The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - Fowl Shots: We Investigated an NBA Conspiracy

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

The most brilliant promotion in sports seems simple: If a visiting NBA player misses two straight free throws in the fourth quarter, every fan in the arena gets free chicken. But the untold story of Brickin' for Chicken is a tale of psychology, philanthropy and unintended consequences — and nobody wants to admit the truth. So we teamed up with Oddball's Amin Elhassan to reveal hidden evidence, pointing to a new theory about this quid-pro-bird. And then we (literally) chased down The Robin Hood of Wings: no less than Giannis Antetokounmpo himself. • Subscribe to Oddball with Amin Elhassan and Izzy Gutierrez https://www.youtube.com/@OddballHoops • Subscribe to Thanalysis https://thanalysis.podbean.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. And today we're going to find out what this sound is. That's why I signed in Milwaukee. So I can get free sick feeling for life. Right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network.

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Let me just close out all the windows on my computer. How many tabs do you have open on a given day? Eight billion. Eight billion. I don't know. You know, I thought I had a cure by opening a second window to the overflow. Now I have like several windows of a million tabs. Yeah, the old, let's just throw all my laundry in a different room. When your tabs look like LeBron James' Instagram stories,

after he wins a championship, it's time to acknowledge you have a problem. I can't believe my life is like this. I can't believe you've been on this assignment for us, that your life is like this, by the way. Yeah. No, you know what, man? Sometimes there's like a calling that happens. I imagine this is what those pigs they use used to find truffles. Yeah.

This is how they feel, right? You get that scent and then I can't stop. I have to keep going deeper and deeper and deeper. We've been arguing already about can we even show the footage that you've collected that I have not even seen yet? And I don't know if legally we're allowed to but we'll get to that I guess but like we're talking about blurring and voice modulating and this is sensitive in a way that I did not presume when we assigned you this. This is one of those things I remember the why in the wire they said you follow drugs you get drug addicts and drug dealers but you start to follow the money and you don't know where the is going to take you I felt like I followed the chicken and I ended up some weird places. Most importantly, places where nobody wants to talk about this.

Your enthusiasm to talk about brickin' for chicken. Yeah. And the resistance you have faced around the sport that you know as well as anybody. Explain why you've been eager to talk about this for people who don't know what any of this even is. Truth be told, you could be a huge NBA fan, watch tons of games on TV, but if you've never been to an NBA arena, you may not even know this promotion exists.

Kings fans, they show how loud we can get right now! In the fourth quarter or in the second half of games, depending on which arena you're in, when the opposing team is at the free throw line, if they miss two free throws in a row, everybody in the building gets free chicken. Brickin' for chicken. But there was one moment on national TV that happened

where the announcer let the viewers at home know, hey, this is why everyone is going crazy. All right, it's that time for chicken, free chicken. This is a playing game. The winner plays against the Knicks as the seventh seed. I remember this acutely. Right, the loser then has to go and play against Chicago. So you might not even make it to the playoffs. This was deep in the seventh seed. I remember this acutely. Right? The loser then has to go and play against Chicago so you might not even make it to the playoffs.

This was deep in the third quarter. The Sixers, I remember, had blown a lead. They were awful. They were awful. They were getting booed at home. And booze raining down here in the first half from the frustrated Sixer fans. And then midway through the third quarter, the heater up 11, Caleb Martin, who is usually a dependable free throw shooter. This is one. And then yes. And the crowd explodes.

My oh my, it's so easy to make people happy. Apparently the chicken is very good. Oh my, it's so easy to make people happy. Apparently the chicken is very good. I felt that in Mike Breen's loins, by the way. Yes. Yes! But the crazy thing here is they've done the charting of what the wind probability was for the heat at that moment in time. It was upwards of 80 percent. It was in the bag. And that moment is the moment where everything changed and you see the win Probability descend descend descend descend until all of a sudden you got a Sixers win that

promo Pablo save them So the argument you are making here is that? Brick in for Chicken is changing meaningfully the course of basketball games in a way that has even exceeded the whole novelty marketing sponsorship kind of design of it. I'll take it one step further. Dan Leventhal thinks it saved the Sixers organization as a whole. This organization was ready to crumble last night and then Free Chicken arrived.

