The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 2: I Don't Have Time (feat. Jessica Smetana)

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

"It's a little slutty, but I think it works." After the worst loss in Notre Dame Men's Basketball history, Jess is here to talk curling drama, the excellence of Alysa Liu, sweaters, and how she'd fare in the NFL combine if competing against our crew. But hopefully she won't have to talk about Punch the Monkey or Clavicular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the Dan Levatore show with the Stucats podcast. Notre Dame down 44 at home. This is on track. Not the Mike of Shrewsbury wants to see this. To be Notre Dame's largest home loss since the fourth game in Notre Dame men's basketball history against the Chicago First Regiment. 64 to 8 was the final score. Why are you getting so excited? 29, 1898?

Why are you getting so excited? Who is the Chicago First Regiment? Apparently they had some Hoopers on their squad. Now, see, that's nice, all right? She's the host of the Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes, out weekly with Mike Golick Jr. She is Jessica Smatanna. Jessica, that was not nice. Come on.

That's not the way we want to welcome you on to the show. I apologize. Guys, it's okay. I did not think the Notre Dame men's basketball team was. going to beat Duke last night without Marcus Burton and Jalen Harrelson. Even with Marcus Burton and Jalen Harrelson, I didn't think this was going to be a close game. Not a great couple weeks for Michael Shrewsbury either, though. I would, I've talked about this extensively in my podcast and I can probably guess there's not very many Notre Dame men's

basketball fans that listen to this show, so I'll keep it brief. But it hasn't been a good season since Marcus Burton's injury, which is disappointing because they started out with a few like pretty nice games, had a couple good wins against Missouri and TCU, and then their best player gets hurt, and now their best freshman, who's the highest recruited player in Notre Dame history is hurt with an ankle injury. And so I don't think Mike O'Sruisbury is going to get fired because I don't really think anyone wants to pay a buyout on a seven-year contract that he only signed three years ago, but it's been a really disappointing season, and it's a huge bummer for those few Notre Dame men's basketball fans out there that are still watching.

And besides, we're waiting for the main event to return. You root for the second best team in Indiana and football. So you got that to still. This is not an open invitation to talk about Indiana football. Hell no. Also, Notre Dame women's basketball is having a pretty good year, despite the fact that this is not really the most talented roster they've had anytime soon. So this is primarily a women's basketball school.

Oh, I guess we have to talk about them too where we'll get impeached. Why does everything need to be so negative? Everyone's looking for something negative to say all the time. Why, everyone just wants to be negative now. Jessica, what are you doing now? Every morning you wake up and there's no more Olympics. You love the Olympics. I'm like going through withdrawal.

Like I have to wait till like 7 o'clock to watch sports. It's bullshit, Zaz. I hate it. It's bullshit. Which sport do you miss the most? Curling? I mean, guys, the fact that this Canadian men's curling team won the gold medal, Have you seen what they said after they won the gold medal and how just like, oh my God.

I had to look these quotes up and make sure they were real because they were so, like, sassy. But one of the Canadian guys, he was the one that told the Swedish guy to F off when he got caught touching the stone. Yeah, he was accused of double touch. Double toucher. Correct. He said, he said a weaker team would have felt flat on their face after the week they had. And then another guy on the team said, for anyone who called us cheaters, for anyone who said negative things about Mark Kennedy, who is the other guy, about us, about Canada, about our families. I hope the image of us standing on top of the podium embracing one another, smiling ear to ear with our gold medals, is burned into your brain forever.

Who knew there was so much shit talking with curling? Seriously. Right? It's intense. And I really do miss it. I miss all of it. It was a really fun two weeks. I wish you guys cared about it.

You would have had fun too. I haven't done it once. You can... Well, is anyone here well versed in shuffleboard? Because I played shuffleboard a lot of a kid. Shuffleboard master. Right?

Yeah. That's kind of... It's close to currently. What is a lot as a kid? You played it six times? No, it's... No, it's every time I went to visit my grandparents. In Boca.

They obviously had a clubhouse that had a shuffleboard board. I take it back. In Del Rey. I don't know shuffleboard. What's the other one where it's like... The bar one. Yeah, where they got signed on it.

