The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Tony Happens To Know

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

"You take a lot of time to figure things out I take a very short time to figure things out." Pablo answers all of our questions about his latest episode revolving around the NBA gambling scandal, but there is one question he cannot answer: why do people chew gum and then stick it under their desk? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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David Sampson lost his sense of taste and smell during the pandemic. But before he lost his sense of taste and smell, he was somebody who I was always mocking because he likes black licorice. Chris Cody met someone the other day who identified their favorite candy as almond joy. And that's not a person who can be trusted. Like, that's not a person who can be trusted. I don't think I've ever had an almond joy. You are so strange.

Whatever, man. Every time we talk about anything here. Get him an almond joy. Get him on olives. I haven't had one either. Get a couple of them. I, too, would like to try that. You call it almond joy, is it?

Yes, an almond joy. By the way, and you say I met them. They're in our midst. It's someone that works here. They're off air. But they said it, and I was just like, that's crazy. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Can you trust someone who mentions almond joy?

as their favorite. It can't be your favorite. Almond Joy is very good, but I resent it because it only comes in milk chocolate versus mounds, which is dark chocolate. Now give me the almond inside the mound. Now we're cooking with gas. Almond joy's got nuts. Mounds don't. None of that was weird. Me never trying almond joy. No, I'm just saying that you keep saying the things that you have never tried. It's a long list so far. You're not a very adventurous eater. I just I know what I can look at something I know what I like. I know. I get to see it. I'm like, I don't like that. I know.

Chocolate almonds, you think, is something you wouldn't like? No, but there's something else in it, too. It's not just the... It's coconut. Yeah, I don't like that. That's Mounds. Mounds. Mounds is the coconut. Almond Joy, no coconut. But Almond Joy has coconut, too. It also has an almond in it. The distinction is the milk chocolate versus dark. Almond versus

no almond. Please keep up of me. As I said, I've never had one. Can I... It's called, it's pronounced Joy? Almond Jui? Tori has another Pablo Tori finds out exclusive. We have been making fun of the fact that he seems to have modulated and pixelated somebody who has been telling that same story without the modulation. We have important stuff to do here. He just got an almond joy.

Or the pixelation. You're going to try it. Okay, hold on a second, Pablo. We'll get to your reporting in just a second. Coconut and almond chocolate candy bar, Tony. Coconut. I told you. Do you like coconut? Not really. Pablo, do you have any opinions on this as we wait for this? Yeah, I'm a raisinette's guy personally. Strong. Sneaky, strong candy. As your favorite?

Yes, number one draft pick. Ooh, I don't know about that. By the way, by the way, can I, can I, are you guys, have you guys talked about gooning yet? Have you guys done that conversation? What are you doing here? What are you trying to do around here, buddy? This is a family. I don't know if that means what you think it means.

I don't think you're using that correct. No, no, he's using it right. He's using it right. I don't think, I couldn't tell if Chris was hitting the sound for Zaz or for me, because in my case, the gooning I'm referring to is truly like, there's a rainbow coalition of people who are gooning. Gooning, can someone explain to Chris what gooning is? Yeah, it's not what you think it is.

It's more just the way you sound saying it, like, rather than what it actually means. Pablo, I can explain it to you. So hold on, Chris, Cody's lecturing me on sounding white. Proceed to me. It's when you're a really, really big, fan of the Houston Rockets and Alprenshan Goon in particular, the Gooner. When you're really into that, you're like, hey, you guys want to go Goon? That means like you're going to go watch Alprenshund Goon and do amazing things.

And everybody's like, yeah, let's goon together. Nope. Sometimes you watch the film. Zaz found something out, didn't he? He found out he was wrong about the Almond Joy. I'm going to tell you something, Dave Damage Track. I'm glad you mentioned that. Almond Joy, that's good candybox.

Really? Doesn't suck. Mississippi State in the Almond Joy. That's a good coconut. I like that. Can I explain why I'm talking about gooning in context of Zaz reviewing that candy bar? That would be great because I've gotten lost in the weeds here on Chris Cody not knowing what gooning meant and me not really understanding why it is that you're using gooning in this way. It's a fair question.

Gooning is the process of like edging without letting yourself come to a release. It's a thing that Harper's Magazine wrote a guy, I deserve the sounder for that. It's a pretty white reference. Harper's Magazine wrote about Goonin. Harper's Magazine wrote about Goon. Is it Zach Harper's magazine? I don't know. Somehow, somehow, one of the oldest publications has the sensibility of Zach Harper, this week at least.