Yep, Chick-fil-A. And it made everything better. organization was ready to crumble last night and then Free Chicken arrived. Yep. Chick-fil-A. And it made everything better. It's an actual nightmare. Like the idea that Chick-fil-A is what did this is just it's unfathomable. There's the graphic right there look at it. The inflection point the cliff clearly the cliff that the heat fall off is directly overlaid onto the moment when chicken was up for grabs. It's insane and yet it's undeniable what happened there and so this is one of those moments I think where you got something that you want from the marketing side, right?

You got something that you wanna galvanize the fans with, and then you got something that basketball ops, right? The coaches at front office are like, hell yeah, this can help. When you get all three of those things in the same place, that's business nirvana. Business nirvana for the NBA, also, I am told reliably, a business nightmare for Metal Arch Media, which has funded truly a new high when it comes to the we paid a mean

what to investigate what the f*** graph. Pablo, like I told you earlier, you follow the chicken, there's no telling where you might end up. And where I ended up was in some weird places, investigating one of the 75 best players of all time, right? And in the process, completely ruining my reputation in the NBA, which already wasn't stellar to begin with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a risk that I was expecting to have, didn't expect it to get this dangerous this quickly, though.

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Accord Royale. Learn more at remymartin.com. Remy Martin cognac, fiend champagne, 40% alcohol by volume, imported by Remy Contr, USA, Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur Design. Please drink responsibly. 1738 Centaur Design. Please drink responsibly. So this is a, in other words, psychology experiment that we're watching play out and I want to get into the minds of the players. I mean you promised me entree into the psychology of NBA players who have all of this at stake. But in terms of how this this stunt originated, where does that begin?

Well, as with a lot of conspiracy theories in this country, it starts in our nation's capital. Well, I'm vice president of global partnerships at Monumental Sports and Entertainment. My name is Lou Stradler. I started here way back, 1982, so this is my 43rd year. So this is the man behind this promotion, the man who thought it up. He is the big wig exec for the Washington Wizards, who in essence makes the partners, which is the corporate sponsors, dreams come true.

Which is a hard thing to do over 43 years when you're selling the Washington Wizards. And he's been tasked with coming up with a promotion that helps the local Chick-fil-A franchisees get more foot traffic in the door. And that franchisee was a man named John Natoli. What John Natoli said was, hey, what we found is for most people,

if they try our chicken, they come back. But how do we get them to try it? So Lou says, I got it. We'll run a promo where we give away chicken when some sort of event happens. Now, what kind of event could that be? Could it be when the Wizards make two free throws? And then we said, wait a second, that could be negative. Our players could get booed if they go and make the first free throw and miss the second

they'll get booed for missing. So we've got to do something where everyone is incentivized to keep rooting for this right no matter what. Where the business side where the basketball of the wizards lose side is protected and also the Chick-fil-A side gets what they want. Gets what they want. I said, wait, let's concentrate on the visiting team doing something that will generate excitement for Mars. This is the brilliance of it. This is almost in a way recession proof. Hey, what if we're down 50? They still can miss two free throws in the fourth quarter.

So it is something that has repeatable. It's repeatable, yeah. So there's no point in time where you're like, well, that promotion's over up until literally the final buzzer. It's funny just to remember how like golf works and golfers hate when the crowd is interfering with their rituals, how their sport has always operated. How did the NBA react to, yeah, a bold stunt like this? Well, it was an instant hit, right? And it should come as no surprise. Fans love it, of course.

Got free chicken. Chick-fil-A, the sponsor, loved it. Hey, we got the thing that we wanted. We wanted people walking through the door. But the players, though, how did they feel? Well, according to Lou, the Wizards players loved it, including one guy in particular. Absolutely. The name comes to mind real fast, Marchant Gortat for the Wizards.

Marchant Gortat, as soon as this happened, would stand up, grab a towel off the bench, and start shaking it over his head to bring the crowd support. Martin Gortot was so great that they kept calling and saying, ask Martin when he wants us to deliver sandwiches. Did Martin Gortot actually get the chicken he was promised? Did he get his chicken? They threw him a party. It was catered and everything. John Natoli, that Chick-fil-A franchisee, was there.

Lou Strudler was there. Marchant Gortot was there. That's what I'm talking about. Well you guys got everything I asked for. You caused a big hubble. Listen, all I know, we gotta come up with a different rule. Two free throws, two miss free throws, it's too much. Two misses, too much. And?

