The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Mike Schur's Miami Heat Declaration

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Dan is worried the Los Angeles show is jumping the shark, so he and Mike Ryan brought in Meadowlark Intern Mike Schur to save the day. The trio discusses Mike Ryan hating on Victor Wembanyama, the sports media world's reaction to Mad Dog Russo's Phillies bet, the upcoming World Series featuring the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the NHL's reversal on Pride Tape. Then, they finally get to Mike Schur's Miami Heat declaration after one game of the NBA season. The Heat take on Schur's Celtics tonight. Plus, Schur helps guide Dan and Mike Ryan through some of their emotions after yesterday's vulnerable "Hour 2." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. This is the Don Levertar Show with the Stugat Sputcast. I spent yesterday late last night and early this morning trying to see if I can find somewhere in Hollywood. A leather jacket and water skis so that symbolically our show could be jumping the shark when it goes to Hollywood, the way that a lot of shows throughout television history have jumped the shark when they go to Hollywood. We are here though, Mike Ryan and I, leaking an assortment of confidence is we think we have a savior. We have asked our star intern Mike sure to produce content for us today and he has come with both two stats of the day and a declaration.

A declaration about what? About the Miami Heat. I mean, this is essentially local hours, so that makes me very happy. Oh, undefeated Miami Heat. Yes, the undefeated Miami Heat. I have a declaration to make one game into the season. Okay. After they beat the Detroit pistons by a single point at home. Yeah.

Yes. I have a declaration. What do you want first? Do you want the declaration? I want the declaration. I think we should tease the declaration. We're going to save the hour in order to, I couldn't find the water skis or the leather jacket. Not finding a leather jacket on the sunset strip is a bit of an upset. It was late. It was the problem. I thought I had the idea late. We'll get to the stats of the day in a second as well. But I did want to talk about something from Wednesday night, which was the debut of a human being that I have never seen before in my life.

Not a basketball player, just somebody, the size of Wemba Njama, the dimensions of Wemba Njama, who moves like that, who is still a child, he is going to extensively still grow. He is not yet a man. Like if he is a man, he's a very young man. But I'm not even talking about basketball growth or physical growth. I'm talking about there are going to be some problems at the beginning, but I really don't have,

after a lifetime of watching sports, any way of describing what it is that I'm seeing as if I've seen it before. I don't know how to explain to somebody what that is that I'm seeing as if I've seen it before. I don't know how to explain to somebody what that is playing basketball. There's a couple great things about him playing. One of them is that he is an instantaneous screenshot sharer.

Like so many people in my life are just taking screenshots of moments on the court and sending them with with no commentary. Just just look at this. Look at him being guarded. I think I said one to you. Like the photo of Aaron, Aaron judge and Jose up to they standing at second base. A lot of them are accompanied by that photo, but I think I said one to you, which was him in the preseason, gaming, that's the key being guarded by Duncan Robinson, who is six seven. And Duncan Robinson looked like my son when we play one on one against each other. That's what that's what to me.

I don't know if it's the most stunning thing. Looking at somebody playing with NBA players and feeling like it's a dad playing with kids is not something I even felt with shack. No. And then there's other there was the moment where in the preseason game when he stripped the ball from someone who was driving, he was guarding someone at the top of the key. Somebody was driving to his right and he just reached back and stripped the ball. And in the screenshot, he has one foot basically at the three point line and one foot at the free throw line. And his arm is reaching out. He's Mr. Fantastic.

The length of the arm seems like he has two arms on each shoulder. It's also providing a lot of trouble when it comes to keeping the ball. You're such a hater. I am. It's I. Well, you guys are just breathless over this

and I understand he's very tall. So it was a minute bowl. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So it was bowl bowl. Come on my God. So it was ball ball. Come on. My concerns for him have always been the health. And okay, one game in, I'm not saying he's not good.

I'm saying that he turned the ball over a lot in Europe and he turned the ball over a lot in his debut. And my concern is you say he hasn't grown into a man, what you mean is like he, he's not filled out yet. And when that guy fills out, maybe he changes his game a little. I know his agent was really hesitant to put on weight and then he put on 15 pounds once he got into the strength and conditioning program of the spurs. But in that game, I also saw him getting pushed around by Grant Williams.

Are you not going to find him for the Flemminist? He's trying to wrestle through it. We did it. Hollywood. I have all these immunity shots and they're very acidic. There we go. And we didn't travel. We travel with the tiny box of sounds here. You have no idea how much all of this costs to come out here and we didn't travel with a cough button or anything that would prevent. What's in that one? What's in that shot? You just took turmeric sure to probiotics.

You got to start the day with some turmeric. Yeah, not enough ginger. It's really $5. It's really disturbing to me that Mike Ryan has arrived at such a cynical spot in the atmosphere that he can enjoy the discovery of we've never seen a human being who looks this way and moves this way. Right, but that's intellectually lazy. Yes, I get it. He's big. But wait, why this is what I'm big and excellent. Like Miles Garrett. Why why not enjoy this? He doesn't affect your team. Because everyone else is enjoying it too much.

Too much. Well, we're complaining about you. Just being a hater for no reason. Oh, no, because I watched European basketball. I'm like, yes, he deserves to be the number one pick, but also he's not Michael Jordan. But is that the bar? Yeah. You can't root for someone unless he's Michael Jordan. That's where the, that's where the bar is when it comes to social discourse. That's insane.