Oh. I love that thing. That one, I'm a G at that. With all the sand. We all love it, but we can't name it. What's it called? Shuffleboard. No, it's not shuffleboard.

Something hockey. Chris, I don't need to name it. What are you talking about? I just go up there and play. Oh, this is called XYZ. No, just go out there and play. Flick that wrist. Ain't that right, Jess.

He's not taking a quiz. Exactly. I'm a Batchie guy personally. Bachi runs in my blood. I love Bacchie. Smetana, the buzz of pro football right now. while the combine, which really should be pronounced the combined, because a combine is farming equipment that separates the wheat from the chaff. And that's a double entendre. That's what we're doing.

But I'm not giving, yeah, I know, but I'm not giving the NFL people enough credit for coming up with that. What they're really doing is a combine, which is a group effort with a single purpose. That's really what they're doing. But the Steelers are apparently, your favorite pro football team, are apparently not in the market for a quarterback because they have volunteered that they're going to wait out the 43-year-old man who, in case anybody has amnesia, we already saw how far he can take that team and it is not to the Super Bowl.

Ergo, why would they choose to say in springtime, that's our plan again? Because they're getting the band back together. I mean, we've got Mike McCarthy now. Obviously, you've got to see how he does with Mike McCarthy. He couldn't win a playoff game with Mike Tomlin and, in fact, had one of the worst quarterback performances of all time against the Texans when they were in the wildcard round a mere, what, six weeks ago. So now we have to do it with a different coach because obviously it's going to go better the second time when he's even older. I detect some sarcasm in your voice.

Yeah, that was pretty, that was pretty sarcastic of me. I don't know. What would you do, Sumitana? I can't deal with the Steelers right now. There's too much going on. There's this sad, freaking monkey. in Japan. Oh my God, punch? There's all this

shit with the hockey team. Like, I can't even begin to fathom the Steelers' quarterback situation right now. It's a disaster. Can I ask a question about the monkey? Can I ask a question about the monkey? Is the monkey the monkey the monkey or is it the stuffed monkey? No. No one ever clarifies for me which one is with. It's all like a punch and it's always a real monkey punch is the real monkey. Do you know what kind of monkey punch is, by the way? I googled how to pronounce this this morning.

Please. I know, but tell Tony. He's a macaque. I beg your pardon. Everybody knows you'll never call me a macaque. He's, Punch is the baby macaque who, whose mother abandoned him. And they, the zookeepers gave him a stuffed monkey because he needed something to cuddle and to feel a connection with because he was lonely. And then at some point, I believe over the last week, the mother took him back and then rejected him again. It's a very sad situation.

I believe that whichever CIA operative planted punch to take all of our minds off of, you know, the impending war and all of the other things going on, it's not working right. I don't have the bandwidth for punch right now. Like I keep seeing the punch videos and like, I can't do this. See, I totally disagree with you, Jess. What's the problem here? All I want are the videos of this adorable little monkey. I would much rather, I would much rather invest my time in this than any of the other stuff that we're talking about. All of the negative things that are going. on. It has, this has been an emotional roller coaster because this, this poor monkey was rejected by his mother and then raised. What did you went out for cigarettes and never came back? What does that mean? No, this happens in the animal

kingdom. Like, the mother did not want to raise the baby and so that's bullshit. And so I wouldn't reject that monkey. And so the human beings at the zoo raised this little monkey and when and when ingratiating him with the other monkeys in this exhibit, he

was shunned and was just walking around sad with the little plush toy. I don't like that. And then eventually was embraced. He was groomed. But then a couple days later, there was a monkey that just swung them around like a crazy like a ragdoll. Hold on a second. It was heartbreaking.

We need to stop the train here. I think Greg Cody's pro this monkey being rejected. Well, I am. I'm looking at the monkey on the screen there. Ridiculous. Jumping around. Pushing everybody. Leaping over rocks.

Who wouldn't reject that? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. They're pulling a punch and he runs back to a little plus toy. Look at him, look at him. He's like, I feel safe with this toy. I need safety. Charles Darwin, look it up. You are the one person, Greg, with the take of pro rejecting this one.

