeah, it's like a cloudier. Thank you.

Yeah, I think they're both quite hoppy, but the East Coast. Coast or the NEPA, the New England IPA, is the cloudier one. Matt, what's that one I like from Brisbane? Oh, you like the Passion Fruit Goza? Yeah. Goes, depending on who you thought. That's the first time we've, all three of us have had a beer and said, yum. Yeah.

Does that mean we should make that kind of beer? Maybe we should make some, yeah. Maybe we should have our own take on it. Another fruit. What kind of fruit would you do? Passion fruit. Passion fruit. So we're just going to re-badge the seven bells.

from Green Bacon Brewery in Brisbane. What about Dragon Fruit? No. Passion fruit. I'm looking that up. I do like, I love passion fruit and I do like that beer. Okay, it could be apple. Oh, wait, that's cider.

No, I don't like apple. Let's stick to passion fruit. I like apple to eat. I don't like apple to drink. Okay, interesting. Here you go. I love learning about you. I've opened up there, haven't it?

I eat bananas, but I don't like banana-flavored things. Oh, okay. I think I'll do. bananas like you don't like banana smoothies sort of thing or like banana bread i'm not that big on yeah i don't like banana bread i'll take banana in all its forms banana beer so we get yeah so what a beer where's your what's your no go beer like all beer i don't like beer i don't like really don't like really bitter stuff like vb yeah too too too too bitter for me okay well the fruity ones yeah so maybe that's maybe that sort of sour ish

I could not have made it any clearer. It's that exact passion. Stefan. I don't wonder, because he is the Dugan Brewer extraordinaire. Maybe he's going to brew this beer. Okay, so just get in contact with the people who make the passion-free one that I like and just say, hey. There's nothing you would do to change it?

No, it's perfect. It is a very nice beer. What about it came in a bigger can to get more? Well, you can just get a pint of it. When Matt and I did Razzle-Dazzle in Brisbane, my cousin who I hadn't seen for easily 10 years came to the show and it was an average show that he came to as well when we walked out of our room he was standing there applauding

and then he bought us pints of that beer was that the third show the first two were fun from memory first two were great third one weird it's funny when your family come they ruin it and it's the dudge show they ruin it with their support yeah and then he was so happy for us it was great we had a few beers after that and I forgot about the show being a bit less fun than normal.

Thank you so much, Stefan, for letting us talk about beer for a bit. Thank you, Stefan. Yeah, I feel like Jess has not given us any room to explore there at all. What about just a high alcohol content? It was like a 10% beer or something. Oh, like an imperial, let's call it.

You know, like they do imperial stouts or double IPAs. They're sort of the almost fortified beers where they normally 5% or 6% Those ones go up to 9 or 10 or 11. Maybe we do an imperial passion fruit gozer. There we go. We put our own brand on it there. I like it, our own spin.

Or we add a little bit of raspberry. Yeah, great. Passion fruit and raspberry. That's what I think we get in some other flavour in there. Yeah, that's different. Some sort of, how do you say? Can we make it like a neapult? Neapolitan.

What's that ice cream? Neapolitan. Neapolitan. We make it like a Neapolitan, right? So we have three. Yes. So at least one that Bob can drink. Yes.

And that one's the Passion Fruit one. Dave, you want to do the vanillay one or the chocolatey one? Vanillary, I think. Okay, what are you going to, what do you, what's your, do you have another thing that we could do? So we got one that's a sour and that's sort of the strawberry fruity one, which is Passion Fruit and Raspberry. I think vanilla's got to be like a plain one, doesn't it? Like something like, something that you can drink heaps of in summer. Oh, yeah.

Like a very light sort of, not to the taste. Like a pilsner or something. Yeah. Yeah, okay. or like a session pale ale or something. Yeah, something that basically you need to add lime to get a bit of flavor. Oh, yeah, okay. It's like a...

Suck it back. Like a corona or something. Yeah, something that goes well in humid weather. Right, okay, yeah. So, yeah, some of the real low-on flavor. Yeah. Soda water. Yes.

Yes. Yes. That's Dave's dream beer. Oh, my God. Soda water. With a bit of lime in it. Either that. Or chocolate big and milk. I think there are more and more of these beers that are like milky beers

and they actually add lactose into it. That sounds, I mean, is it awful? I've had some of them that are really nice. Okay. Yeah. And you're like, oh my God, this is a milky beer, but it tastes good. Yeah, it's wild what they've been doing. And then I guess we finish.

