The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - Sneak Preview: Share & Tell with Dan, Pablo, and Mina Kimes

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Is James Harden playing 4-D chess? Will A.I. steal your job? Can Dan trick Mina into pissing off Dolphins fans? Here's a sneak preview of "Pablo Torre Finds Out," coming September 5. (Also: Daryl Morey singing.) Show Notes https://www.pablo.show/ https://time.com/6301288/the-ai-jokes-that-give-me-nightmares/ https://theathletic.com/4765589/2023/08/14/tua-tagovailoa-dolphins-jiu-jitsu-training/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was muted. Hello. Hello. Meena. Look, it's happening right now. Meena, do you feel it? Do you feel it? Swelling in your soul, it's happening right now. The thing that you me and Pablo talked about doing while we were taping highly questionable, the years from now, we can be together just doing a show where we're screwing around. It's happening. Look at it. You're in the middle of it. Is this like the end of Shao Shank when they're on the beach? Is that what's going on in your mind right now? That's what's happening right now. It's the sequel to Shawshank.

I have come out through the sewage in the sh**. And I am there to greet me at the other end is you and Pablo on a boat. Look at you, just fixing things, shining the boat and preparing for another voyage. I am so excited about this, Pablo. It does feel like joining Metal Arc has been like jumping into the embrace of a giant sewer monster.

I've got one foot on the boat. I'm gonna give this metaphor a little bit. I am legitimately palpably goosebumpy excited that we're even trying to do this. And I wanna be clear that like what I'm gonna be doing on this show, on my show, public tour, I find out, is not going to always be like this,

but this is a very special episode that I wanna try and do with Dan, like once a week where we get to sit down with our friends and have conversations that are only kind of vaguely structured, but are longer formed that get to us hanging out with people that we really like. People of interest about stories of interest, that we are all individually like obsessed with

in a given week, whether it's sports, whether it's non-sports, whether it's inevitably gazing into our navels, our nostalgic emotional navels about how we don't do this enough. So yes, Mina, Dan and me are on what feels like a teetering dinghy towards high-minded content. Come on, it's a cigarette boat. Let's go. Let's go. We got some star power around here enough with the boat analogies. And let's, we've got something substantive here.

Mina, I just want to tell the audience though. You me and Pablo when we were doing, I love doing highly questionable with you guys and we talked years ago that it would be very easy for us to do a fun easy show where we're just enjoying ourselves talking about things outside of the parameters of you know bears falling on trampolines and guy getting hit in the junk by a sledgehammer

that we could actually have some fun while doing this. So thank you for, thank you for partaking in our nonsense. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I will not be engaging in any naval gazing mainly because my naval is about three feet in front of me and I try not to look at it these days, but otherwise I am really excited to talk about a wide variety of esoteric things. I just want to be very clear. Your naval protruding three feet out in front of you has never stopped Dan before. Ouch! Ouch! Was esoteric said correctly there?

I've always said esoteric. I don't think so, sir. No? You know what? Is it esoteric? What is it when it's that that the erotic uh... now what is that that was unnecessary what are you doing what are you doing

he's doing the public the saying he's seeing an hr built barricade and barely through it many years ago on pti i called it panache instead of panache Yeah, I think I told I do that I miss pronounced words a lot and I as an excuse once I was like well I wasn't raised by an American which is total bull. Oh come on You through Under the bus So Tarek you know what I would Not all of us went to Regis Pablo. Some of us grew up with the Hoy Palloy

and the public school minds of America. Pablo, you're a rich man, North or rich man, or whatever the f***ing thing. I give her so much benefit of the doubt that I simply assume that I've been pronouncing it wrong my entire life and that she pronounced it correctly. This is the privilege, the privilege of being Asian American Ivy League graduate, book ending, University of Miami, oh, this is the intimidation that we project deep into Dan Syke. We should just say a few words wrong and see if he catches it like little Easter eggs.