The Chick-fil-A cow. Of course. We'll come back to that a little later So I do want to point out something about pro athletes which is yes all of them can afford lots of chick-fil-a Yes, but there is something about watching a Polish born NBA player with like a zangief mohawk Just like enter into a room in America full of free chicken that feels like kind of the dream he was promised and then Like a real American feel entitled enough to say the threshold is too high to miss Fritos. What are we doing?

This is communist Russia. No, it needs to be a turnover, right? He's consistently campaigning to lower the threshold to get more free check more free chicken And at one point John Natoli even promises him, hey, let's do that. We'll have the cow bring it down the locker room. Come get your raise that time. All right, we got it. We got it.

We'll do that. So any home game now that we got this? Any home game you guys get to do. Do we have a cheek filler at the arena? Yes. Perfect. Can we have someone from the staff bring a little box? We'll bring it down.

Just a little cheek filler and maybe like, you know, 10 sandwiches just on the corn with pepper jack cheese. Absolutely. And if you guys get up by enough points, we'll bring it to you on the bench while they're shooting the free throws. That's what I'm talking about.

And this phenomenon was such a transcendent moment that as tends to happen in our league, copycats are happening across the league because the league has this group called Team Bo, Team Business Operations. What they do is they take best practices and they spread them to everybody. So they're like, hey, this promotion in Washington

works really well, everyone else should do it. And so what you see now is across the league, almost half the league has a chicken giveaway based on missed free throws. So much so to the league, almost half the league has a chicken giveaway based on missed free throws. So much so to the point, Pablo, that now the Wizards are being targeted for it. They are now, instead of being the beneficiaries of this great promotion, they are now the victims. Just the other day in Philadelphia, a young Wizards player named Colby Jones received

a new nickname from his teammates because of his exploits during the giveaway. Why do they call you Chick-fil-A? Um, because I sold when we played Philadelphia. I missed two Fritos. I missed four straight. Four straight Fritos. I think I fed the whole city of Philadelphia that day. So, Pablo, you might detect a certain note of joy coming from Kobe Jones?

He has a new nickname. He has a new identity that I now will think of every time I think of Kobe Jones. But the crazy thing is I listen to that sound. I don't hear the talk about the nickname Chick-fil-A, whatever it is. What I hear is I think I fed the whole city, right? I think I fed the whole city and that's what got me thinking. Wait a second, what if this isn't just guys getting rattled at the pre-throw line? What if there are guys out here who are doing a solid for the road crowd? Hold on. So you are you are alleging that these NBA guys because of this incentive structure with free chicken are betraying their franchise by taking

Free chicken and giving them to the people. Okay, two things. One, I'm not alleging anything. I'm asking questions, Pablo. And two, I'm not the only one asking these questions. Take a listen to Chris Miller and Drew Gooden on the Wizards broadcast talking about Tristan Thompson at the free throw line in Washington, D.C. Last year he shot 29% from the free throw line and couldn't think of a better person at the free throw line because if he misses this, oh the fans are gonna get some chicken. Oh, hit it on purpose.

The fans are happy but the Cavs get the basketball back. Did he do it on purpose? I wouldn't be surprised. He's the man of the people. The man of the people. Look that's someone asking the question that I was asking, but you don't have to take it from me or Drew Gooden or Chris Miller because Spencer Dinwiddie owned up to it. Take a look at this tweet exchange. So fan tweets to Spencer, I hated watching you miss these fourth quarter free throws, but thank you for lunch tomorrow. And this is what Spencer says back. Miss the second one on purpose, wanted everybody to eat like the squad, shrug emoji. Okay, now in the case that I know you are trying to build,

there is clearly also just some guys trying to spin their own failures into something positive that they can then make jokes about. I thought you might say that, right? I thought you might say that, you thought that I might say we could do this all Day, but I have prepared Evidence of a player not only claiming it but claiming it in the moment. I present to you exhibit C

Boban Marjanovic Fans are getting excited here. There might potentially be some free chicken on the board if he misses the second free throw That's why the fans are getting a little be some free chicken on the board if he misses the second free throw. Oh man, free chicken on the board. So that's why the fans are getting a little frothy. Oh they're pointing to, he's like, MoBones playing with the crowd, say you want chicken? Here's your job. No, he gave him chicken. He's a man of the people. He's a man of the people. Did he do that on purpose?