The reason I say that is because Dan, who's judging everyone's like food predilections, but does not eat any of this stuff himself anymore, he's like a food gooner. He's just like watching everyone else eat this stuff, but he cannot let himself actually enjoy and come to that. I think I would find something more objectionable than learning that someone in our mist thinks that almond joy is the best of all the candies. But to choose raisinets is just crazy. Like to choose... What's wrong with raisinets? The chocolate raisin is the best of all the candies?

You can't know another person who would say that. There's not another person you know that says that. That's the opinion of a man whose brain has been addled by his food gooning. I regularly enjoy all of these selections. you merely remember what it used to be. I loved raisinettes. I just don't know. I've never met anybody who would say that that's the greatest of the candies.

It's not even the greatest of the movie theater candies. What do you go on movie theater wise? A bunch of crunch. It's easy. Reese's pieces. Come on. Zaz. Yep.

Yep. Pickles. Come on. Snickers with almonds in them. Come on. At Lebitard show, do you know anybody who would choose raisinettes as their favorite candy and also put on the Levitard show poll, do you know anybody who would choose

Almond Joy as the favorite of their candies? Getting back to Pablo Tori finds out and some of your very thorough, thorough reporting again. Oh, yes. More than 20 sources. Again, thousands of documents. Again, months of research. You've gone into the thicket.

You know some things I think that not even the FBI knows. I might guess that you have some information that is not widely known. What did you think were the most interesting parts of the tale that you spun today? So I'll lead with the sort of big picture macro concern the NBA should have, which is that we talked to two Congress people,

one member of the House of Representatives, Yvette Clark, Democrat from New York, the other one, Brian Schatz, the Democratic Senator from Hawaii. And what they say is that they actively plan to make Adam Silver testify in front of Congress to give answers to hard questions about what the NBA knew and when they knew it, which might be relevant, I dare say, to the NBA team that is across the street from your studio.

They want to know, did the NBA actually investigate this? Did they know anything about what the FBI wound up finding? And what does it mean if they did or did it? That is something that they really do want to take seriously. And of course, sports is always like political theater. But in this case, the argument has, I think, think real ramifications for one of the last places in American life that has to pretend that rules matter. So Congress, Capitol Hill, is coming for the NBA in terms of holding

them to an accountability that few others, I think, have the powers to do, journalists like myself, unfortunately included. That's kind of the ultimate check on sports, is them taking interest in that. And so I begin with that part because I think the heat with the Terry Roger scenario, which we report on extensively. And by the way, Amin, who's there somewhere, Amin is my running mate in this episode. And he is wearing ridiculous sunglasses for most of the episode in case you were wondering, how is Amin going to bring his gravitas to the proceedings? It's by wearing insane reflective sunglasses. Yeah, all of this is exhaustive and real and should be a concern. I'm super surprised that you chose politics and Congress as the most interesting thing

in your pod. I didn't think that that was the most interesting thing. Not to say it's not interesting. I'm just surprised that that's what you chose. Oh, the reason I choose it, though, is because I guess I'm sort of like accountability-brained. I have had the experience reporting these stories where I can give you chapter and verse on the fact that Tai Liu is a recurring character in this story in ways that have been not yet disclosed until this episode. I can tell you that we have footage at the World Series of Poker in which Ty Lou is watching a friend of his have a great victory while sitting on the rail, the equivalent of courtside at a playoff game at the World Series of poker, last year, and the guy who is sitting next to him celebrating their mutual friendship

with this poker player is Damon Jones. I can tell you that Tai Lu is a recurring character at the ARIA High Limit Bar alongside Damon Jones. And by the way, Damon Jones calls Tai Lu his best friend. I will give you one guess as to who Tailu says is his best friend, because it's not Damon Jones, it is Chauncey Billups, and Tailu happened to hire both of those guys to his stabs when he got head jobs in the NBA. Tailu also was there at the April 2019, allegedly rigged poker game where Chauncey Billups was not merely the whale at the table, but according to the federal indictment, someone who was cooperating as a member of the cheating team with effectively some of the most unsavory characters to occur in the history of sports and scandal.

And so there's that. There's just like that part. And we requested comment from the Clippers a week ago. They have not responded to our request. So that's another part of it that I think is probably worth mentioning because we don't know exactly the depth of Tailu's involvement. I'd love to continue to find that out. But, you know, I go to accountability.