Poor little baby. I'm with you, Greg. I'm with you, Greg. Don't fold. I mean, part of it is that my wife over the past week has forced me to look at 15 or 20 videos of Punch the Monkey. Exhaustic. I don't have the bandwidth for Punch the Monkey. That's what I'm saying. have time for Aaron. My dad doesn't have time for this. I don't have time for punch or Aaron. And I feel

like they're going to end up taking Ty Simpson way too early. Is Aaron the other monkey? I hope they take Ty Simpson. But your Smetana has checked off a list of things that she doesn't have time for. She doesn't have time for the Steelers quarterback thing. She doesn't have time for this monkey. And we also know that she has a wealth of time now that the Olympics are over. What are you focusing on right now smitana being engaged the gold medal winning women's figure skater she's the greatest the performance of a lifetime i love this woman she retired from figure skating at the age of 16 because she was this youth figure skating prodigy she was landing all these jumps that no one else her age could land and then she said this feels like a chore this feels like a job i'm not having fun anymore

i'm retiring she she was in the 2022 olympics and finished six i believe and was like that was and I'm good. And then she decided, you know what? I miss skating a couple years later and she came back and it was like she never left. And I wonder what the implications are on youth sports. Because we, you know, we always talk about baseball players in particular, how they have so much wear and tear on their arms by the time they're like 20 years old and need to get Tommy John surgery and all this stuff. But like she took two years off like in her figure skating prime, like when she was 17 to 18 years old and came back and just won the Olympics. And she did it while not feeling as much of the pressure as a lot of the other skaters felt because she knew like she was in it for her this time. She was like having, this is in her words. Like she was having fun with it and was able to really like show her artistic and creative chops that she never really felt like she got to exercise before when she was just trying to win, win, win all the time.

So I think it's a lovely story and she seems like a wonderful person. What song would you go with if you were a figure skater? I would definitely do something from Lord of the Rings. I would do something spooky. I mean, let's go back to me in football. Yes. That was exactly what I was going to say. I would do the Eisengard theme.

That would be sick. Hey, it's Mike Ryan. And I want to talk to you about the random midweek hang that you have with your friends. Maybe it's an NBA game. You get a text, hey, come over. You want to watch the game. And maybe you're like, I don't know. I kind of just wanted to stay home.

And then you think about it. After your buddy hits you up, and you know just the thing that'll make that regular hang that regular midweek hang around the basketball game into a special time, into a Miller time. That's right, this happened to me just last week. I grabbed a six-pack of Miller Light, said I was on my way, and next thing you know, we're arguing about rotations like we're on the coaching staff, yelling about a miss call, and the game's coming down to the final possession. It was one of those nights that you look around, you take a sip, and you think, yeah,

this was the right call. And my friendship's stronger for it. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Light. Great taste, 96 calories. or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly.

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Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required. Four additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.com slash audio. Limited time offer. Don Lebertard. I don't think I ever got that many roses in my whole life. Stugats.

Certainly not from your lovely grandfather, God. May I still rest in peace. This is the Don Lebertar show. With this two gods. Do you think in your professional opinion, Jessica Smatana, that Jeremy Tashay is successfully pulling off the Michael Douglas from Basic Instinct look? Saw the plot of that, by the way, Dave? The V-neck sweater without anything underneath it.

You know about that interrogation? Spice. It's a little slutty, but I think it works. Thank you. Jeremy, you slut. Is that the first time you've been called slutty before Tashie? No. So I saw Jess that Lindsay Vaughn admitted, I mean, she's got extensive injuries to her leg,

but that she admitted that there was a conversation about the possibility of her leg being amputated at one point. It's kind of nuts. I read a full description of her injury from a doctor in the New York Times this morning, and it made me so nauseous. It was horrific. They said that this is like, and this is not a surprise to anyone that. that follows what was happening, but they said it's akin to the type of injuries

you get in huge car accidents, basically. But she had this complex fracture. How was it so bad? Because she was going like 70 miles an hour. Yeah, I guess that's why. And she also got compartment syndrome, which is when you have a lot of blood in one area. And so it chokes off the blood supply

to the rest of your nerves. And it said that if you have it really severe compartment syndrome, it doesn't respond to painkillers because it's like nerve pain, which like that sounds horrible. And that can lead to like loss of a limb, I suppose, if it gets really severe and you have a lot of dead tissue.