He did, he gave out free chicken. Goosebumps. I'd forgotten free chicken. Goosebumps. I'd forgotten about that. Goosebumps. For people who forgot about this, dude, that's an eight-point game with four minutes and chains left in the fourth quarter. And Boban actually did very clearly say,

I'm going to miss this and then missed it. If you are one of the people who's listening and not watching the video, he is pointing at himself as I'm going to miss it. missed it if you are one of the people who's listening and not watching the video He is pointing at himself that I'm gonna miss it and he's looking at the crowd He's I'm gonna miss he tells us he's such an insane video build up to it It's not just like it's not the Spencer Dinwiddie where he misses it. I meant to do that He is calling his shot like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield, right? He's like the opposite of Babe Ruth Well, yeah, all of these guys on a relative basis are themselves like side shows. These are relatively speaking scrubs.

Kobe Joe's. Kristen Thompson this season. Bobon. These are these are a circus acts in a circus promo just having fun off to the side basically. I thought you might say that and this is the whole point of my investigation follow me if you will right What if I told you that the guy that this story is really about isn't a sideshow or a? Scrub as you very very disrespectfully call those I'm fine young man. I apologize What have I told you? Actually, this guy is a former MVP.

No, a former two time MVP. You might know him by his own nickname that wasn't given to him by his teammates after failure. No, it's given to him because this guy is a freak of nature. The one and only, Yannis Santitokounmpo. First of all, I was supposed only Yana Santiticumpo. or no? Sure. There's 150,000 people watching you right now. Really? Yes. So can I have please a 50 piece mac minis, 50 exactly. Not 51, 49 chicken minis, yes, 50. And let me have a large drink, no ice, half Sprite, half lemonade. Thank you.

So you might be asking yourself, how much does Yana Sananacupo love fast food chicken? And the only answer I can come up with is, as much as any human being has ever loved anything in the history of mankind. Are we getting free chick-fil-a for life now? I want free chick-fil-a for life! There's no way.

That's why I signed in Milwaukee, so I can get free chick-fil fillet for life! There's no way. That's why I signed in Milwaukee. So I can get free chicken fillet for life. Chicken fillet is the best. So there's all of these documented instances of Yannis professing his love for chicken. There's a time he showed up to a press conference with a bucket of chicken wings. There's a time where he tweeted about Roscoe's

and how much he loves Roscoe's and wishes they would open one in Milwaukee. There's the trip to China where he goes and he professes love for chicken feet. I now am remembering how Yanis, you know, won All-Star MVP and decided to celebrate in the way that you are alluding to. So, so what's it feel like to finally, to finally witness this thing? We need, we need a chicken dinner. And yet, none of this has to do with the promo that we're talking about, I mean. So this is his love of chicken in general, but what about how he's Interacted with the incentives that were dissecting. Okay, so

Here's a video of him at a Milwaukee Bucks game where there's a chicken giveaway While the opposing team is in a chicken scenario We did. Look at Yannis, he's scanning it! He's capturing the moment. He's getting the, uh... He wants to get the QR code to get his free wings. He's on the bench, obviously. It's the end of the game.

And he pulls a phone out to scan the QR code for the free chicken giveaway that they're giving to the fans. He's so enthusiastic about chicken and about the promo, he wants in on it like everyone else in the arena. It's such ridiculous video that I'm overlooking the fact that Yanis just had a cell phone on the bench, by the way. You never know. You never know when a QR code might pop up, Pablo. But OK, so granted, fair. But in terms of his personal at the line performance, not as a spectator, right?

Not as marching gore-tot, but as somebody with something to lose or in this case win. How does he do? So in essence, Pablo, what you're asking me is, we've seen him be the marching gore-tot of this, kind of rooting for it for the home crowd. But have we ever seen him be the Bobon where he's on the road and he's that is the investigation. OK, this is what I'm going to tell you right now. When it comes to chicken eligible free throws, Yana Sananacupo is the Robin Hood of chicken giveaways.