Like, what does any of this matter? You know, and I think you need some sort of, like, actual thing that puts some accountability into the proceedings. Tannen, this might be my first one, but I happened to know something. What? He happens to know? Great Scott, he happens to know. He happens to know.

Gather everyone. Get the children. He happens to know. So wise. I have it from incredible sources that Tyloo is the best gambler in the NBA. Hands down, coaches, players, anything that you can think of in a competition setting, Tai Lu is the champion. The best or the biggest?

Like, that he wins all the time? That he wins. He knows what he's doing and continues to win. This is the same journalism, right? Have you heard of Goldbelly? It's this amazing site I order from all the time. You can get the most iconic, famous foods from restaurants all across the U.S. And they'll ship it anywhere.

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Stugats. Coming up next, I'm going to tell you the Savannah bananas changing face. How do you know I'm... How do you know I'm smiling? That's how I find my vocal range. Sometimes I just say Savannah bananas.

Savannah bananas. This is the Dan Levitar show with the Stugats. Can you give me, Pablo, a ruling? We were having an argument before. I said Tyloo is now ensnared in this by Pablo Tori finds out. And Tony said he's merely adjacent. Who's closer to correct?

Me saying ensnared or Tony saying adjacent? Ooh, that's a great vocabulary challenge. I don't think he is ensnared and I don't think he is adjacent. I think he was present. He was in the room. He was, what's a fun legal sounding word for you were there? And your best friend has been indicted by the FBI and the federal government. And the question is whether you were aware of any of the proceedings there.

You were... In the room where it happened from the Hamilton play, if you're going to be highfalutin about it. You were, you were around. We're around that a character witness, Denno. That sounds like a J.C. A round sounds like a Jason. It sounds like you're siding with Tony. Hold on, hold on.

Jason's kind of like there's a room in which this, well, actually, you know, there were multiple games going on. I should say that Tai Liu didn't play in the game that Chauncey Billups was allegedly cheating, but he showed up and was marketed to people to play in the game because, hey, Chauncey and Tai Liu are coming through. So, you know, God, am I going to agree with Tony as to like the geographic community of Tai Liu? No, he was. was, he was, he was, um, he's looking for it. It's the Jason. He's looking for it. He doesn't want to agree with you. I really don't want to agree with you. I started listening to your episodes. I love all the NBA episodes that you do. I've been your biggest proponent. I've figured out a couple things about you, but they'll have that offline. What does that mean? I find things out. What does that mean? So you take a lot of time to figure things out? I take very short times of figure. What do you make of the clippers not even return? You're the opposite of a gooner in that regard. Exactly right. I'm a finisher. What do you make right to the point of the clip? Of the clip.

Clippers not even bothering to return your messages this time? I mean, part of me is just like, I get it. You know, it's just not fun to get texts for me or my producers at this point here for the Los Angeles Clippers. I will say, though, that, like, I did not go looking for it. This is legitimately part of the story. I mean, Chauncey Bill, again, Tronsie, just to understand, like, what, so Tiley lives in Vegas, right? He gets, he is an assistant on the Clippers coaching staff at the time that this was happening. the April 2019 game.

Chauncey's next job, because Chaunce was working at ESPN at the time, April 2019, his next job that fall was to become a team broadcaster for the Clippers. His job after that was to get hired by Tailu as an assistant coach for the Clippers. And so, look, there's just, I think, a frustration understandably about whether it feels like I'm directly doing this because I just really want to feud with the Clippers. to quote one of the most inappropriate quotes in this context, I can imagine, you know, Plymouth Rock landed on me. I didn't go, this happened to me.

Pablo X? I didn't. Juju is disgusted with you right now. He's just, he's just, I don't, I don't know that I've ever seen Juju quite this disappointed in somebody. Yeah, it's Thanksgiving almost. You know, I'm just thinking festively. Pablo, is it, are you ever tickled by the idea of people reacting negatively to you announcing we reached out and we didn't get a comment?

Because I see a lot of this on Twitter and people are like, oh, what did you expect? I'm like, yeah, that's journalism, you dumbasses. You have to give them an opportunity to respond to the allegations. Yeah, yeah, I reached out. Kevin Garnett was mentioned to me and we reported this as another face card. He showed up at a game in Los Angeles that was run by some of the. the same people who are mentioned in this indictment, we went out and reached out to Kevin Garnett.