That this is going to be good. It's so, but don't, but just as a fan of athletics, as a fan of the NBA, don't you just want to enjoy watching this creature play basketball? I do. Because guys like Grant Williams can body them up and bully them. I mean, where else can you see that? That's what big baby Davis said. He said he would just back him down in the chest because he's still not full grown and he's slight. I, I'm actually, we've seen plenty of that by the way, throughout the preseason on the international level. We've seen six foot two guys put a hip

into them. I think foul trouble can be a problem. They seem to protect him somewhat on Wednesday night already giving him some star treatment. I'm more interested when it comes to my grion in just this piece of him that has died, that when presented with something in sports, that everyone is odd, confused by he immediately goes to the projection of how it will fail, as it's played one professional basketball game. And furthermore, in the preseason, what you saw at the end of preseason, which is not something you see, he blocks a clay Thompson shot, which those aren't really blockable. They doesn't get blocked very often.

Then dunks and then Andrew Wiggins at six eight comes into the key and he blocks that and Andrew Wiggins doesn't get blocked a whole lot with that move and then makes a three at the other end of the court. I don't understand why you would be rooting against that. Why you would be root to be root to be right that he should get hurt or create a lot of turnovers or get into foul trouble. So you can be the best thing, which is to be right. I'm not rooting for an injury. I'm just saying, look out for that. Oh my God. I'm not rooting for the injury.

One of one of the screenshots that went around the other day was was a Wiggins taking a shot and Wemba Niana blocking it with his entire hand. And the ball, Wiggins is tall. The ball was on a very high arc because Wiggins was trying to get it over Womboniana. And he blocked it with his entire hand. And the ball was probably, I don't know, 14 or 15 feet off the ground. And my, a texted by friend Justin and his response was, it looks like God is just out of frame handing him the ball. You're all rooting for Wembee.

You're rooting for him? Yes. Why? He doesn't need your help. Discovery. It's a cheat code. Why don't you root for the six foot two guy? Since when is him needing our help?

But it's just everyone's on team Wembee and it's just he does not need any additional boost. He's great. He's like a two K create a player for his egos. The sliders are already in his favor. I'm doing it because I'm a fan of sports and athletic competition. So me a fan of the guy Gordon. I'm also a fan of that guy. What is wrong with you? He has a room for him to get shut down because of the great game of basketball. You can't just roll in at eight feet tall and think he can run this. He could ruin it. He could. It's a can. Yes, he can.

No, no, no. I'm fighting for the like the integrity of the league and all these people, the Udana's has them. So the world better that are. I know. He needs your help. That word. That is has them.

It weren't touched by God. Out of the crib. This guy's got to turn the ball over a lot and maybe get a list of drink injury and then you're going to all come say, well, you know what, Mike, maybe you had a point and say, and he's not the greatest player. I just love to hear that you're a Grant Williams fan now. That's great news. I was rooting hard. That's, I can't believe it. I was rooting for Grant Williams. I was like, yeah, get a hip in one. Grant, that's how we welcome to the NBA kid. How can you be anti on wonder? How can can you how can you be someone who is worried about him ruining basketball

before he's done anything to ruin basketball. Maybe this is you being myopic. I'm done with the awe and wonder. I saw it two years ago, the awe and wonder and I saw it in in Euro basketball. And I also saw it lose in Euro basketball. Pred basketball predominantly because he took a lot of bad shots and he's a turnover machine. Yes, no, he's got to get good coaching and provided that he says healthy, he is going to ruin the game of basketball for everyone. That part actually, Mike, that part, that's what's coming out of me. It's like, why are you rooting for the game to be destroyed by this one individual? So you don't ever want anyone who's really great at basketball to join the NBA because it might ruin basketball provided they're under seven and a half feet. Yes,

I'm fine with it. So would you would you like there to be a weight limit in football? I'm yes. And you would like there to be I don't I don't want an eight foot. Would you like pictures of the pictures of the in Major League Baseball to have a speed limit on how fast they can throw. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, if it's six foot two and they throw to Randy, what about Randy Johnson? Would you have outlawed Randy Johnson's right there on the fence? You were you were you were against breaking human limits. Yeah, what you're coming?

You're going to watch. He was cheating. They're race horses. They're they're race horses. He wants to weigh them down with sandbags so they can't run fast It's cheating. You don't watch Yoke itching her and her like that's that's kind of cheating. No Kind of cheating No one else can do it. They're not playing by the same

Not it's not fair. What if it can't be stopped to my watch to eradicate it like the Tosh push it can't be stopped to my ones to eradicate it. Right. Like the Tosh push. Change the rules. I kind of with you on that. We're trying to kind of with you on that. How happy are they that Brock Purti got hurt on that play? I mean, they're just circulating that.

The, I think the take, the correct take is the one that this show has espoused, which is they should just do it on every play. They just marched down the field three yards at a time. And I, I think, I think that that is going to be a lot. And I kind of think it should. It used to be a rule. Remember we're old enough. We're old enough to remember when you couldn't shove a guy from behind. And now like that Travis Kelsey touched down the other day, he caught the ball and just stood there. And then all his teammates ran up and just shoved him into the end zone. That doesn't seem like that seems like rugby to me. That doesn't

seem like football. What they should do with the touch push is every snap should be on one. You can't, you can't fake snap and try to get people off. Interesting. I think that, that's the rule because then it allows for these linebackers to projectile missile themselves over the line and try to sunset flip and power bomb. Yeah. Power bomb, the opposing quarterback, which is the only way that you can truly stop it. There was some great sound. I told Mike the other day,

I stood next to Goddard the tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles, and it just can't believe how. Yeah, I think next to the past, Pro Magnen, he was at a party somewhere. It's not, it's a long story. It's not an interesting story. Kinda seems like an interesting story. It's not an interesting story, Kinda seems like an interesting story. It's not an interesting story, but he was,

the other day, Christian Wilkins was saying, Mike for sound, and he is saying, no, you hear him say no at the beginning of the Tosh push, and then Goddard comes in from the back and pushes it and was like, no my ass, no my, saying out loud, no my ass, heard him say no.. No my ass. It hurt them say no It's funny because I had a breakfast with Zach urch the other day. I don't want to get it It's not a not a good story done libato hard. We got a freiny hard away I was trying to read fast you deem is on the team

Luke Jackson Bobby Jones the matrix. I'm Aaron Stugatz So shacks much Parker Chris Quinn D way Jason Williams to row right. I mean stacked roster. This is the down lebertar show with a stugatz What's wrong with being on team one? Because USA. It's just jingoism. It's just, come on. You doesn't need your help. Because US.