Sorry, the show, the show, let's do the this a little show in Tell Style, right? So that means that I have asked both of you to bring in a topic that you love that you wanna set up. I have done the same, and I'm gonna go first because it's my goddamn show. So I like to imagine this James Harden's story through the eyes of one particular person. I want to figure out what it was like for Adam Silver to get not the video that we saw of James Harden in China. The like very quick clip of him talking about how Darryl Moury's a liar, let me repeat that, Darryl Moury's a liar, I want to imagine Adam Silver getting the

fuller version that I had to go and find manually that has like two retweets and 30 likes that has a little more of the context clear. What do you think about the current deal climbing for the N-Trade Pop and trying to bring it back to the DIN? Well, the Girovon-Merry is the liar and I wouldn't have to be a part of this in the organization. He's a lawyer. Guillermo Moury was the liar and I would never get more of a organization than he's a part of a law. Legally, it's more hard. It's the let me say it again, that sings.

It's the whoops, it's the applause, it's the fact that a guy in China clearly asked this with all of the information that he was seeking already obviously like explosive. Like this is a story to be about China as well as it is about James Harden, but not just in the standard like let's talk about human rights in free Hong Kong in Darryl, Mori, obviously that is, to me, clear subtext for why this was so effective, like James Harden stitching a geopolitical fat suit and stepping into it to get traded away from Philly, because he can't work for that guy who said that thing

that this country can out of abide by. The reason I think it's a China story also, and that applause, that question, are so important, is because it occurred to me that James Hardin is about as good as you can be at sports while also being a stateless athlete. James Hardin does not have a fan base really in the United States of America anymore.

His fan base, the real fan base he has, is the fan base you heard hollering and whooping at the mention of Darrell Mori, enemy of the state being a liar. And I just think it's fascinating when you have a commissioner of the NBA who is managing all of these spinning plates. How do I deal with China, human rights, how do I deal with the fact that young people aren't really rooting for teams or watching games anymore. And into this controversy, Waxa Guy, who is as deeply unpopular in America, has no real base.

I just want to say two things. One, we're not putting out the video. Every time Pablo said, this is a China story. Dan's ears perked up like my dog when a piece of food drops 200 yards away. Kind of remarkable to witness. But the second thing I want to say, and I just want to make sure I just understand you, you seem to be imputing a lot of intention here to heart it. Because I don't think that's the mainstream read on this.

The mainstream read is just like, he happened to be in China, he's in Paris because he's been on himself multiple times, it hasn't worked out, so he spouted off. But you got James Harden playing 4D chess. I have him inadvertently playing 4D chess. I don't think he walked in, I don't think the guy who asked the question,

Dan was a plant. I don't think it was James Harden don't think the guy who asked the question, Dan was a plant. I don't think it was James Harden planting one of his fans to ask him the question he's been dying to answer, but I have to imagine that James Harden repeating himself in that context. And by the way, after riding the highs of being James Harden in China, like I don't think it's,

unconnected. I think it's actually entirely about what it's like to be a guy who's an entire fan base. Millions of millions of people, Dan, are in China. They've been treating you like you're the f***ing Beatles. You're having roses thrown at you wherever you get off of bus. And then you walk into this setting

and you get asked a question about a guy who does not believe that he is somebody who wants to invest his franchise in you anymore as he used to uniquely. I think that hit James Hardin's ego in a pretty special way. I am with Meena on this being incredulous and skeptical that you are making James Hardin who I view as largely a bearded tool, a geopolitical chess master who is making the people of China

go against Darryl Mori because he had that one sentence of tweet when he is addicted to strip clubs, not politics, and last in all of six months with the net, or however long it was, I mean, I just like to think of wherever it is that the cultural differences are. The idea of Yao Ming coming to this country and in front of a bunch of American campers saying the most inflammatory thing he's ever said, putting quotes and saying again to people who might not understand the language he was speaking, let me say it again in the same language so that you cannot understand it again.

Yeah, when you flip it, it's pretty funny. I suspect in the, you know, Bizarro version that you're positing the American campers would have no fucking idea what you all mean was talking about. And where I think Pablo does have a point is, you know, that was the most sympathetic audience. James Harden will find in any place, anywhere. But I don't think that matters.