And a source close to Kevin Garnett clarified to me, and this is in the episode, that Kevin Garnett thought he was going to an after party and exited the poker game early, right? So I'm like, I want to give everybody the opportunity to say what their version of the story is because it's not me, as much as there has now been literally a cartoon of me like hiding in a locker with a notepad.

The problem with this NBA poker intersection, this Venn diagram, is that it's full of other people who are, of course, incredibly messy when it comes to sharing stories about the ways in which they believe they were scammed. And so it's just a bigger problem that's hard to contain in the poker world, by the way, like to the question of what does Tony know and when did he know it. Yeah, Tailu is very well known as a guy who loves poker. He's around the ARIA high limit bar.

Like these are, again, nothing wrong with that until the point at which your best friend gets caught up in something that is tied to La Cosa Nostra as a thing, you know, that surprised me as well, frankly. I didn't go into this looking for that. But again, here we are. Let's get people caught up for those who do not know who have not been following any of this very closely. Please first for the people. And you can get this entire thicket of the innards of this scandal at Pablo Torre. finds out he has more information than anyone else doing mainstream reporting on this or any kind of reporting that I've seen on this. First, tie the two things together. They're two

different things or they appear to be two different things that are put together in a way that don't fit, but you link them. It is the Terry Rozier betting scandal and it is the Chauncey Billups rigged poker game scandal. Those seem to be different things. You tie them together. How? Operation Royal Flusch and Operation Nothing But Bet. That's right. The roots of them, I mean, we reported pretty exhaustively, and I think it's worth going back and watching that episode if you have an extra hour today, by the way, the July episode.

I mean, and I did with Tom Haverscherow. We identified one of these characters, Amar Awade, and that guy is one of the key characters in this story. That is a dude who was infamously now alleged. I should say more specifically, allegedly cheating at poker. He's also one of the guys in the original Jonte Porter group chat, who's the guy, allegedly, that helped come up with the idea of, hey, Jante Porter, one way to pay off your debts is,

feed us inside information so we can bet on your unders. Relatedly, the Jontay Porter Group Chat, the way that that was allegedly orchestrated was through a guy named Shane Hennon, who set up a network of, quote, unquote, straw betters, these other people around America through whom they could make bets. Lots and lots of bats. So that's the Jante Porter story. Shane Hennon, who is a real key character in this whole thing that we spend a lot of time on in this episode.

July episode, Amara Wade, otherwise known for the federal government, as Flappy and Flapper Poker. That guy is here in the indictment for the cheating at poker stuff. Shane Hennon, the guy who I just described to you, Sugar Shane Hennon, a guy who has his own long, long, long criminal history that is also, frankly, hilarious. at times, and that's chronicled as well, that guy is the character named in both. He is named in both the NBA betting scandal indictment and in the rigged poker game scandal and indictment. And so the roots of this, right, when you're talking about those bets, when you're talking about the Thai Liu alleged inside information stuff, when you're, or excuse me, when you're

talking about the Damon Jones alleged inside information stuff, when you're talking about the Terry Rozier alleged inside information stuff, when you're talking about the Chauncey Billups alleged inside information stuff. That is all being run through the same characters from the poker side of things. These are two separate indictments. What they are not is two separate stories. This is one messy, big-ass story in which the core of it are these characters that are being revealed as, yeah, connected to the Italian mafia and who you might remember from the time Jante Porter got banned for life. They're still here in this story. That's a good cartoon. It's a good cartoon. You look sinister there. You look like you're up to no good. Kauai looks confused. Steve Balmer looks enraged. You look a little bit evil.

That's why it takes you back, bro. This picture right here. Hard to blame you. Hard to blame you. I am worried, by the way. I am worried that like I can't just call anyone anymore and just be like, hey, what's up? Pablo, have you heard anything from the heat, how they feel about this, do they want, like, their pickback? Do they feel that the Hornets screwed them, that the NBA screwed them? Do you know anything about how they feel? So, look, Barry Jackson at the Herald, as you guys know, he's been on top of that, right? So read what he's reporting, I would say. The AP also had some good reporting on that in terms of how the NBA is sort of splitting the baby here. We're going to put this stuff into sort of an account instead of having to actually pay Rozier directly during this season.