Because that's a fun idea. And you buy it in a three pack. Yeah, that's cool. And it's like the do go on pack. The passion fruit one's going. got Bob's face on it. The soda water's got Dave's, or the, you know, the Pilsner or the whatever it is, the lighter flavour.

Oh my God, it's a shandy. That's what Dave wants. It's a beer with a bit of lemonade. You know hand shandy is like a euphemism for a hand job. A hand shandy. Have you heard of that one? No, I haven't. I've heard of a handy.

You've had a hand shandy out the back of the shab. And I've heard of shandy. I might have made that up then. No, I've heard that before. Hand shandy. What? It's like complicating a thing without really hiding it at all. And also, it's hard.

It's much harder to say, absolutely. Say handy. Say wristy. Risty. Risty. Say hand job. It's all easy. I think my beer is called the, uh, it's called say hand job. That's my beer.

Instead of, it's a saison style, but it's called say hand job. So fantastic. There you go. Put me down for a saison. And then I guess, and I, with chocolate, you've got to go, but it has to be some sort of a, well, maybe even a chocolate stout. Oh, yeah. And then we, yeah, we have the three package.

You can have them all. You can have one. It's a three-course meal. Exactly. I love this idea. Stefan, if you can make it in your, I assume if you're a brewer, extraordinary, you've got the skills. At the time. Yes.

No doubt about that. Thank you for that question, Stefan, and that foreskin quote Larry. Thank you. That's what we'll call him now. Foresquint, Forskin. Fourskin, Larry. I like four-skinned quote. I like Foresquin.

I like Foresquin. One of our old favorite catchphrases. Well, and the other thing we like to do is thank a few of our other patrons. And you can support us as well at patreon.com slash do you go on pod on the, I forget what level, but maybe D.B. Cooper level. It's all clear if you go to the site and it says what all of them get. Some levels get bonus episodes. This month we're doing three bonus episodes, including our first episode of phrasing the bar. the podcast that celebrates the movies and life of actor extraordinaire Brendan Fraser.

I'm so excited. Dave's also coming out with some sort of a game. Yes, they'll be coming out very soon. And a mini report, which I'm fingers crossed, hoping it's going to be about Andrew Gaze. Oh, we've heard so much tonight. You could do a triptych of bonus reports about famous Aussie sports people. Oh, yeah. So I've done Greg Norman.

Andrew Gays, who else we got, Thorpey? Thorpey, yeah. Obviously not Bradman. It's got to be Thorpey. Dawn Fraser. Dawn Fraser. She actually would be good. Yeah.

Don Fraser has an amazing life. Interesting. What about? Ivan Goulogong. Yeah. On multiple grand slams in the tennis world. What about the first woman to dunk at the Olympics? Oh yeah.

Non-assisted by a ladder though. Who's that? Oh, yeah, that's okay. You got me on technicality. Yeah, she did have a ladder. Nine-year-old Liz. Okay, so what kind of game we got to thank some of these other supporters here? I was thinking of giving them their on-court nickname.

Love it. That's good stuff. We've had the mailman. We've had Clyde the Glyde. I think Clyde the Glyde's my favourite. It's really good. Jordan's not super kind to him in the docker. He says something like, or people were saying it's a real matchup between the two

and he hated being talked about in the media as his equal. He's like, he's a pretty good player, but he's not in the same conversation, basically. But he doesn't consider anyone else in the conversation, does he? Yeah, I guess not. Well, yeah, I guess not. Depending on what it was, I think after Magic had retired and stuff. Clyde the glide, what a name. Okay, so firstly, I'd love to thank Drew Paisner.

Drew, I mean, Pysner feels like a pretty good. Dave, I mean, you're being the pie, man. You've probably... Yeah, something pie related? Call him Shepard. Oh, yeah. Shepard Pyesner. That's good.

I mean, Drew's been a long-term supporter. Obviously, that's what we thank him. He's one of the ones that slipped through as well. So he's been waiting for a good year and a half for that shout out. Hopefully I'm saying your name right. And I'm sure people correct me all the time after I mispronounce their names. But in a way that I'm like, I'm not going to remember this by the time. I'd say your name again, unfortunately.

But I love your name anyway. But I mean, you figured out that it was you. Drew Paisner. And it's great because it also works on the court. He shepherds the ball. Yeah, Drew the Shepard Paisner. I love that as a nickname. Fantastic.