But obviously not what happened because they had, you know, she got air lifted immediately to a hospital and all her surgeons were there. But it sounds horrific. And at the same time, she still has to get her ACL and her other leg repaired. So I feel so bad for her. It just sounds like a freaking nightmare.

And her freaking dog died while she was in Italy. So I mean, just the worst two weeks ever. Wow, how did her dog die? I think he was really, really old. It's an open case. It's an open case. And died naturally. I think Punch the monkey killed him.

Punch the monkey's innocent, Greg. Yeah, I don't think so. Why you made him out to be a villain? He's innocent. I just don't have time to be distracted by punch right now. Can I ask you a quick question getting back to curling, which is the most, at once the most interesting and boring sport in the world? I feel like what is the intrigue in curling for you?

Because I feel like it's an Olympic. sport where if I practice it for two or three days, I could curl as well as anyone there because it seems so simple. You know, they're on ice. And even the brushing thing seems so ridiculous. I could be an Olympic curve. Yes. I would love to see you even try to bend down.

He would break a hip to about six seconds. I would love to see him just do the push. Like just bend down on one knee and do. the push. I would love to watch you just do that part. He can be the broomer. No, I'm with you, Greg. Like there's a like you don't have to be, oh, I could play, oh, I don't have to be the quarterback. I could be the kicker. I could be the punter. There's a lot of positions. You can be the broom guy. I'm with you.

Let me ask you a question. Yeah. You see him running on the ice with a broom? Working it. Of course. I use a broom. Frequently. Curl it. Okay. Listen, I don't need to watch downhill skiing or, you know, slope style or all these other crazy things constantly. Sometimes it's nice to just see people do something that's very easy to understand and conceptualize.

And yeah, do they have to be, you know, I mean, they are like world-class. Dad, that's not how they do it. Yeah. Can we show my dad right now? This is, well, now you're doing like, that's his method. He's doing the Greg Cody method.

You know what, Chris? A lot of people looked at Reggie Miller and said, that's not how you do it. And what did Reggie Miller do? He hit a shit ton of threes. Greg, I'm with you. Your style, your technique. The results are what matter.

Yes. Well, I mean, it's the same reason people like watching darts or, you know, sports, like, even golf sometimes. I mean, there's times that I'm like, yeah, I can make that putt. Well, one thing, I can actually go out there and do it. What is 100% true is that I could make the U.S. bobsled team and even easier than that now that I've looked at it. I mean, you could say, no, you can be wrong. You can be skeptical, but I would be on that team and I would be wearing a medal if the pilot and the guy in the fourth seat were skilled at what they. do. You're just along for the ride if you're in the two and three chair, but even easier

is the two-man luge, because you don't even have to run in that. I can be the top. If you're what, for real, what is the second guy doing in the two-person loo? Bottoming. You don't want to know. You can work blue or you can answer my question. What is that guy doing? I mean, he's the biggest fraud going in sports. What just could you do? All I have was looking at. People love to do the sports that I could do for three weeks and make the team kind of thing. Yeah. What is the highest end on a field of play that you could successfully complete? Because like I've said before, if you put me on the field with the NFL's best offense, best offensive line and otherwise, I could lead a point scoring drive.

No. Yeah. Yeah, I could. No. Yeah, no, I like this guy. I think the sport I would least die doing would be playing. soccer because I actually know how to do that. But in terms of just like picking something up for the first time, I mean, if we're doing like, I'm not, I wouldn't be good at any of it, but like I could

do, I could do, I could do track and field. I'm not going to finish in any sort of place. Is there anybody here at this show who you would do better, you would have better numbers at the combine or the combine then? Probably everyone. I mean, let's be honest. One of us is in really good shape. When's the last time this room collectively ran three miles? I did it. it this morning. The combine does not run three miles. Nobody runs three miles. Who are you talking to?