The stuff that I am fascinated by, though, that we report in this episode about the NBA's investigation into Terry Rozier, right? So to recap, Terry Rozier's attorney, a guy named Jim Trustee, who not coincidentally happens to be a former Trump attorney, that's part of the story here, too. Like, what do you do when you're under indictment by the government? You try to go and perhaps get people who are connected to the White House. I digress. What Jim Trustee says is that the NBA cleared Terry Rozier, right? But the NBA, a league source at the league office, told us that the NBA never stopped its investigation into Rozier. They just never found a smoking gun using a language that may be familiar to you in my previous aspiration investigation.

So in other words, they did not find the smoking gun that would allow them to take action, but they never stopped investigating. They hired, in fact, I am told, a firm that is familiar to anybody who's followed my other reporting, a firm named Wachtel Lipton, right? Right. And so what happens is not that they stop the investigation, according to the league office source we spoke to, but they'd merely just allow the federal government to take it from there. If I am in the Miami Heat, a question that I have is if your investigation never actually stopped, why did we the Miami Heat not know that there was an investigation in the first place? So I'm saying. The illegal sort of the allegedly illegal unusual betting activity, March 23, 2023, I believe, that's a Terry Rozier game. where there was unusual betting activity, that game was flagged almost immediately by the gambling operators and credit to them for doing it. The NBA was informed. The NBA opens the investigation.

They do nothing. They allow Rozier to be traded for a first rounder and more, right? That's the story of the heat. Simultaneously, the reason I started with the politics stuff is that the reason this became a problem was because the federal government, the DOJ, the FBI, the Eastern District of New York, they said, we're not letting up on this. We're going to continue to investigate. And the results of their investigation are in their indictments. The MBA's investigation, of course, sort of vaporized into nothing and now everyone's trying to say what they did or did not know and when they did or did not know it, all of which is of interest to people who serve in Congress in Washington, D.C. Barry Jackson tweeted this morning about Pablo's new Rozier reporting. It makes

it all the more outrageous that the heat wasn't told pre-trade. Yeah, I mean, that's a real question. A real question for them to have, I dare say. Ford was built on the belief that the world doesn't get to decide what you're capable of. You do. So, ask yourself, can you or can't you? Can you load up a Ford F-150 and build your dream with sweat and steel? Can you chase thrills and conquer curves in a Mustang? Can you take a Bronco to where the map ends and adventure begins?

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. ready set forward Don Lebatard Cheaters never prosper Stugats I ain't cheating This is the Dan Lebatar show With the Stugats

Pohads One of the Stugats Pablo Going back to the Operation Royal flush One of the things I've thought about A lot since we recorded the episode is Is there a logical explanation, right?

This isn't like the, the CBA where it has to be a rational explanation. Like this is, we're talking about criminal court here. So a logical explanation that Chauncey could have unwittingly been involved in this goings-on. So it's a great question. There's something I didn't include in the episode, which I think we'll get to eventually when I drag me back into a studio to talk about this, perhaps. There is evidence that the federal government collected. in which there is a group chat, again, a lot of it is group chats, a lot of it's messy,

a lot of it's like, you know, just stuff that people wrote down at the time. And in those texts, you have coordination by the cheating team in the April 2019 game. And what they advise, for instance, is to watch, watch Amar Awade, who's referred to as the Steph Curry of cheating at poker in terms of how to signal and how to behave during the game. And so what the government, at least, is clear about is that they have evidence and they have talked to people who suggest that it is really, really hard, if not outright documentary, evidence-wise, impossible to pretend to claim, I should say, that you were playing in a rigged poker game in which you were winning hands, hands that we report one specific hand for the poker degenerates out there, we report one specific hand that a guy who played against Chauncey in that April 2019 game, lost on that's framed as a 10 out of 10 on the suspicious scale, it's really hard to claim that you Chauncey Belps won that hand, played that hand as you did, and you didn't know that the game was rigged in your favor allegedly. Likewise, there is just this coordination of like, man, all of these,

the Shane Hannans and the Amarawades who are there to buy the technology, right? We talked about the deckmaster rig shuffling machine. We talk about the sunglasses, the marked cards, the sort of fake cell phones that you put at the table as we put up the shot of the the hand allegedly that Chauncey played in which he had nothing but the river card came in and he won that thing to a degree that haunted the person that he beat it just feels like if you're playing with these people more than once and you're winning hands like this more than once it's really hard to say that you were just a bystander that you were merely around in that case. And that indictment, they make it very clear that he knew more than he would like to admit. Counterpoint, could Chauncey's rebuttal be, I'm not a good poker player.