Shepherds it to Andrew Gaze. Bang. Who then gives it to Copeland. I should of course say that he is from West Hills in California. In West Hills, California. Shepid Paisner playing basketball. Awesome, thanks, Drew. I'd also love to thank from location unknown, Will Ross.

Will Ross. Will Ross. He's from the centre of the earth. Is he some sort of mole person? No, Dave. You can't accuse someone of being a mole person. What about... He could just be private.

What about Rachel and, as the nickname? Yes. Will Rachel and Ross. Will, we were on a break, Ross. The breaker. The breaker. Will the breaker Ross? That's good.

I love that. You're good at this. Bob? This is your forte. I'm great at nicknames. I came up with Bob! That's true actually. Dave came up with Coogar or something.

Cobra. Cougar. That's better. We'll call him the... Hey, Cougar. Dave Cougar. Love it. Sounds great.

You just want anything, don't you? Thank you so much Will Ross. The boss. He would have got the boss. his whole life. So I think he's pretty stoked to mix it up with The Breaker. And may I thank some people as well? Please.

I would love to thank from Wellard in Western Australia. In Western Australia, born and raised. I was trying to think of something, Western Australia. Salt Plains, no, on the sand dunes is where she spent most her days. We are, of course, wanting to thank Kate McGilliam. Oh, Kate McGilgray. McGilgray. I've added a letter in there.

Kate McGilray. What about... What about... Oh, that's about the one. What are we going to say? I was going to say, uh, old gill. Oh, that sucks. The sting is way better.

Old gil. He's one of my favorite questions of characters on The Simpsons. You could have said anything there, and I already had that sucks locked as well-deladed. Fair enough, thank you. But that was pretty good. Old gill. Old gill is good. Old girl.

I need this. Is that Fred? Oh, don't put him on. Okay, Kate, you can choose between old gill or... The stinger. The stinger rules. That's a absolute cracker. The stinger rules.

Fuck yeah. They've just did a... Sharker. I did a shark. Oh, I shuck. I know how to shock. Thank you so much, Kate. The stinger.

That was also one of the Mo's painted boxing moves. With a barbed wire. I wrapped in a boxing club. You used to call that the Stinger. Stinger. I would also love to thank, from a little closer to home, in Yarraville, here in Victoria, I would love to thank Paul Fleer. Oh, Paul Fleer. What a man.

Do you remember the show? I think you were even on it one year, Footy Footy Foot. Yes. Paul made the letters for the front of the desk. Get out of town. Wow. A great man, Paul Fleer. What about we call him David Letterman?

Oh, David Letterman. It's sort of like the male man always delivers. The Letterman. He always pens the goodness. That's great. The Letterman. The Letterman also always delivers. He does.

Top tens really well. Yeah. Thanks so much, Paul. Paul over there are the Letterman. Fantastic. I appreciate all the support. We all appreciate it. Paul's partner, Bridgett also has helped me with my colour wheel.

Oh, yes. And you know Bridget, too, don't you? And now I realize I know Paul as well. What a man. You might know him as the letterman. Beautiful, gentle energy. Just know him as Paul. Yeah.

You know? I know him as Paul. I just know him as the Letterman. Yeah. Always the Litterman. Sorry, Paul. Sorry I didn't immediately reckon. I mean, I bumped into you in the street one time and I recognized you immediately.

I feel like that's more important. I never recognised people outside of context. You probably didn't know he listened to the show. I forget. I remember now. He doesn't just listen. He supports the show. He supports the show.

Poor Flee. Love you, a goddamn legend. I mean, everyone would mention is a goddamn legend. Can I thank two more legends? Please. I would like to welcome into this exclusive club all the way from Austin, Texas. Oh, stay weird. Is that a thing?

Yeah, Austin's so weird. That's a Willie Nelson's town. Oh, fantastic. He actually, uh, adopted a Lithuanian player to find his wing and he became a country sensation. I would like to thank Tim Lafuelente. Oh my God.

Holy shit. Oh my God. Sorry, it's keep Austin weird, not stay weird. Could Tim's nickname be Weirdo? Oh, weirdo. Because he's from Austin? Tim Lafonte.

What a name. That's amazing. Holy shit. I feel, I feel. I feel a little bit high. That name has given pleasure right into my head to release some chemicals. Oh, are you happy for the first time in 30 years? Yeah, I'm like, what is this feeling?