But also, I just got back from running three miles right now right before the show. Look how long my reaches. Who would do the worst at the combine combined? I know I run a plus six second 40. I mean, I don't want to say this while Greg's sitting right there. That's why I didn't want to say. It's not nice. Greg Cody could run like the wind back in the day.

I could. He's like Terry Bradshaw. You can't compare errors. Okay. Okay. Maybe you. show some grace and everybody in their prime. Everybody in their prime who would come up shortest. Oh, my God. Well, Jess, let me ask you this. Have you ever kicked a 50-yard field goal?

No, I've never kicked a 50-yard goal. You can make a 50-yarder? I have. Is that a compact yard? And he wasn't a young man when he did it. Well, I was. Oh, how? There's only like one witness. Tau Habib. Head on or soccer style? Head on. I probably could kick a 50-yard field goal. Try it. Well, give it a try. You're nuts. Get my name.

Get my name. You're going to have you doing. Smatat is a high-end soccer player. That's plausible. That's true. She has a soccer background. A few years ago, I tried to say, what was the Chicago kicker missed a big playoff kick?

Like five or six years ago. It was like a 40. It was a 43-yarder. So I said on the show, I could make it. You didn't even come close out of that. I hit the crossbar. I hit the cross-ball. I mean, you're not that hard.

So you also one of our better athletes around here. But that's just. But it was. It was not easy. I hate to be a cynic, but I do not know that I can completely accept that Greg Cody at any point in his life, made a 50-R-10. From straight on. Head-on field, though. I think barefoot straight on.

There are not very many human beings who could do that at any point. You're looking at one. You're looking at a club soccer goalie in Greg Cody. I do remember one of my first days here last year, Tony, total sucker. Me? Real sucker behavior. Yep. You were out in the field and you went to kick a field goal and you pulled your hamstring.

No, it wasn't my handker. It was not a kicker. It was my hip. It was looking like a sucker. I almost tore my quad off the bone. Of course. I couldn't walk for like a month. Still, it happens.

Here's the issue. Okay, here's the issue. You're not supposed to kick back to back to back to back. Exactly. You're supposed to kick once, Jack. Yes. Not back to back. Maybe twice.

Exactly. The ice you, they call a timeout. Maybe twice. And even then, you got a little bit of a respite before you kick the second one. Thank you. Even if that were true. Five in a row. Even if that were true, you clearly didn't even know that.

Again, suck her. Because if you knew that, you wouldn't have done it. I put it this way. I was kicking them so far that we had to actually move it back to a 40-year field instead of a 30-year field because I was kicking it over the net. And Mike Fuentes had to go to a house, knocking the guy's door, be like, hey, the ball's in the backyard. It's embarrassing. Nobody believes that.

It's not. Bring Mike Fuentes in right now. He'll tell you. Bring him right now. Where is he? Fletas. Get in here, Pwethus. This is just, everyone thinks they're so good at everything.

I'm going to say something about this. Someone needs to get fin. Come on, I missed it. I'm telling you, it's not that I was good. I just kicked it too far. Mike Fuentes, please tell them you had to go into a nice man's backyard. You brought Mike in. Of course, because you said it was a lie.

Just like the short of glass. Putting Mike Fuentes on camera is a fine. Someone's got to find him. I had to go to a guy's house and get the ball out of the backyard. Thank you. There you go. These guys, from the horse's mouth. I got to be perfectly honest with you.

It's too many of you guys who are claiming you could do things that you definitely cannot, all right? Like, there has to be some type of fine, right? As opposed to me. I'm finding Greg, $5 saying that he could do. lying. He thinks he could curl. Damashek, you're fine $5 for saying that you could be on the bobsled team and Tony for saying shards of glass. Shards of glass. We're going back to the first time. How are you made to claiming that there was... It's my story. I'm the greatest Kinect 4 player you'll ever meet. I'm the best order of food in a restaurant you'll ever meet. Hold on. I don't

just shoot my mouth off. Also, watch your ass on Kinect 4. Also, Jeremy, find $5 for being a slut. Whoa. Yeah. What's up. You slut. And the fine bucket. is presented by Money Lion. Download Money Lion app or visit moneyline.com to learn more. Money Lion, make money easy. That's how it's done, Jess. How about that? Juju just reminded me of something. We played pickleball against Chris and Roy and beat them 11 to 1. Because pickleball was something I was going to say as a newer sport. I feel like in my prime.