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So now we're at the tabs open on now both of our computers. I'm trying to run through the research here that you've assembled for a term that you dropped on our audience as if anybody would know what the fuck you're talking about. Yes. But chicken eligibility. Yeah. What I've found, Pablo, is when you are investigating

ground that has not been sullied by human feet, right? This is fresh snow. This is untouched by humanity. You have to create metrics to measure the things that no one even considered. And so we came up with this term chicken eligible shots because all right, the way the promo works in case you haven't figured out by now, you miss the first free throw, you miss the second free throw. Everyone wins free chicken. If the opposing player makes the first free throw, guess what? We don't care what happens on that second free throw shot, right? So the only way we can figure out

if you're handing out chicken as an opposing player is if you are converting on chicken eligible shots. So that's the second missed free throw after you missed the first one. Right. You've created a helpful graphic here. Chicken eligible, parenthesis E-C-E, any free throw where a miss on that individual shot

would result in the activation of a chicken-based. Chicken eligible, parenthesis E-C-E. Any free throw where a miss on that individual shot would result in the activation of a chicken-based promo. Yes, precisely. We have another term we need you to understand. Why? Because metrics, we have to build metrics off of this. It's not enough to say, hey, how many chicken-eligible shots did he take? Oh, sorry. You're moving us from counting stats now to...

Efficiency, which is the key to any good metric is we want to know how efficient you are. Of course. Of course I must agree with this. And here's the graphic, the chicken conversion rate, which is your chicken eligible misses divided by your chicken eligible attempts. In essence, this number gives you the efficiency you have at providing chicken to 20,000 people. So just to over explain this CCR is the rate at which a player will miss a free throw with

chicken on the line. Yes. And so Giannis Antetokounmpo, when it comes to his conversion rate when he's chicken eligible, I mean, is what? So his CCR over the last two years, 80%. 80% of the time he's got an opportunity to get you chicken. He comes home with it. Eight out of 10 times,

Yannis is converting free chicken for the crowd. Yeah, he's shooting 20%. Yeah. That's pretty bad. It's awful. Yeah, but he's also a bad free throw shooter though. Sure, yeah, I mean look, he's not great at shooting free throws, right?

Overall in his career, he's in the 60 percentage spot, but here's the crazy part. When you look at his quarter by quarter free throw percentage for this year, let's say, right? He shoots 64% in fourth quarters of games. He's a pretty, like for his standard standard pretty good free throw shooter The only time we have a drop is when he's shooting free throws versus when he's shooting free throws with chicken on the line And then that drop goes from 64% all the way down to 20% Pablo That is the difference that that Delta that we have there is the equivalent of Steph Curry shooting a free throw versus Shaquille O'Neal You're telling me that this guy who's Curry shooting a free throw versus Shaquille O'Neal.

You're telling me that this guy who's not a great free throw shooter. I mean, famously people count down crowds are blocking him by pointing out how long he takes to shoot a free throw. Just the one assist. And now you've got a sign for Giannis in the end zone. Even that guy, you're saying becomes that much worse when there is this incentive at stake. It strains credulity. I don't know if I'm saying that word right.

I think stunningly you might be. Okay. It strains it though. It strains my credulity that you know to pronounce credulity So it strains credulity to believe that someone who is bad at free throws is magically horrendously worse Only when there's a chicken giveaway But this is where I just need to continue to channel the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

And point out that the theater and it is convincing theater, graphical theater full of lots of terms, the theater you're giving us is kind of small sample size theater. Like I'm looking at the graph when you say 80% and I say 8 out of 10 I mean we're talking about 10 shots here. That's not a lot. It's 10 shots for chicken, right? Because here's the crazy part. When it comes to giveaways of any other sort of variety pizza ice cream hot dogs whatever it is he shoots his regular free throw percentage but when it comes to chicken he shoots the absolute worst and Pablo this is where all of that content we ran through we like why are we seeing all these videos

and clips and that's why because this guy has a demonstrated connection with a love for fast food chicken I wish I had a Charlie from it's always sunny in Philadelphia bulletin board here where I could have some strings and attach all The connecting factors here. He loves chicken and he wants to share that love with everyone What does Yanis have to say about all of us? Well Pablo? I had the same question have to say about all of this? Well, Pablo, I had the same question. So I went home to Phoenix to see the Milwaukee Bucks play the Suns to ask Giannis myself.

So you land in Phoenix, you land back home, and the Bucks are visiting. They're the road team. There is chicken in the air. But you want to go ask questions, journalistically responsible questions, of the person that we are theorizing about. How hard was that?

You know, it wasn't easy, right? Because I don't know if you know this, NBA shoot-arounds, what they do is they do their practice, their little morning walkthrough on the day of the game. But then they don't let the media in until the very end, which allows for players to escape without talking to media if they don't want to. And I had been warned that Yanis notoriously does not talk to media. He has a reputation, if you're not familiar with the reputation, that he doesn't,

for all the videos we played, doesn't actually like giving time to us journalists. And yet, I saw him and I try to catch up with him. This is a video of you running through the tunnel. That's that patented amino acid. It's printing speed. Just missed him. Just missed him. We'll get to the bottom of this.