It is not exactly rooting for the underdog. That's what we love about sports. We root for the underdog. That's what we love about sports. We root for the underdog and you need to throw your support behind a guy that looks like no one else and has advantages and no one else has ever had. I wish you had said because USA. He did say that. It's all content. My crying, yes, we're already doing show and my short does not know it.

But my crying doesn't want to live in a world where Jose L2V is someone we root against because he's a cheater and when Banyama gets to be rooted for. How great is that though? Jose L2V doing that at that size. It's that that's what makes sports. I agree. I'm not they're not mutually exclusive. Yeah, but you're also saying, well, what when Banyama is doing at that size is also

equally incredible. I'm saying that. It's a little overrated because he's turned the ball. But it is, is missing all those shots. It is as impressive when he is doing things that a guy who is Jose Haltuvae's size is supposed to do. Yeah, but Jose Haltuvae is not turned the ball over five times. This is what I'm telling you. Good point. I mean, so breathless. He's actually writing about this. Never once in Jose Haltuvae's

career. He had average five turnovers in the game. No, I'm not asking it, ball. That's correct. He's actually right about this. Never once in Jose Altove's career. He had average five turnovers in a game. We'll get to your stats of the day. A bunch of front runners in a second. He likes to zig when others are zagging. Apparently, we will also get to your declaration in a second about the Miami heat. But I wanted to ask you about something both silly and that some people like Don LaGrecca in New York are taking very very Seriously, which is the contrivance of Chris Maddog Russo saying before game six and seven of the NLCS that he would retire on the spot if the Phillies did not win that series and honestly given what happened around here this week, where I needed

the Phillies to also win that series. So we wouldn't have, for example, a show where Lucy appeared from California and from Miami in a single show because it kind of nuked three different things that we had planned. I was disappointed, I guess, that such a hacky bit, a hacky bit was not, it didn't need to be honored, but it was just saying something for the sake of saying something and then being rewarded for the sake of saying something. How are we still falling for this as a culture, this kind of thing? How are we still carrying about, you know, what, what anyone in sports media says they will do if thing X happens. This is bananas

to me. It's the oldest, it's like every year, some guy somewhere says, if the bills lose to the cults, I'll eat my hat. And then they lose. And then all the cult fans go, that you've got to eat your hat now. And then there's like a big drum roll. And then he cuts up a hat into pieces and like takes a bite of it. That's great. That's a great, that's a great bit. We had Brendan Tobin locally that had to eat an actual crow. And it's like, you have to go to the black market to get a crow. Like, it is not a bird that is for sale. We're talking about Mad Dog Russo though. We're talking, like he's been doing this for a hundred years, and it's still made news.

It's amazing. Well, it speaks. Don't you just hate it when people who think they know the game are so confident and a result that they cast aside any possibility that they might be wrong about one of the most random sports. Castellano showed up to game seven in a Jordan jersey. Yeah. He went over 23. I think I'm not even making that. I'm pretty sure that the number was 23. It's probably not the sport that you want to wear a Jordan jersey and considering his success in that sport. I want to say that what's being referred to here is the fact that we did a segment last week where we talked about how great the Phillies were and how great

the Phillies fans were that we had to not air. Well, it's going to be a YouTube exclusive just so that we can sit in the shame of the stupidity of not just getting that wrong, but then seeing how quickly Phillie fans actually turned on that turn. So turned as only Philadelphia can, which was the wildest thing to me as you're talking while the Philly said, I think up to. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, baseball. And that doesn't happen. Harper and Castellanos hit Castellano hit eight home runs in three games.

Yeah. No, it seems sustainable to me from afar. And they were a much better team. Also, what seems sustainable was the good will of the Philadelphia sports band, which is why I told you, what do you do? This isn't going away. We go, we can count on this. The, the bummer of it is, and this does, I will say right now, lead into my stat of the

day. If you want to get that ready, it is true. I think I don't know what you're going to say here, but I was super bummed that all of the best teams lost in baseball. I did not love that. This is what as a baseball fan is maybe the only actual baseball fan associated with metal, arc media. It is a huge bummer that this particular season ended in this particular way because there were like eight really great stories. And the Rangers are like half of one of those great stories. The Diamondbacks are not one of those great stories. Simply, they owe over the regular season at least.

And we lost out on, there are 12 serieses that I could have created out of the playoff teams that would have been more enjoyable and more fun and more interesting than the moment. God. And that sucks because it was a great bait. It was the best baseball regular season in a very long time for a number of reasons. And at the end, we're just limping to the finish line with two teams that no one cares about.

But I thought what you guys in part loved about baseball was that these random things could happen in this post season. And I don't know much about these two teams, but what I do know is the Rangers blue 33 saves during the course of the regular season has a team ever made the playoffs with that kind of number. And also Suzuki drops that ball for the Cubs. It essentially knocks out the Cubs from the playoffs. The diamondbacks aren't in the postseason.