Yeah, Roy was terrible at pickleball. To be fair, Roy was taking hacks of pickleball. I was hitting him against the wall. I was there. I never said I was good at pickleball. Jess, do you have, we didn't get to it last week, which may have been my fault. Do we have an internet minute for a say? Yep, let's get to it. Are you all right? Oh, well, time to get in it. It's...

Jessica's. Internet minute. Yeah, this one's bad. Have you guys... I kind of wish Mike was here for this one, because I know he's interested in this stupid topic, but there's this guy online who... I think people became aware of a couple weeks ago.

His name's clavicular. He's a streamer. He does this thing called looks maxing. Yes, give the background of who this character is, because I don't know what it is. I don't know what this is. The background is he's, I don't know how old he is exactly right now, maybe 20. He dropped out of school to, he's making a ton of money streaming, and his whole schick is that he is a quote unquote looks maxer. And he just does what he can to look super hot, I guess.

Yeah, including hitting himself in the jaw with a little hammer. With a little hammer. Yeah, and taking a lot of drugs that's part of it too, allegedly, although I don't think it's alleged. And it's very, I would say, of our time. And I've tried to explain this to people who aren't online who are like, just ignore it. Who cares? I'm like, no, this is what's happening on the internet now, especially with these streamers that are making tons of money and then, you know, going viral, singing inappropriate song, Kanye West songs and clubs in Miami. This is now, this is real life.

This is very influential to young people and they're starting to talk in ways that most people can't understand. Like, what even is looks max or mean? But this is what the kids are saying now. Well, can you get to the point where the ASU frat bro completely mugged him? Can you get to that point?

He's mogged that. What does mug me? Yeah, this ASU frat bro mocked clavicular. In the most embarrassing way possible. I still don't know what mocked means. He keeps saying. I don't know what means. It means like bested.

He showed him up. Yeah. And, like, collicular was jester maxing, I guess. Yeah, jester maxing. It's bad. You know about that jester maxing? Greg, you're lucky your son is an adult. Zaz, good luck.

Yeah. That's my, that's more of this. But, yes, you know, it used to be like bad like good or bad like bad, and that's now how I feel. That's a jester way to say. Like I'm an old dork, which in fact, I am an old dork. But really, explain these terms, gesture maxing and such. Okay, so maxing is like doing something, like it kind of is self-explanatory. Like at the beginning of the year, I was like, I'm fiber maxing this year because the doctors are saying, you know, we're not getting enough fiber.

So, you know, you're trying to get a lot of fiber. That's my favorite cereal, grape nuts. Well, Jester is clowning around. I'm clowning to the maximum amount of clowning around is what you're saying. Right. And then there's gooning, which is like wasting time doing something. My son says that all the time. Wait, is Gooning not what I believe? I think it's what you and I think it is.

I mean, it's not part of maxing. It's not part of maxing, though. Clavicular is a different part of maxing. Guys, I hate talking. I hate all of this. You brought it up. Yeah. Two of a minute.

Because I feel like we need to have an educational moment. I don't know what gooning is, though. What does it mean? We'll talk to you about that. I'll tell you later. Put that in the club. Anyways, none of this is good. Yeah, it's bad for society.

All of us. You can check Jess out Weekly Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes with Mike Golick Jr. Good seeing you, Jess. We'll see you next week. Bye, Jess. I hope she wants to talk about Aaron Rogers. No, no, no, no, no.

So the ASU frat pro has a better physique than Kovukir, right? Who? What? Shards a glass. Dan Lebatard. I don't like Smetty either. Stugats.

Women stay home in the kitchen where they belong. This is the Dan Levatar show with the Stugat. I mean, you did a really good job earlier in the show today with NBA stuff, but I need you to help explain what's happening with the Indiana Pacers right now because something took place yesterday with the Pacers that feels kind of shocking. So Rick Carlisle, head coach of the Indiana Pacers, you may have seen, look, the Pacers have been getting fine left and right lately.