I don't know what I'm doing. I just got lucky. Or Austin Powers. I like to live dangerously. I look, this is why I frame it in the way that I do. I want everyone's response. I want Chauncey Billups attorney, which we quote, who we quote in the episode to say,

we're fighting this. Tronty would never jeopardize his freedom on anything, let alone a game like poker, right? So he should be able to claim that on the record, and we quote him as such. I think that the more that he plays, and that is documented, and the more that he's playing with these people who are truly on the evidence shown to be unreliable narrators about whether or not they were rigging these games, there's a lot of evidence that suggests at the very least, these people were doing that, some of which we have collected and we present to you. I just think it's extraordinarily unlikely that that would be a clubhouse leading theory as to

how this all went down. Tell me more and tell the listeners more about Sugar Shane Henan. I mean, the guy, me and compared him in the episode to Carl Pilkington. I don't know if that means anything to anybody else in the room here, but that's dead on. I don't know that's a fool. That's my gimmick He's a guy Who has an exhaustive social media history

A lot of what we did for three months Was just follow this guy on Instagram And he is a guy When you go down the rabbit hole with him He says, you know, like I love LGBT And then the meme is Latina's What does it mean?

Gambling? Gambling? Oh yeah Tax evasion. Was it betting? Was Bette the Oh yeah it was Latina's gambling beer and tax evasion. He's a pretty good follow, honestly, on that front. I'm like, that's pretty funny. So he's that kind of a guy. He films himself all of the time, it turns out violating what appear to be the agreed upon legal rules on his supervised release. He's out on bail a lot. He has a history of both stabbing dudes in the neck at a pool hall back in Pennsylvania,

as well as being literally as you reveal in a table read with the mean in which he gets to play the role of Sugar Shane Hennon, he is actually someone who has been an avowed government informant. And so the question is, like, where is this information coming from? Is it coming from me? It's not coming from me. One of the sources of information very clearly has been two of the people, I would say, that we've named already, whose text messages they have, whose iCloud they have access. And of course, that can be done merely through a warrant.

But it seems like they have a depth of information with these people and their cell phones their group chats that suggests that they were getting information, according to the documentary evidence that we are pointing to, from some of the people who have previously cooperated with the government before. So that's an active parlor game, right? Like, is Sugar Shane Hennon, this is the parlor game at the ARIA high limit bar where he was this year just hanging out in the same places where the NBA guys hang out. He was found courtside.

I mean, spoiler alert, we sort of revealed this in the episode in a way that's far more fun than me just like barfing it all out at you. But the dude was courtside at NBA games this year. He was watching the Miami Heat play. You guessed it, Los Angeles Clippers this year, courtside. So he's just out here in a way that's sort of boggling the mind if he's also the guy who's supposed to be fearful of his own loss of freedom. The, we can't sell enough that Shane Henan, like I know a lot of people listen to like, who the hell is Shane Han? I don't care.

Tell me more about Chaunty and Terry Rose. This dude is a. character. Like, he's living, he's living life exactly the opposite of someone who is feeling the heat of the, of the, the fuzz coming down on him, right? He's out in Vegas, he's taking shots to the face, he's got models around with a $100 bill bikinis, everything, man. This dude is living in. You don't need to tell me anything else about a person than the phrase stabbing dudes in the neck in a pool hall. Like, that sentence is enough for me to say, I know that person. And then two weeks later, sold coke in the parking lot.

That's almost redundant. That's almost redundant what you just said. He probably did it that day too. We just don't know about that. Stabbing dudes in the neck. And again, the signature on the punctual in a pool hall. In a pool hall. Dan, you know how it goes on there. This guy, it looks like a movie director would would cast this person as slash ringleader slash snitch slash cliché. Yes, alleged, allegedly. Look, the central casting of this, it really does bear underscoring. Like, go watch the video we made because it is absurd, the level of how this guy is a real person.

He is exactly on some level what you think, but in other ways he is surprising. And I think surprising to me, if nothing else, is the amount of just, again, to go back to the Tony rule of, is he in the room? is he in the narthex? Is he adjacent? Is he in the mudroom or whatever it is? The dude was around NBA players to a degree that is jarring, especially after he got caught up in the John Tate Porter indictment and investigation. These characters have been around the NBA. And whether or not, you know, the big, bold-faced names are the ones you care about, right? The people on the back page of the Post, there's Chauncey Billups, New York Post, Hoopfel. fellows if we celebrate, right? They got a pretty good, pretty good title. The real characters here

are guys like Marawade and Shane Hennon. And a lot of people are asking, are these all of these guys just athletes? It's like, no. In fact, the glorious sort of story in all of its absurdity here is that you get to meet these characters that are, I would say, beyond imagination in terms of how reckless they were in terms of publishing their whereabout, such that not only the government could see it, but it turns out some obsessive podcasters could as well. Pablo Tori finds out, go find it and make sure that you listen because there's a lot more information in it than what he just gave you. We started with candy, and I end with candy weirdness as well.