I don't think it may be it matters in so far as he clearly feels backed into a corner, which is why I think he did it, frankly, not due to, you know, he's been reading the art of war or something, but because he's embarrassed, he's upset. I mean, this is, we always talk about how athletes, we applaud them for betting on themselves, right? Oh man, he played one year on his left-files contract, he didn't take the deal, he was awesome. James Hardin has been on himself without like four times

and come up short, starting with the net's contracts, then thinking the rockets would want him, then thinking the clippers would pay up for him. The dude has been, I don't wanna say humiliated over and over, but it's always come up for him. The dude has been, I don't want to say humiliated over and over, but it's always come up against him. And this to me, Dan, and maybe again, being in front of a sympathetic audience is relevant, Pablo, but it really felt like a guy who has run out of options and was simply less.

Pablo, rare is the time that a guy this graded something MVP caliber and really sort of crossroads intersectional player where as soon as the league changed in the evolution, Deantone made him somebody much more valuable than he was before that. Rarely has that person been this kind of laughing stock that as you say has no real fan base. No real allegiance to anything is just a beard floating through the universe, being excellent and us laughing somehow that he's excellent, but also that he doesn't seem to care all that much. I think this is deeply poetic. Like, that's the thing. Why is me in a laughing? Why is she already talking about that?

Do you guys see the movie Tar? Yes. I haven't seen that yet. No, I haven't seen it. Oh, okay. Oh, God. What I'm about to bring up, Pablo might know, is the ending of tar, but I can't explain it because you haven't seen it. I don't want to spoil it. You should really see it.

It's a really good movie. And I just want to say to those in the audience who watched tar, what we saw James Harden do really reminds me of the end of tar. And if you watched it, you will love that. Okay, sorry. And spoiler alert, your muffs. I believe that the ending of tar

might take place in the Philippines, which is what I took away from that scene. And I was like, this is humiliating to me for reasons that Dan can't fully understand right now. But the point is, you really like it. But the point he would, he wouldn't understand half vocabulary in it, but it'd be really good. It's really good.

The point of the poetry, though, and whether James Hardin can be shamed is really essential here because it speaks to him actually being far more chess master than both of you guys are giving him credit for. Daryl Mori and James Hardin are both people who exploit inefficiencies. To points where you need to change the f***ing rules on them. James Hardin, that's why they were such a cosmic pair, why they were a perfect duo,

why they understood each other seemingly longer than any exec and player, star player, ever had in the history of sports maybe. They were just that simpatico because James Harden exploiting the inefficiencies of those rules that Dan was alluding to before, ugly-ing the game up to get benefits. Darrell Moory did the same thing by shooting all of these threes and only shooting layups, right?

Change the rules on me until then, I'm not gonna stop looking for edges. And what James Harden is doing that was poetic because he was in China with the only fan base he has left. And what he was doing was finding the messiest possible way to get leverage. That is James Harden doing the James Harden thing to Daryl Mory for the first time. No, but a way that Daryl Mory hated it.

No, that's just him beginning it. The next step is he's going to get imbeded in snared in this somehow. Like the, I hate this part. But this is the part that Matt, this is the only part that matters. From a basketball standpoint. It's unfortunately true that when Joel Mbid

takes out Philadelphia as his geotag location or whatever it is on Twitter, which he did as we tape, and he took out processing, dot, dot, dot, from his bio. That actually unnerved me in a way that this James Harden thing only amused me. Can I play for you guys just as the world burns with the 76ers? I simply want to play for you guys because I don't know how Darryl Mori is going to handle the geopolitical chess master that is James Harden