Tim LaFonte. Holy shit. That is great. Appreciate out your work. What a guy, weird. Weirdy, weirdo. What a guy. Good I am good of nicknames.

Jeez. It's crazy how good I am. Weirdo. Oh, good on you. Keep Austin Tim LaFuente weird. And finally, I'd love to thank, and I'm sure you guys have left this for me, do this on purpose, from Wales in a place called Abitridwer. Oh my God.

It'll be pronounced completely differently. It ends in a DWR. Yeah. Fantastic. I mean, I have ultimate respect for the name, but I don't know how to say it. Abitredware. I would like to thank Robert Smith. Robert Smith, the least well-shounding name I've ever heard.

He would get it all the time, the cure, but that is a great nickname. Moby Dick. Oh. Because there's a whale. Yes. He's from Wales. Okay. So his nickname is Moby Dick.

Well, I reckon if there was a Welsh player in the NBA, they'd probably make a big deal out of it. So they would probably get something like that. Yeah. Okay, are you saying that like it's not a fucking genius nickname? Moby Dick is great. Robert. It's a fucking whale. Name another whale.

Go on. What about just the dick? Oh, free willy. Robert the Dick Smith. What about it's Moby? Robert Moby Smith. Oh, that's good. That's good.

Moby's good. Well, again, you've got options there. Robert the Cure Smith, Robert the Dick Smith, Robert Moby Smith, or Robert Moby Dick Smith. What about Robert? Robert, Moby Dick Smith is probably the best one. Robert Tom Jones Smith? Oh, Robert, it's not unusual Smith. Robert Pussy Cat Smith.

Robert Sex Bomb Smith. Robert Catatonic. You know Catatonia? They had two big songs, well, like Triple J big in the late 90s. So huge. Yeah, they were big when I was delivering papers. I remember hearing them a lot. Listening to Triple J as I rode my bike around the neighborhood.

And one of their songs was called Mulder and Scully. Oh, okay. And Dave's a big X-Files fan, so I thought you might have known that one. Right, that's it. Your nickname is Scully. Oh, my God. It just keeps going. Scully Smith. That's not bad.

That's not bad at all. Yeah. You got a lot of options there, Robert. The man of many names, maybe too many. I'm so sorry. He'd be stoked. A guy with a surname Smith. Oh, God, all these options.

I'd been getting Smithy my whole life. The chip? The big dipper? Double dip. Robert double dip Smith. Oh my God. Can't double dip the chip Smith. It's too many good nicknames.

How will he choose? You can have a different nickname every day for the rest of his life? I mean, if you really want it, he'd go with the ultimate nickname, which is, of course, old gill. Yes, the ultimate nickname. Someone use it, please. Please. Old gil.

Don't put him on. Don't put him on. Well, that brings, thank you so much all those supporters, but that brings us to an even more exclusive club, the Triptitch Club. Oh. Dave, you want to explain it? Well, people that have been supporting us at the shout-out level on Patreon for three consecutive years, 36 short months or above. And if you've been doing that for three years, when you get to your third anniversary, we will give you a shout out, induct you into the club. Jess will come up with a little hors d'oeuvre, a little cocktail, something that we'll be serving that week.

We might talk about the live band that you'll be witnessing. We often get some of the world's greatest musical artists dropping by our exclusive club. And we'll, of course, thank you for your fantastic support. That's right, Dave. And this week in the Trip Ditch Club, we're soon. serving herb and garlic pizzas. Whoa. And Escargo. What? I was with you early.

As in like the chocolate ones or as in the snaily ones? Chocolate. Okay. I'm back on board. Fantastic. Those little pastries that people call Ascargos. Oh yeah, that's it. Yep.

I did. Because that's one because they're round. They're like swirl. Yeah, they have a swirl. And they chocolate are they like raisins or something in it? No, I'm back out. I think it's chocolate or sometimes it is hazelnutty. I'm back in.

Oh, God, this is a rollercoaster with you, that's why they call me Matt the flopper Stuart. That's not why they call you Matt the Flopper, Steve. And you know it. You know why they call you the flopper. Check your criminal record, mate. You know. You know.

A chop flopper. Always inappropriate scenarios. All right, so, oh, dearie me. Most of funerals, it's weird. He keeps doing it. That's what they would have wanted. It's open caskets and you just go up and flashed. They write him letters before.