You know, they got five, what, $500,000 a few weeks ago for the nonsense with not playing players. 100 grand. It was a jazz that got the big one. Oh, okay. So they got fined 100 grand for that.

And then they got fined $100 grand again yesterday because, you know, same type of situation because apparently, you know, they're sitting players and the league felt

that they should play them. And in this case, it was Aaron Nesmith, right? Neesmith, that's a fine. Aaron, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Neesmith. The league felt that he was supposed to play. The Pacers didn't play him. They got fined $100,000. And so Rick Carlyle was on a local Indianapolis radio show yesterday. And here is the Pacers head coach talking about like how ridiculous it is. I put out a statement about it. I didn't agree with it. There was a league lawyer that was doing the interview that kind of unilaterally decided that Aaron Needsmith who had been injured the night before and couldn't hold the ball, should have played in the game, which just seems ridiculous.

And during the interview process, I was not on it, but I heard details. We asked them if they wanted to talk to the doctors, our doctors about it, because it's something that was documented by our doctors and trainers. They said, no, they didn't need to. They talked to their doctors who did not examine Aaron E. Smith. And we asked them if they wanted to talk to the kid. and they said, no, they didn't need to. So this was, this was shocking.

This was shocking to me. And during the interview, they also asked if we considered medicating him to play in a game when we were 30 games under 500. So I was very surprised, you know, obviously didn't agree with it. So the part that stands out the most to everyone, I would think, is the league wanting them to medicate the player and them deciding not to. That's the part that's going to open everyone's eyes with those comments, right? Yeah. So we talked about this on Basketball Luminati. That's a podcast I do with Tom Havasor.

It's produced by Anthony Mays. Keep your third eye open. Say three times to keep your third eye open. Basketball Luminati, basketball, lumina, basketball, lumina, basketball, Luminati, wherever you get podcasts. By the way, Jared Weiss of The Athletic was our guest. So we talked about this concept, this idea that, again, I had the, I feel like a pre-cog in the movie. Minority Report.

Good movie. Thank you. Like, it is suffering. John Andaten, to always live in the future and never kind of really be able to live in the present. When they announced the 65 game rule, I felt like a lonely voice in the echo saying, this is dumb and this is what's going to happen. Instead of compelling healthy players to play, all we're going to do is force unhealthy players to play.

And that's what the league was trying to do. It was definitely reactionary from Adam Silver's press conference and all the talk about tanking and all that. And the shenanigans Utah was doing, they wanted to lay hammers around on everybody. They're throwing out writing tickets for everybody. He's lost right now, this Adam Silver. Like, he's done nothing for so long that now it's like, hey, I got to go so over the top with my reaction to things like this. And now you're seeing the reaction where Rick Carlisle is dispensing this kind of information. This Adam Silver, he's lost.

Well, I would say he has not handled certain things to the best of his ability. And this is one of them. Because, again, the problem with all of this, this is all stemming from load management and people like Mike Ryan just believing NBA players don't care about playing. It was never about that. Who is the poster child for load management? Kauai Leonard. Kwi Leonard, right?

It started in Toronto. You know why they were load managing him? Because the dude was hurt. He was hurt in San Antonio. He got to Toronto. He really wasn't 100%. We saw it in that playoff run where he's literally dragging his foot. He can't even jump over this piece of paper, but he played and they won.

And then obviously he's got to kind of figure out how to make himself available for the maximum amount of time. But somehow on the line, because this is where I'm critical of Adam Silver in the NBA, they allowed people to turn that into, he doesn't want to play. And like, no, the dude is clearly a broken man. And in most cases that we're seeing, it is about, hey, how can I ration out what little hell? this guy has. And so in this case, I think the damning thing is not only well, couldn't you just medicate him and throw him out there. That's crazy. That's a thing

to say. That's crazy. But the fact that they would not examine him that they did not look at the imaging or whatever, like that's, that's it turns into just, I don't give a shit, make him play. The NBA issued a statement to the athletic. It says after

Carlisle's comments, right? It says Coach Carlisle's description of the process that went into the decision to find the Indiana Pacers is inaccurate. An independent physician led the medical review. In addition, the Pacers General Manager and the team's senior vice president, sports medicine, and performance, were interviewed as part of the process. The Pacers confirmed that it had provided all of the information requested by the league, and the team reported that an interview with Coach Carlisle or a team physician was not necessary. This is what I know. On our podcast, we'll have guests all the time.