But I just want to play for you guys that the guy at the center of this crisis Was on our show and he is dealing with this crisis But he might be uniquely equipped to deal with this crisis because he decided to sing Some lyrics from the play that he wrote about uh... i think giants in basketball or small people having sex let's play that sound the guy immersed in flames as imbeade and harden might both leave and just leave him in uh... in ashes do we want to have sex with giants or know what between four and six how to bring

the parts into compliance i'd just cannot grasp the mechanics uh... uh... it's i'm sorry it's all he would do i'm sorry i couldn't get more out of him mean i wait a monday morning quarterback this one i'm sorry that all i'm

here for it again she's dissatisfied that I'm here. I thought you would at least arrive. Do we wanna have sex with giants or no, what's between four and six? How to bring the parts into compliance? I just cannot grasp the mechanics. He's saying, upon further reflection, he did sing that last verse like he had just been insulted by James Hardin in China it sounded like he was losing

confidence at the end that he realized that a singing voice was terrible and that mechanics didn't rhyme with anything I just like that we're spending so much mental energy analyzing the strategic moves and these two brilliant acrimines when one is the mechanic. I got a more fat suit to get out of whatever and then one did that. They're very complicated the mechanics. We spent so much time analyzing their genius. I just cannot grasp the mechanics.

Sounds like a dying robot. Speaking of robots. Okay, my story isn't really, it's not a discrete story, although I sent a couple of articles, I've sent a couple of articles, we sent a couple of articles, including one by my friend Simon Rich about the threat that AI poses to screenwriting amidst, of course, the writer's strike and all of that. I had two conversations last week, one with a friend of mine

who is a lawyer who was very deep in legal applications with AI, and then the other one is a friend of mine who was kind of into AI before he was a coder who was telling me about it way before everyone else. And I laughed a lot and my- Wait, you talked to an AI hipster. You talked to somebody who knew AI before AI was- Who was building like bots and things like in 2012.

And anyways, the conversation we had was about whether AI affected my industry. Industry is a little bit too broad probably when it comes to this because the immediate effect is certainly more on sports writing, which none of us do anymore. But I have a newsletter. I'll dare you. See, I don't know how I should keep up with that. But yeah, I guess I just, I don't know if you guys are thinking about it as much as I am. I have a lot of fears.

I got to 50 years old, I feel like, without having a great many fears. And now they've all come rushing in like an avalanche. And this is one of them, right? When you read about how it is, because I think a lot of people hearing this are like artificial intelligence, I have a vague idea of what that is, but they don't think about like all of this very cheap labor that has been gathering data about us so that all of our computers in the future can be much smarter than us based on information gathered by humans so that everything can become more efficient as a value.

And I ask you, sincerely, do you even need the intelligence to replace us in what passes for content in this industry? Like, I think we are easily replaceable, more easily replaceable than Hollywood screenwriters that creating arguments on television, I could absolutely create a bot within five years that can destroy,

skip bailess on television more than Nick Wright can. I think that that's what, I wanna take a moment to kind of, for those who are maybe not as invested in this or reading as much about it, I think it's worth kind of laying out where are we at. So we're talking about generative AI, not traditional AI is, you know, looking for patterns and data, which by the way, I use all the time in my job.

We can talk about that. A lot of the stats and tracking stuff I use with Yennefell. We're talking about what Dan is describing, which is AI that is trained to look at content, sports writing, takes, tweets, videos, whatever, crunch it all, and then spit out new things. That is dinner to AI. Now, the state of play at the moment is crappy. Like, you guys have seen the same examples that I have like when news websites like

Gizmodo or Buzzfeed. I don't know if it wasn't Buzzfeed. They do AI quizzes now. Yeah. Everything they put out sucks. And we all point at it and we laugh and we're like the robots can't do what we do. Right. Tattin PT isn't getting us straight A consistently. It seems to be getting worse. So what Simon, who was very interested in AI and has been for a while, was arguing his article was, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, us. But Meena, what's even more disturbing is the implication that in fact the doses of AI we've been getting are deliberately making us confident. Like we are being played by the... So this is the thing about AI that's so scary, Dan, too, is that AI to me is not like crypto. Crypto was full of this sort of like get rich quickness that you would see