If Suzuki catches that ball, that's pretty cool. Let's go to the start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day, and it's the start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day, and it's the start of the day. Start of the day, start of the day, and it's the start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, and this is start of the day, start of the day, start of the day, and this is start of the day. The set of the day is brought to you by Venno, your money, your move. Some facts about the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The last place Red Sox this year, negative four run differential. The fourth place disaster season met negative 12 run differential. The World Series bound Diamondbacks negative 15 run differential. Worse over the course of the regular season than two teams who are in trouble and the more salient point and this was pointed out to me by my friend Brandon McCarthy McCarthy. Yes. Thank you. I think that's a look at me. Louis too Can you hear both sounds over each other? I did it. I did it for him He tried to say just my friend Brandon. What am I supposed to say?

If I had said Brandon McCarthy, would you have still hit that? And if I had not said anything, you would have said you could have just said your friend. That's true. Boston. You could have just said you're having dinner instead of having dinner with Dan Marina. Boston Red Sox, 178 games this year and fired their GM. The San Francisco Giants, 179 games fired their manager. The Yankees, 182 games, and are essentially tearing everything down, or at least examining their entire organization top to bottom,

scouting, like drafting everything. The Padres, 182 games fired their manager and the entire, and our thought of as a complete mess. The Miami Marlins won 84 games and fired their GM. Arizona won 84 games and are going to the world series. That should be a cool story, though. Mike, when you say I hate, I hate when people say, and I know you love baseball, but that nobody cares about the teams in the world series. And I suspect ratings won't be great, but that is a pretty cool story in Arizona. I'm sure the people of Arizona who care about that baseball team

would be offended by your suggestion that nobody cares about that story. The people in Arizona who care about the Diamondbacks can be counted on the fingers that are in this room. A, and B, they made an announcement on like at the beginning of like whatever one of the games of the NLCS, I saw a tweet from the official Diamondbacks Twitter, I think, that said, the game tonight is officially sold out.

This is an NLCS game. Do you think that the, that the, the fillies NLCS games, it was like down to the wire eight hours before the game. Are we going to sell out every ticket? No. Nor would that have been true in in Chicago or in Los Angeles or in any of the other cities. Maybe I guess the Marlins. The Marlins just happened. It was a camera man going off. It happens. The Marlins might have had to send that to you. He was raising home because of all this baseball time. Because he called the new bird. That's what everyone is doing right now, listening to Arizona and Rangers talk.

But you say that the ratings aren't going to be good. I think it's going to end up being the lowest rated world series. And yeah, I mean, these are just two teams that don't excite anybody. Now look, as an optimist, there is something cool about the Diamondback story. Corbin Carroll is going to be around for a very long time. It looks like Gardner Minshue. How was Gardner Minshue dominating? He's Gardner Minshue, but he's like five, nine or something. And he's really fast and he's really fun to watch play. He had a big game in the game seven. There are good, because that gowns an interesting story because he's an ace who does who throws

94 instead of 110. It's not that there aren't interesting stories. The Rangers are a good story. The Rangers were a middling team and no one cared about. And then they decided to just spend a ton of money and get a bunch of good players. And it worked and that's great. I mean, they degrombed and you're on pitch for games for them or whatever. They made it all the way to the world series. It's not that there aren't interesting stories there. It's just that the teams themselves don't make anyone's motor turn on. If I haven't made everyone or we haven't made everyone go away with baseball, I think the way to salvage this is by talking hockey. I think that I think the way I think the way to do this because Mike Ryan is complained about fan with we are all inundated with sports at all times and

yet hockey had the great idea as the NBA is opening with four teams and two games to just teams and two games to just swamp us with a overload of stimuli frozen frenzy. They just say all the teams are playing and we're going to turn it into the red zone and a difficult broadcasting assignment to just swallow to do that for the first time and swallow them between all of the teams playing at the same time. Which I'm put your grasp. I thought it a great job. And I do want to give the NHL some credit. Moreover, I want to give the players some credit because we did a couple of segments on

how disappointed we were about them banning Pride tape. The players, including led by Conor McDavid, who doesn't say much of anything, came out in such strong opposition and started putting Pride tape on their sticks anyway in the face of this band. And the NHL changed their position on it. It's a pretty cool story in a very unsuspecting sport, especially from an unassuming superstar. Yeah, that was cool. I also, I just like the way the pride tape looks on the stick.

It looks so cool. It looks so cool. It looks so cool. I don't know anything about hockey. So this is the extent of my hockey contribution. Well, the whole aim for Frozen Friendsie, I like what, like if you watch the broadcast, which I'm butchered crossing Kevin Weeks, it's like, here's the record for goals in a day. We're going for 104.

And so you're watching the entire broadcast. That's fun. Did they make it? No, I don't think so. It was still a lot of fun. It was still a lot of fun. It was a jumbo's clown room is where he was. Not for air.

I like that you're still saying, I just wanna live in my life, but you're no longer doing the Russell brand accent from movie. No, I've canceled doing the accent. Smart. It. Where's the heat declaration? It's coming next.

Don Lebatard. All these high paid analysts. I don't wanna mention names. TNT. ESBM. You know, oh yeah. They're know, they can look at it, they're not going to make it, you know, even if they win, if they lose it in Miami. I mean, they calm you down, I mean, they lose it in Miami, they don't got a chance in Boston

or they're going to have their ass, you know, what in Boston, you know, stugats. They were wrong, they were, are they going to lose their job? No. Are they going to get a cutting plate? No. What are they going to do? Keep predicting what is the obvious. They're going to say, oh, the nuggets are going to win.