They're gonna try and sneak him out the back way, but we're gonna get to the bottom of this. They're gonna try and sneak him out the back way, but we're gonna get to the bottom of this. That was an episode of Severance. You're running down hallways that don't go anywhere. And so I'm trying to catch up with Yannis, but he's a big guy with big strides. So I did the next best thing. When I got to the game later that evening,

I went to locker room availability, and I tried to talk to one of his teammates about it. I don't know if you've noticed this, you know, some of these arenas have a free giveaway if the opposing team misses two free throws, right? Sometimes it's chicken, sometimes it's pizza, something like that. Even though Giannis shoots better in the fourth quarter on free throws, when it's the chicken giveaway, he tends to miss those. Why do you think that is? I don't think there's any reason for it.

Shots going or shots don't go in. I think it's just... I mean, to clarify why the thing we alluded to before, we actually did need to do here, the doctoring, the voice modulating, the blurring of this secret video. Why is this so secret? Why aren't we seeing and hearing what you heard and saw? Because the moment I asked the question, I was asked politely to leave. They didn't want any questions about this whatsoever. The question you asked as soon as you

articulated, which we did hear, the implication becomes, wait a minute, I should answer this very carefully and perhaps not at all. There was a weird energy around this. Clearly. From the approach on Yannis to entering the locker room to the conversations afterward, all of it felt like the Bucks wanted nothing to do with this. And we reached out to Giannis directly through his agent to talk to him. That was rebuffed as well. Right. We've tried. Even the beat writers, by the way, guys that cover the Bucks on a day to day basis.

When I tried to talk to them about it, everything was like, no, don't want to be involved in it because they were worried, I think, like how that would reflect on them. This is the part where I said, I'm risking my reputation here for you, for your show. This is where, as I was hearing what was transpiring, I was like, oh, so the Yanis that is the most vocal global ambassador for chicken in this regard is the exact opposite.

And the general, by the way, the flavor around even the champions of chicken, like, I mean, it's worth pointing out too. Eventually, we here at Pablo Torre finds out we reached out to Marcin Gortot. And his response was what? How would you describe that? I won't describe it.

I'll just show it to you on the screen. And so this is his response to our request for an interview quote Sorry guys, but don't really see that laughing emoji with the with the like sweat bead with the sweat bead on it Exactly me talking about chicken Gritted teeth emoji dot dot dot gritted teeth Pablo that's not the response of someone saying man, I don't feel like talking about this. That's not the guy we saw in the video who was having a chicken party. Right, like who was requesting that the threshold be lowered

on what the chicken giveaway is. This is someone, again, who does not want to be on the record on this. And you know what it reminded me of, Pablo? It reminded me of a prior episode of PTFO when we went to go see the haunted hotel in Oklahoma City, remember? Yes. And you know what it reminded me of Pablo? It reminded me of a prior episode of PTFO when we went to go see the haunted hotel

in Oklahoma City, remember? And Nate Robinson, who had experienced supernatural activities there, when we reached out to ask him and he said, no, I don't wanna talk about that, and he texted something very similar. You can pick up the telltale signs of someone who feels disincentivized to have anything

to do with this conversation. So Giannis doesn't want to touch this. The people that we think would want to touch this actually do not at all. But there is a game that night. Yes. And so what happens when the ball is tipped? An NBA heavyweight matchup highlights the bill on this Monday night with two teams in full fight mode down the stretch

It's a solid box here in the phx on arizona's family sports So fast forward to the fourth quarter because that's the only part that we anyone cares about right to the chicken giveaway Which in phoenix, by the way, it's called a foul shot. No, you're right. F. O. W. O. Yeah, see it's a double entendre. So Sons are up too Giannis gets fouled, about two minutes, 19 seconds left in the game. He goes to the free throw line. He misses the first one.

And then this is what happens on the second one. Chicken people are getting excited. All the chicken people are getting excited. The team playing now is getting excited. What a shot. Yeah, Oso's got to secure that inside possession. You hear that, Pablo? They're not counting like they usually do.