Are you still a human being who has never chewed gum? What? That's correct. That's correct. I mean, I once, I once, I once, I once, I once, so I was, my origin story is that I was like at school one day, like running my hand underneath my desk absentmindedly, you know, and what do you think I felt there? Gentlemen, you're members of the jury. I, okay, goon results. That is, that is a, a, a, a close runner up to the actual answer. Is it gum? Is it gum?

It was already been chewed gum. And I didn't know it. I'm just like fondling it. And then I look underneath the desk and I'm horrified. I've got to be very clear for legal reasons, the gum. And that is a traumatic experience. I'm not eating that. Come on.

What do you think I'm going to put that out of my mouth next? The gum? That's really the reason that you've never tried gum? That's the reason? Yes. Yes. I was scarred by that. It's disgusting.

Why do people do that? You think you're supposed to eat the gum that's already been chewed and is under the desk? No, I don't know. Why do people chew gum and then stick it underneath their desk? Grow up, man. I mean, that is, whatever it is that you people are doing over there, that you don't find that horrified. You people. What do you mean you people?

I go now. Pablo Tori finds out. I don't think this is going better for me. See you later. Good talking to you. Thank you for the work. Thank you for the report. I want to place this in front of you guys because I really did think that the most magical thing about that Cash Patel press conference is just them casually mispronouncing but also bringing into play the phrase La Cosa Nostra.

And so I just want to ask all of you. Let me ask Chris and Zaz first. Do you guys want to translate that or try to translate that most literally? I know what it translates to. Chris, do you know what it translates to? I know La Casa. La Casa. La Costa.

The reason that I bring it up, right, is because it's not our thing of ours, right, is because it's not our thing, it's this thing of ours. And until hearing it used both incorrectly the way they were pronouncing it and in general this week, that I hadn't realized before that, that the reason it said that way is, is, or I'm assuming, I don't know, but I'm assuming it said that way, because when you say that thing of ours on a wiretap, they can't prove what that thing of ours is. That's what I, I assume, and it said so perfectly that it has a poetry to it, where you're just hiding, you're hiding the menace and the threat in mafia talk when you say that thing of ours, and we can't prove what you mean by that because it's cryptic enough. That certainly sounds very legitimate, but La Cosa Nostra, that phrase has been around for many, many years. Like, I got to figure it's been around before anyone knew about a wiretap, right? Probably before wiretaps, if you want to be honest.

Well, but... It comes from the old country. Okay, but if you're speaking around people, it's something that you're shrouding in a certain mystery. So if you're overheard, it can't be known what that thing is, whether it's a wiretap or not. It's been around long enough for me to watch. in the movies and say, damn, that's cool. I can't wait till I'm the director of the FBI, and I could say that in a press conference. La Castro Nostra. You know what? What's not cool, it seems to me, is that the guy who's afraid of gum is also dealing with the mob, Congress. I mean,

the FBI, is he not scared? Has he received, he's talking about people being afraid of taking his calls. Has he gotten legitimately any sort of, you know, like we see in the movies all the time, like, let this one go, kid. You don't, you're not going to like what you find. Dave, I've been worried for Pablo's life. Wow. Because, I mean, between the clipper stuff, now the mafia's in play. Like, he's stepping on the toes of the wrong people. Tony's basically John Candy at JFK, sweating hard and telling him to Pablo in a Cajun accent,

you need to let this one go. You don't know what you're messing with, boy. You're not the only one who's concerned about Pablo. he's doing difficult work and it has threats in it and people who care about Pablo have been worried about him before these two stories. The Belichick reporting is stuff that people were worried about, although I don't think of Belichick wandering shirtless in front of a ring doorbell cam as quite the same kind of menace. But yes, there are many people telling Pablo that he needs to let stuff go and he doesn't let it go, except for the gum under the desk. I could definitely see Jordan encouraging some defensive linemen to rough up Pablo. Teach him a lesson, boys.

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