Oh, Denver, the altitude. And you know what? The heat are going to win it all. This is the down-leveled show with the Stu Gatz. Are we getting to the declaration anytime soon? Did you not realize that? I'm ready. our show with this two cats. Are we getting to the declaration anytime soon? Did you not? I'm ready. Ready?

Ready? I don't have. Let me see if I have any production elements for the declaration. I think you just give me the fanfare after I make it. OK. And you'll know when to do it. Did we travel with the fanfare?

Yeah. I got the fanfare. All right. Let's let's after much waiting after being in a situation where we felt like the show was jumping the shark, but clearly Mike sure with Brahas talk and Diamondback's talk as save the show. And everything is okay now, but we don't even need this declaration. No, it's I've already saved the show by talking about baseball and saying that I like pride tape on hockey sticks. But if you want more, if you want some a safety net for additional saving of the show,

I've got it. Yes. Let's let's do that. But no fanfare. We did not travel. We travel. We'll have something for the back end, but nothing for the front end. I got a fair and a good. My God.

Mad Dog. Root. So all right. So a declaration. This is an important declaration because the Miami Heat have started one and only you, you were the most right about, this is fair to say, correct, Mike Bryant? Mike sure was the most right about the Miami Heat

than anyone in the national media. Yes, yes. And it bothered me because it took a lot of the joy at a beating the Boston Celtics away from me. Because you don't want a Celtic super fan to be meeting you with. I told you so in that. But I did in fact tell you so.

In fact, I told you so in like January or February. Yeah, when it looked like they weren't gonna make the playoffs potentially. It should also be noted that I watched conservatively 60 more heat games than you did last year. Yeah, I would say, right? I would agree that you know more about the Miami Heath than I do. I can see that.

I didn't like the team. I didn't like them. You actively did not like them. I did not like watching them play. How do you think he felt about the first game for Kyle Lowry 32 minutes? No points just running around there banging into people. How do you feel? I felt about Jaime Hawke.

All right, here's my declaration. Are you ready? Is everyone ready? Wednesday night Miami heat to try pistons at home. Heat, let me give you some stats. The pistons were 41 of 92 from the floor. The heat worth 37 of 92 from the floor. The pistons hit 11 threes.

The heat hit eight. pistons had 56 rebounds. The heat had 48 rebounds. The pistons hit 11 threes, the heat hit eight. Pistons had 56 rebounds. The heat had 48 rebounds. The pistons had 28 assists. The heat had 22. Butler was six of 18 from the floor. Hero was seven of 24. How did the heat win? They hit 21 free throws. The pistons hit nine. Here is my declaration, the Miami heater winning the NBA finals this year. We are back, baby. We are back. They are in mid season form. It's like Mike Tomlin is coaching us. Yes. That's, listen, that is incredibly astute by you because I watched this team. I hate watch this team as I did last year in the year before. And I have the same exact

feeling as when I watched the Steelers, which is we cannot let them get away with this. How can they keep getting away with this? Get away with this. It is free. And by the way, last thing, they had 11 steals in the Pistons at three. This is how they win. This is what I said last year. I'll say it again. I'm anymore from I may hacke. I didn't look. But they they had, they win by winning the steals battle in the thorn to him free throw battle. And they win at home over the fistons by one. And I lost my mind. I could not even enjoy the Celtics coming back in the fourth quarter against the Knicks to win their opener because I was too focused on the free throw disparity of the heat

pistons game. What did you make of Mark Bartlesine's assault on heat culture? I did. I don't know what they really wanted to be with Miami and then who's, and according to Bradley Beale's representatives, Pat Riley said, all right, let me check with the owner and he never heard back. He's, here's what I would say. By the way, I have information on that.

I don't know what's been reported about that, but the heat would have you know that Bradley be all that, what actually happened there according to them is that Bradley Bealwood and Wave is no trade clause. That's important. Also according to Pat Riley a couple of days ago, they never entertained trading Tyler here. Hmm, interesting. So we should definitely believe them.

But as the world's foremost expert on the Miami Heat, let me say this for the record, if the heat had gotten Bradley Beale, it would have worked out well for the heat. Because the heat did not get Bradley Beale, it will work out well for the heat. There's nothing anyone can do to stop this freight train from riding into the NBA finals. I want people to understand how exasperating and haunted your fandom isn't this particular realm because I was going to argue that Mike sure was in the no-lose position of if he feared the heat the entire time and was out in front of everybody on fe the heat the entire time and was out in front of everybody on fearing he the entire time,

that he would get to be right. It's, you know, your head bets when you bet against your teams, at least you get something, you get money if you bet against your teams. However, he got no joy from being right because the way they lost, the way the Celtics lost allowed us to laugh

at him so much that it is a particularly torturous thing. Mike Ryan, you know that. I think it's a laugh at Mike. No, but as you, what do you mean you didn't get to laugh? I got to laugh at boss and I listened to, to boss and radio. What I wanted was for Mike sure to give me some of that. And I didn't get it from the person that I wanted at the most because he's just out here watching more heat games at me. It's not fair. No, it's we're all in a no win situation here because when I'm saying the truth, which is they're going to the finals and They're going to beat the Celtics. In fact, I may I actually actually said out loud to someone you know Who I won't name because I don't want to be look at me. Ly. I said the funniest way that this could happen and the way it probably will happen is that

the Celtics go down 3-0, come back to tie it 3-3, and then lose game seven at home. That is indeed what happened if you'll remember correctly. And so when I say that, I'm miserable because of the heat beat the Celtics. You don't get the joy of rubbing it in my face. We all lose. Somehow we all lose. It did nothing for me. Yeah, I'd rather have probably been in the lottery

for Wombon Yamma, what rather than what ended up happening, which is just of totally forgotten MBA fine. Let me ask you this though, going back to your Wombon Yamma take. If he were on the heat, would you be saying the same things about, okay, can you be saying the same things about? Okay. Can you imagine him in our string conditioning program? You infuse that body with culture.