They're not booing. They are going nuts. And in the corner, I don't know if you saw The little chick-fil-a cow. Oh, I saw the same cow. That was a marching go top Party. Yep is back Dancing its ass off. God it was it could not have been scripted any better I mean again rational brain wants to enter the conversation Okay

so as much as it's a signal that something that is total proof of your theory is happening. I mean, like, it was a, that was a two, I'm looking at the score. Yeah. That was a two point game. The Bucks badly needed this. The whole theory that Yannis is being incentivized because of his love of chicken and because of his love of, frankly, humanity. The theory that he's doing this on purpose.

I mean, again, they need these wins. I mean, why? Why would he do this? Well, why would he do it in general, regardless of whether the game is on the line or not? It's a lot of things. Like, maybe it's, again, he loves sickening once everyone has it. Maybe it's because, hey, this is my weakness that everyone jeers and mocks me for that turns it to something that makes me a little bit more affable right maybe hey guess what Pablo ever look at the all-star voting you know

who's number one not Steph Curry everyone's darling not LeBron James the greatest player ever according to some people not Victor Wemba and Yama this phenomenon the number one all-star vote guy in the league is Giannis Andaducumpo, who plays for Milwaukee. It's not like everyone in Wisconsin turned out to stuff the ballot boxes. Wait, you're saying that Giannis Andaducumpo has been using chicken the way Elon Musk has been using money to

win elections. I mean, look, what I'm saying is this guy's really popular. It's a quid pro chicken. He's really popular, Pablo. More popular, arguably, by the metrics than LeBron. It is a shock. I did not realize that. That is actually quite shocking.

And on the other hand, he loves chicken, right? And you bring these two things together. I'm giving opposing fans. Opposing fans. It's one thing to win over 20,000 people in Milwaukee. It's another thing to win over 20,000 people in 29 other NBA arenas. He's campaigning across the aisle. Yes. That's basically what he's doing. He's reaching across and it's working. It's working.

Now we're firmly in the realm of trying to climb into the mind of someone who does not want us to see inside. You know, Paolo, there is one person I didn't talk to who could address those things. The inner psyche of Giannis Anaricumpo, who knows him better than anybody on the face of the planet. It's his brother. I know. You're going to have to talk to Tenacity Anaricumpo.

I mean, I guess I can totally believe that you have dragged me to this point, but it's time for us to make one more call. So the very first thing you need to know about the guy I'm about to call here is that he is Yanis' older brother. One of five Anadokumbo brothers in all, four of whom by the way, have made the NBA, which is its own incredible story, but Thanasis Anadokumbo, crucially, is the only Anadokumbo brother to have played alongside Yanis. Thanasis was a third stringer when they won a title together in Milwaukee in 2021, and the two are so close to this day that Thanasis still lives and works in Milwaukee right alongside Yanis, whom he calls his best friend and his partner.

And so while Thanasis' two-time MVP winning brother would not take a call from Pablo Torre, most especially during these ongoing NBA playoffs, Thanasis, I was told, actually would. Because Thanasis and I also happen to share something very important in common. An incredible affection for the truth. One of my nicknames is truth teller because if you don't tell the truth, if you don't say that the way it is, they won't listen to you. And this is a lesson, it turns out, that Thanasis has been heating at home with Giannis and in locker rooms around the NBA, and also now on his own podcast, which he titled Thanalysis, which is, you know, a pretty good name.

Got to admit. And so at this point, I just decided to ask Thanasis straight up about the truth behind Brickin' for Chicken. Which you may now recall from earlier in this episode with Amin, when we talked about that game where Yanis somehow had a cell phone on the bench was trying to scan that QR code off the Jumbotron to get free chicken alongside everybody else in the building and this memory got the NASA's thinking about a different game actually from a few years ago in Atlanta. You want to hear a story? We come in and this guy had to be 20, 22 or 21.

One of those years. We come in third unit, third string. We come in, you know, trying to finish the game, you know, although it's not the best, you know, sometimes sloppy, sometimes OK, you know, just not the best time to be in. But I'll take it. You know, I'm blessed. I'll take whatever I can get. Eleven different Atlanta Hawks players have scored here tonight. But I'll take it. You know, I'm blessed. I'll take whatever I can get So I'm shooting the free throws and I missed the first one and everybody's going ballistic And I'm like what? I look around

Like why is everybody so hyped? And then you know, I hit's getting very loud because it is foul time. And then, you know, I hit the second free throw, I hear this, oh, deflation. No chicken for you. Shut up. And then I was like, why is everybody, what did I do? Why is everybody like booing and yelling? It's like, no, it was free food.