We have Jeff Stats, the foremost injury expert. He's a certified athletic trainer. He's got a database of NBA teams paying him for access to about injury histories. We've had Dr. Brian Sitterer, who is a physician who works up in Minnesota, I believe, and he does a lot of sports injury stuff. Whenever we ask them, like, specifics about, hey, what do you think about this injury? Do you think, da-da-da-da? They always preface it with, I can't say because I have not examined the guy.

I can't tell you sitting here. I can tell you what historically these injuries, take what kind of recovery times, whatever, but in terms of specifically what he's dealing with, without me examining him and having access to the imaging and all that, I would not feel comfortable saying these things. And so that's a really kind of vague response by the league. What exactly was the information that they reviewed?

What they see? And what did they see that did not require them to either exactly, examine the patient or even speak to the patient, which is another part of it. It's kind of odd. I don't know. I'm with Coach Carlisle here. It seems like overkill, but this is where we're at, Zaz. You're right, because they didn't do anything for so long.

And now we've got to show people what we've been in business. Right. Yes, reactive sort of thing. But, you know, more globally, I guess, you know, I guess the sort of irony is for at a time when there's some percentage of people that genuflect to the past. Back in my day, they used to play back to back to backs in the NBA. Why can't modern players do that? And the answer is, correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, much like starting pitchers don't go nine innings anymore like they standardly used to is because today's players are in fact redlining every possession,

every trip up the floor. They are going all out, 100 percent, whereas the players of yesteryear paste themselves out a little bit. I mean, isn't that at the root of a lot of these kind of, ironic or otherwise kind of discussions about these guys don't try as hard? Yes. So there are three things that work, at least in basketball. Number one is

the mileage on these players coming to our league is much higher than it's ever been before, right? Guys 20 years ago did not play high school ASU basketball all summer long, 17 million games. But can't we also say that now these guys don't go to college? if you add up the reps played from youth all the way up to the start of their NBA career,

regardless of you want to add college in there or not, it is much higher now than it's ever been, right? And also specialization. Back in a day, most of these guys were, yeah, I'm also the star quarterback and the star shortstop. Yeah. They don't do that anymore, right? It's the Babe Ruth thing. Why did Babe Ruth hit so much? Babe Ruth was facing the same guy in the eighth inning that he was facing in the first.

first inning and that picture was trying to, right, not third time. And that pitcher was on his 140th throw at the game. That's just not the way it is. They were pitching 400 innings back then. Right. Like, again, I'm talking about before they even set foot on a basketball and NBA court, they're already worn at a level that they've never been worn before. Number two, the style of play, right?

Because of the three-point shot, guys are closing out to further distances, and bigger guys are moving a lot faster, more agile, so there's a lot of change of direction, so there's a lot of kind of undue pressure and stress on ligaments. Number three, and this is the big one, right? Even if those things weren't true, if I went back to 1998 and decided to load manage Michael Jordan, guess what? He would have been even more freaking amazing. And at that point, everyone would have been like, well, I got to do it too in order to keep up, right? Once someone starts doing it, for you to not do it at a toughness is actually a detriment, not an additive. I want to make sure we end on a high note today.

And I have not done a good job at promoting this week's episode of the Greg Cody Show with Greg Cody. And specifically, I am most interested in what catchphrase numbers we are at. Where are we with the catchphrases? Top 50, which of course Greg does not have mapped out and is completely winging it. What numbers are we on right now in our top? 50 great Cody as he scrambles to look through papers. We're at

number is 36 and 35. Are you willing to give us the best one? Give us the best. Wouldn't 35 be the best one? I'm going to give you the one that's the most topical. Okay. Okay, because this just we just finished with the Olympics. Number 35 is... This is a new

and an improved down levatar show with the Stugas. Gamble on by Drafkins.