How about a little delayed like? Yeah. How about Mike sure? How about a little delayed? You give Mike Ryan and the heat fan base what it is. It has been craving for a long time. You go to bed the night of game seven. Jason Tatum gets hurt probably go to bed early because that game is in hand. Jason

Tatum gets hurt early but you go to bed like this. I mean, talk about manifesting something Mike. Mike sure was fearing for months that all of that would happen and then it happened in the most heartbreaking way to his team against a team that he hates more than any team in his history as an adult or a child other than the Yankees that night. when you go to bed, when the television gets turned off, surely you did not watch any highlights. No. What was that night like for you? It's just, you know what? It's like it's a dull ache. It's not a sharp pain because a sharp pain is Aaron Boone hitting the home run off Tim Wakefield in 2003 to win the ALCS. That's a sharp pain. That's a, you're in it, you believe, you believe, you believe, you're stabbed in the throat. It's a dull sadness. It's like a, you're just like EOR. You just sort of pat around your house

and food has no taste. And your wife says like, let's watch it, an episode of that show we like. And you're like fine. And then you watch it and you feel nothing. You're not watching, you're not really watching, you're distracted by your pain.

Yeah, it's just anodonia. It's just like nothing. You're in the West Coast, so you can't actually go to bed. Yeah, it's like 748 and you're tired, but you can't go to sleep yet. Like it's just, it's a sad thickness of the soul. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. That was, that was good.

That was helpful. I want to give you more. So what was the next morning like? Did you sleep well when you woke up when you woke up in the morning? That's where you're going with this. Who's the saddest? Let me explain. If I haven't explained this to you already about the group chat about any Boston group chat, I wish Charlotte were here because she could back me up on this when the, when the, you, if you haven't watched the game, you can tell what happened by how many texts you see on the group chat. If there are 71 texts on the group chat, you can tell what happened by how many texts you see on the group chat. If there

are 71 texts on the group chat, you lost. If there are two or one or something, you've won because no one from Boston happily texts. You only misery text, right? So you can literally tell with 100% accuracy. If I look at the group text and there's one text, it means the Celtics one. And also that text, it means the Celtics one. And also that text is not about the Celtics. It's a clip of Bill Belichack saying something funny from a press conference a day ago. And so the next morning after game seven

was the only time in history, no text. Yeah, because everyone was just too and hadonic and miserable to actually say anything. We all, it was just all kind of like, you know, perfunctory. That's great. Have you spoken to Michael Malley since I speak to Michael Malley a lot? Go ahead. He was very sad.

Yeah. He's a Boston sports fan. They lost game seven of the heat. He was sad. Yeah. That's awesome. He doesn't hate the most. I don't know they lost game seven to the heat. He's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. One of the heat does he hate the most? I don't know. It's got to be Jimmy. It's Jimmy. I love probably hero, but but heroes never playing against you guys in the post. But I'm like, what do you want me to say? No, he doesn't. He hates Jimmy. Fine. He hates Jimmy more. He hates

him. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't you vow not to watch many of those games because you knew what was going to happen? Yes, I did and I stuck to that for it for I think I think game. I'm trying to remember now. I think game two and game four. You wanted to come back at one point you wanted to come back to the group texts and just have them tell you what happened and you were actively avoiding watching a thing that you knew was going to happen that felt like haunting. Yes.

This is the true sicko in me. Feels, I had this thought, let me open this up to the four. And I don't know, you probably have a different perspective on this. I feel very frequently, and this is coming from a guy whose teams have won a startling number of championships in the last 20 years, four world series, six super balls, a Stanley Cup and an NBA title in your adult lifetime. I should add. Yeah.

I just want to think sometimes I would, I would prefer it if I were simply rob blowing it with every sport. If I were just a fan of the league and I didn't have to ride the daily roller coaster of fandom. And it's gotten in my advanced age. What about the highs worth it? That highs are amazing, especially with the red socks. No, for it's like all that investment. That I wouldn't trade for anything and it absolutely. And the 28 to three Super Bowl. And all there's like that's what I'm saying. I'm speaking

from the perch of someone who's had it better than anyone. And yet, Wednesday night, they go down six to the nicks in on opening day in the fourth quarter. Thanks to some terrible, immanual quickly steals and inbounds pass after a made three. And then they hit another three and Jalen Brown fowls the three point shooter. And I'm like, I give, I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want to care about this. Yes. In game one of 82 before they lose to the heat in the playoffs, I have that feeling. And sometimes I think he would be better just to root for the league. Do you ever feel that? Well, you sound football. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it took 20 plus sexual assaults for me to get there.