That's why. The Anacubros depriving these Atlanta people of much needed nourishment. Was any part of you, The Nasus, if you were aware, if you were aware of the free food you could have given that city, is there any part of you that was like, man, I wonder what it would feel like if I missed the second one? No, a part of me would have said, make both and I'll buy you guys dinner. I'm not missing the free throws, man.

Dinner's on me, it's okay. You know, I'm not gonna make my free throws. Well, this is the thing I'm fascinated by, is that the crowd is trying to root you on, but the opposite, right? They're trying to, they're actively trying to get you to miss, because the free food thing is a magical lure. opposite, right? They're trying to, they're actively trying to get you to miss because the free food thing is a magical lure. What I'm curious about is whether you're aware

of how much free chicken your brother Yanis has won people around the NBA. So I'll tell you this. They usually free throws, those free throws come in the clutches. In the clutches he makes them. Like he's never, he doesn't miss in the cluts in the clutch he makes them like he's never he doesn't miss in the clutch maybe in the beginning they don't have that offer in the beginning on the in the game so I don't know specifically but I would assume these are definitely giving out like food definitely this is the funny thing okay mm-hmm in the past two NBA seasons yeah Yanis has had 10 chicken eligible free throws. Okay. Okay. So this is the second crucial free throw with chicken on the line. We call them chicken eligible free throws. Okay.

And he's had 10 of them and he has missed eight of them. So what do you mean he... So he gave eight of them he gave chickens. Chicken, big and chicken to people. Oh, that's a, he's a philanthropist. That's good. That's amazing, man. Who doesn't love a free chicken? He is the league leader in chicken eligible conversion rate. No one has given the NBA more free chicken in that way than your brother. He is the Robin Hood of free chicken. Wow. I'm telling them. I'm telling them.

But you know, I'm afraid if I tell him he's going to not miss now. He's going to think about it and not give no more free chicken. So I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to let it rock. I'm just going to let it rock. What's just funny is that like the love you get though. Like the so we went through and just watched what it's like when you miss the second free throw and you and you do when your brother does what you refuse to do because you sank that second one man it is like they would have

voted him for president yeah it's just there it's an amazing thing even though he's not American it was no it's just crazy we can get we're living in crazy times man that doesn't really matter anymore. We can do whatever we want. But here's the funny thing. I am now curious. Do you think there's any part of your brother in his mind, deep in his brain, that is hearing the applause and is thinking to himself, maybe I should just miss the second one?

No, I don't think so. He's just like me. No, he's not missing anyone. I'm not going to lie to you. He's just like me. I don't think... He thinks that he's so zeroed in and when I say zeroed, he's so laser focused that he's thinking like, I'm going to make two free throws and it is what it is. I'm going to do my best in my ability to make him. The statistic I have to follow up on that though, to continue this investigation, is that we also tracked Yannis' free throw percentage when it came to other types of food That were on the line and promotions. Okay, so the non chicken foods, okay Non-chicken food eligible free throws Over the past two seasons. Yeah with non chicken eligible shots. He made five of eight

With non-chicken eligible shots, he made five of eight. Five of eight. He doesn't want to give people bad product. He only wants to give them what they want the most. They want chicken. That's what they want. I don't think there's a bigger truth you could tell, Thedasus, than what you just said. That people want chicken and we got gotta give the people what they want. That's how you build your legend.

That's how you become this phenom. Just give people what they want. Thanasis Aradakumbo, a true truth teller. Thank you for solving a mystery that I can now finally have some peace about. Put the rest, okay? Man, thank you so much, man. Thank you. Thank you, brother.

Thank you. Anytime. And at this point, there was only one thing for us left to do. It was time to summon our intrepid correspondent back into our studio for a piece of something else. So, me and Elhassan, I just have one last thing to tell you, which is that thank you for not bricking this assignment. And as your reward, we got chicken. Okay, alright, so this is the part where I have to admit,

it's not just Yannis who's crazy about chicken and free chicken giveaways. Yeah, the least shocking twist of this story is that both of us, honestly, are f***ing starving. Both? Mm-hmm. Ooh. Honestly, yeah. Flavorful.

I get it. I get it. To be honest, I don't know if you're doing it on purpose or not, but it's worth it. Sometimes all we gotta do is say thanks. Do we have any hot sauce? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Art Media Production. And I'll talk to you next time.