Flash him, I flop them. Hey, it was what they wanted. They said it was how they wanted to be sent off. Okay, moving on. So coming into the Triptitch Club, getting in behind the velvety rope and in this beautiful swanky area, did you say who's playing music this week, Dave? Oh, no, I actually think we're going to have some music from Roy Orbison.

Wow, the big O. But an unusual DJ set. Oh, cool. Roy Orbison's DJs. All techno. It's he the first deceased artist we've had playing in the club. No, I think we've had Louis Armstrong doing a bit of backup before. Right, okay. So the president's been set.

And Dusty Springfield was singing it well ago. Appropriately three inductees into the Triptitch Club this week. From Shropshire in Great Britain, Telford, to be precise. Thomas Price. Thomas, the Mice Price. From Portland, Oregon, where the trailblazers are from. Henri or Henry probably T. Wilhoit, Henry the Trailblazer Wilhoit, or Henry the glide Wilhoit. And from Texas, in Dallas, Texas, Matt, the Black Panther, Alexander.

Dallas is where Pantera's from, Pantera's, Spanish for Panther. I can see what you go on with it. I like it. Love it. I like it. So they're the three inductees. Grab yourself and Escargo. And there's a range of flavors including hazelnut, raisins or chocolate. And also snail in a pastry.

Yeah, it's a bit gross. So the did it as a bit of a joke and it was not good. But I didn't want it there to go away. The joke was not well received. No. So welcome in all of you. Dave, I believe is working on a page on our website to have you all. I definitely am.

I just got onto the Microsoft team, Bill Gates. Not getting back to me, though. Well, I think he's laying low since the protests in Melbourne last week where they were calling for the death of Bill Gates. It's very confusing. Is that because of coronavirus? Because it doesn't exist and it's come about because of 5G. Yeah.

But it doesn't exist. But if it did, it was because of 5G. Okay. And I'm not a scientist, but that checks out to me. Yeah. So that brings us pretty much to the end of the episode, I think, Dave. Anything we need to say? No, just...

Yes, we do have to tell people they've got to wash their butts. Wash your butts. Remember to wash your butt? And hands, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. And be careful. The government asks us to pass that on.

Be careful around fireworks. Yeah. Yeah, especially your butts or your hands. And yeah, always remember do what gays did and does. Win. What would gays do? When? All guys do when?

If you want to get in contact with us, we've got a website. It is do go onpod.com. I mean, it's not as flash as we'd like it because Bill Gates won't return my emails. But you can go on there to get links to our merchandise. You can go on there to get links to our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. We should get mugs. Yeah.

I think mugs is a great idea. I want a mug. I love mugs. I love mugs so much. I have too many mugs. I want more. I want one more mug. One more.

That's what you always say. I want our mugs on a mug. I'm so keen on that. I love a mug. drinking an Earl Grey out of my own face. Then I will have arrived. That'll show Mrs. Xavier. Yeah, he's going to be a nobody, is he?

Oh my God, sorry about that. Oh, wow, are you okay? No, she was very supportive to me. Sounds like a bitch. No, well, she was a good teacher, but she was one who revealed Santa isn't real to me. Oh, of course. Which I know if kids are listening isn't true. I've found that out since.

Santa is, of course, real. But yeah, for a little while. there, I thought, Mrs Xavier, you broke my heart. Why would she say that? A weird lie like that. That's psycho. Yeah. Yuck. Imagine, I mean, if parents are letting kids

listen to this and that's the thing that they get annoyed with? Yeah. We say words like, well, Dave doesn't have time to bleep. Yeah, there's just no time. Just imagine it. But you can imagine the word that our prime minister says, but it offends Americans. Universal healthcare

Why don't do that Yeah so get in contact with us if you'd like to suggest a topic There's also, that's what I was going to say You can link to the tab Or the Google form That you can tell us what topic you'd like us to do On the show through the website As well as our Patreon

Patreon.com slash do go on pod But I believe that is the end of us For this week We will be back We will return In Goldfinger At the end of James Bond For your ears only

James Bond will return And often it says Dave Dave Dave Dave for your ears only It's good stuff Dave Dave Dave Dave Dave validate me Dave

Dave uh My name's go on Do go on Is that anything? Yeah it is There are all the references I get I'm Dr Eval

We got to go It's so late here Thank you so much for joining us We'll be back next week with another episode But until then we'll say thanks for listening And what would Gaisie do? Goodbye Later

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