Oh, fair enough. You sound like an addict. Yeah. Yes. tough. You sound like an addict. Yeah. Yes. I when you feel something that deeply, and again, I don't want to indicate in any way that I'm not grateful for what sports has given me and fandom has given me. It's given me my son for a while had more parades than years lived in his life. That was, it was a crazy run and yet still and this is what's maddening about sports fandom your team loses a lot more than they win and by lose i mean they don't they don't win the championship and that's and that's pain and i sometimes wonder whether the pain is worth it you want more pain more about michael malle

i'm just a hard for a key that he i i am not a hockey fan. They really hate the path. Yeah. And that's bad. Me done. Lebato hard. You are very comfortable talking about how you met your wife. How much you love her. How important she is to you. And that's the reason that I asked the question. I've always admired that about you that you are and you have no problems whatsoever professing your love

Well, thank you is I got a new wife now, you know me and Bianca didn't make it So I moved on we moved on it was for the better of both of us still got Things just got a little awkward there. So let me be the first on this show to congratulate you on the new wife. Vance, congratulations on, on, on feeling whole feeling complete, you know, let's talk tailgating. Yeah. Don't be those don't feel awkward, buddy. You know, I don't. I mean, it's much too late for that. I appreciate you soothing me in this regard, but I already feel terribly awkward.

And then my teammate comes to my defense with not a question, but just a healthy congratulations. And the further pointing out of that awkwardness because he's always good for me in those spots, I'm also thinking of divorce vents after many, many years, 18 years with a partner who does things like that to you. This is the Don Limita show with this two gods.

You're saying he's not the first one. You're saying that two famous people have a phony relationship just for publicity. That would be a first. That would not be something that Hollywood has ever experienced before and how dare you cannot just throw around an acutely. I think you're involved too. You guys ended the strike so he could go to SNL on his by-week and they could be photographed leaving the rap party.

Will not catch me saying anything bad about Taylor Swift, not because I'm scared of her fans, but because she rules. She's great. And I can rule. She's great. And I love her. She's great. We've never really, I was saying that not since I was a kid and the response to Michael Jackson was around him. I ever, and even then, I don't think I've ever seen something quite like this.

Michael Jackson could have released a movie in movie theaters and it wouldn't have done what he was toward it. Even when you adjust for inflation, like it's insane. I've never seen anything like this. And it's fans from, I went to that concert here at Sofie. Yeah, it's amazing. It's incredible. Everybody says that it's incredible.

I'll never see an event produced as well from beginning to end as that ever. Like it was a flawless. We'll see you here, hour two. It was incredible. Speaking of which, let's start there as we conclude our week in Hollywood, and you hear Mike sure, uh, rave about Taylor Swift, uh, Mike Ryan and I in experiencing these last two weeks and trying to take a swing that is different because after 20 years doing the same thing You can speak to this in writers rooms that have

expired after five or six or seven years. We've been doing the same thing for nearly 20 years And I want to have a different experience with it But I want to have a different experience with it that feels good and And the last two weeks have been, there are so many, over the last two years, there have been so many changes to our environment and small things that affect product that it makes me feel sometimes untethered. But I have not gotten better at the idea of treating experiments like this gently,

where if it's not going the way that you want it to, if it's not as perfectly produced as a Taylor Swift concert, then you start feeling bad about what it is that you have done, and then the audience let you hear it on what it is that you've done, and that's not great for confidence. And all of that stuff is not stuff that has ever existed in my career.

A lack of confidence combined with the reminder that you don't sound as good as you are when you're also going emotionally through a time that has no precedent for you and you're sort of in a dark place stumbling around in a fog, I don't know how to do all of that stuff and find the joy in it when there is stuff that feels like failure all around the joy. stuff and find the joy in it when there is stuff that feels like failure

all around the joy. What should be the joy? You're saying the process feels like you're failing actively when you're in it? Well, what I'm saying is the audience believes wherever it is that it is critical that it cares about this more than I do or we do and it doesn't. It can't care about this. We can't care about it. The second that they do, it's probably time. But it also feels like that caring about it is a quicksand if you're not doing it well because it's a quicksand and it gets dark

very quickly, creatively, when you're not feeling your best while creating. And then what you're producing, you know, doesn't live up to the standards that you have set for yourself. It's honest to God as a psychological experiment. It reminds me of my entire life of the feeling of not being enough for my parents, because I was always trying to do more and trying to be better so that I could be good enough. Like it taps into some childhood for me and all of it feels unpleasant. Well, uh, you sure don't want to talk about the heat again. Well, you still haven't heard hour two from Thursday, which we've been, we should probably

set this up for Mike sure, uh, without ruining it because he has not yet heard. He would change his answer right now because this is a campaign. Well, just for the audience, in our two yesterday, on Thursday, I just broke down talking about some stuff that has happened in my life recently that I have kept quiet that is just some of the stuff that has happened in my life recently. It's not all of it. And it's just heavy **** that has been hard to navigate. Independent of this, we were ridiculously talking about Marvin Jones and the idea of

whether you can dedicate yourself obsessive compulsively with balance to two different things that require all of your attention. A business and your family. Can you do both things? How do you do both things when your family is in peril? Yeah, and a couple of like bullet points, the Baker Act, um, uh, if hearing for his father's health and safety, um, it's always Marvin Jones that brings us out of people. Midlife crisis, the pandemic. Let me say this though, Brain cancer. Without having heard hour two from yesterday. Let me say

this. I came into the world of your show and you as a fan, as a person who was who had been a move to L.A. I started listening to sports talk radio as you do. It was Colin Coward. It was boring. I found your show and was like this is interesting and new and different. And part of what I liked about it was that you had a, it was a lived-in universe that

was clearly a bunch of people who had spent a lot of time together in the, in the best way you were doing the show for you. You weren't doing it with, you weren't pandering in the way that sports talk radio people usually pandered, which is creating absurd arguments, inviting people to call in just so you could yell at them, saying outrageous things just to say them. And part of the joy of it was hearing a gong sound followed by Poppy saying, you don't get the show.

You were wearing that as a badge of honor. We are doing, we are talking about what we think is interesting. We have our own universe, our own lived in jokes and, and, and recurring bits. Get on board or don't, but we're not going to change. So I would say to you, whether it's the stuff you've been doing out here for the last couple weeks, or whether it's that whatever the new version of the show is in the new studio that you're doing back in Miami, that the way that you are reacting to it is purely based on whether you think what you are doing is good.

The audience is secondary, and I don't mean that they don't matter, and I don't mean that you don't have to take their viewpoint into account. But you made your bones on creating something that you liked, that you were just making and then throwing out in the world and saying like, here you go, take it or leave it. So what I feel more indebted to those people now because they gave us permission to do all of this.

That's the thing, right? You feel indebted to them and you feel a sense of responsibility to them because they joined you on that journey, but you didn't create it for them. You didn't say, I'm gonna go out and try to please these people. You said to yourselves, we are going to make ourselves laugh and create a world that we want to live in.

And we are doing it with the confidence that if we do that and it's authentic and real, people will sense that and they will come along for the ride and join us. And that is exactly what happened. So to whatever extent you are second guessing yourselves or feeling like things are different or whatever, my guess is that it's an internal question and not an external question. It is. I'm just speaking for myself here, but there was a distinct correlation between me feeling good about a show and it being a good show back in the day.

And now I feel less confident in some of the shows that we put out. So just generally, it feels different for me because I, my instinct had never really let me down on that. If I'm unsure if something is good, then I think the audience is also going to be unsure if something is good. Quite possibly. But the second part of this is that you are doing a thing that is daily and is multiple hours per day.

At the end of Larry Sanders, the best show about a show I think ever made, there's a moment where Larry's girlfriend is sort of complaining to him because he did something obnoxious and stupid to her. And this is the very last episode of my memory. And he's, they're arguing for a second and he stops and he goes, I'm sorry, I'm a late night talk show host, I'm all f**king hell. And it's like, that's the statement that sort of explains the entire show, right? Is this job, is a job that requires you to daily make an hour of something that you put

out into the world and that you, it has to be funny and interesting and compelling and this and that. You guys have been doing that, but it's four hours a day and you've been doing it for 20 something years. Like there's no way that you're not going to be driven a little insane by the grind of what it is that you're not going to be driven a little insane by the grind of what it is that you do. And so you have to think of this like tissue. You pull one out of the box and you use it and you throw it away.

And it's not possible that every one of those tissues is of the same quality. There's going to be some that are that are good and hold up under, I guess, in this analogy, the Mewkiss. Did you blow into it? How do I navigate the host using tissues to wipe away tears and the Mewkiss that have been born out of a set? But, so without having heard our two Marvin Jones discussion, I can't wait to hear your place. I can't wait to listen to it. But what I would say is that like another thing that people love about the show is it rides the, it runs the gamut from the dumbest you've ever heard to the most important and serious. This is what I wrote about the show for slate all those years ago. I said like,

how is it possible that this same program contains Bomanie Jones talking about redlining in real estate and the history of racism in the real estate industry. And also whatever stupid crap you did on the day, the discussion of the soup that was thrown at it. Who was it? What was it? Jair Smith. Yeah, Jair Smith.

A red bull. Yeah. How is it? I think it was. I think it was. I think it was. And how so like, we knew that day was a good show, by the way. We tend to know when I feel like I'm curious as a creator on the confident stuff. When Mike says if he knows it's a good show, then it's probably a good show.

My guess is that you're never wrong about this. If you know something is good that you've made, it's good. I'll tell you a story in season three of the show Parks and Recreation, we had to make that entire season in the dark. This is now a thing that happens a lot, but in the old days it was weird. Normally, the show is beginning to air as you're writing it for the rest of the season, but that season we got moved to mid season. We made 16 episodes in a row without any of the marrying.

And I remember talking Amy Poler, go ahead. I mean, come textually. No, tap me, boo. I remember talking to her about the finale, because I was editing the finale. And she was, and I was like, it turned out great. And she was like, really? And I said, yeah. And I was like, look, I don't know what's going to happen. We thought we're going to get canceled. Yeah. When we were moved to mid season, that was, that's usually back then as a signal, you're getting canceled. And I said, look, this might be the end for us.

This might be the last season. People don't remember how uneasy it was around Parks and Rec because if you watch back season one, it's, it's, it's, it's start slow and probably doesn't get renewed if it wasn't for the talent that was attached. Yeah. And then after season three, we almost got canceled in season four, season five. We almost got canceled all the time. But I remember saying to her, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know that this is a good season of television. I knew it in my

guts. And if I, I would have bet every dollar I had that the show was going to be thought of as good. But again, that was 16 half hours, 16 half hours, you guys make that much content in a week. And so the idea that every single thing can be good is patently absurd. And if I were in your shoes, I would have let go of that idea of very long time ago. Standard is a standard bike. I understand, and it's good to have that standard because that's probably what drives you to make everything good. Yeah. But I think I would also be. Just a couple of things. And including what you hear, I would do.

But I think I would have given up long ago on the eight. I think my standard for what is good would have been over the course of this, this three week run at how did we cover the, the baseball playoffs? How did we cover this, this era, this story over many weeks did we do a generally good job? I think would be the standard for me instead of was this 12 minute and 20 second segment in hour two of the Wednesday show of the two weeks were in LA was that good. It's talking specifically about the climate change that I'm talking about any section of the show.

We're having trouble making one of the funniest men in the universe funny on a segment about the world is and they did invite him on to talk about the least funny thing in the world. He wants to talk about the challenge. The standard is the standard. He wants to talk about the challenge. The standard is the standard.