everywhere, and you see all of these club scammer bros in Miami often. Basically hustling to get rich quick. And you're not seeing that with AI. AI seems to be playing to smart people at Google, DeepMind, IBM, wherever. They seem to be playing a longer game where they're not even showing us the best shit they got because I think there is a confidence in what they got uh... mean i i think when you explain to people how layered this is i do believe it's possible that the people running all of the art artificial intelligence that is coming to consume us that they sent chat gpt at us just to

allow us to laugh at it uh... just just to smoke screen like look it'll never get here when it's already here, because when you read about the people who are immersed in the secrecy of this, you realize that this is a lot further advanced than we think it is. And if you're laughing at it, you're a fool. I will say, my friend who was the coder did say that, you know, what you're seeing now sucks. And, you know, who knows how to deliver, I mean, I don't think it's a little bit, but it sucks.

However, he was like, you should also note that when the Sam Altman's and Zuckerberg's or whatever of the world go before Congress and they're like, regulate us, this is more powerful than you could even imagine. They're boosting their own stock prices. And so they have a vested interest in making us afraid of this because it makes it seem more important.

And exciting, I wanna go back to Dan saying that AI could replace Dick right. Not Dick right. Not replace Dick right. I'm saying that a skip bailist looks for someone to argue opposite him. Mina, I am as the bitch. AI is gonna grow his hair out.

It's going to be unstoppable. Look sloppy. Look a little bit like a degenerate dress poorly. Just. Sorry. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the,

the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the believe that's possible. I don't know if it can put sauce on it. But, you know, we are human physical entities that people listen to our voices and our, oh my god, I always said, isn't there a kid? So, I'm a bit be-me-da, but I think what I'm worried about is AI being able to eventually

replicate the mistake you just made. I'm worried about AI working in human flaws to be relatable to a human. Like that's the part where I am unnerved. Like AI can come up with a better argument, but can it simulate human error specifically to fool humans? Let's set aside the visual side of it because I do think that that's very far in the future.

And you don't see, I guess the actors are worried about it right with the actor's stuff, but that's not, I don't think that's depressing concern. Would you listen to a sports podcast if you knew the voice, the scripts, the analysis, the little e-centricities. The iruglass stumbles. The Meena Kimes esoterica. If you knew, it was AI and not a human.

Oh, but are you kidding me? All I'd have to do is be able to program one to pick, well, at fantasy football, and I'd have a hit podcast. Like, I'd have a monster podcast if I could get gambling advice from a computer that was actually doing it better than the people analyzing it on television. I do think there is something about sports analysis that we should all be afraid of. If you care about the dance point,

if you care about like actually getting the games right, we should all have been listening to Vegas you care about the dance point, if you care about actually getting the games right, we should all have been listening to Vegas and not individual takes to begin with. And if we are able to now actually just outsource actual, real, rigorous, calculated answers from the wealth of human knowledge, then that's, yes, I don't know how to beat that. That's where the traditional AI machine learning

and the generative stuff intersects. So I told you guys that I use data generated by machine learning. So like all the really smart stats and football, all the great player tracking stuff that Amazon and the NFL are doing, a lot of that is based on machine learning. I use it. Now, I am the human interpreter of that data. I go and I look and I say, oh great, they tracked everything. They tell me in what average quarterback with throw,

they tell me how much better this quarterback is, whatever. Now, I'm going to look at all this data and come up with something funny to say out of it. The question is, can someone replace that step or maybe they're not ready to deliver it, but maybe they can say, hey, Mina, I have observed everything you said on NFL live for three years now. I have looked at all this machine learning generated data, and I noticed these 10 operations, perhaps you would like them to construct a

take for you, son TV. That feels plausible. Dan, Mina just outed herself as a traitor to the human race. I don't know if you got that, but she's been training. I have no idea. I have no idea. Well, this has been training the computer. But wait, now tell this works by the way. You get underlings to a robot overlords to do the work of make me sound more human. Pablo, Mina at this very, very crowded take trough

has become a person who is known for giving information that others don't have. We are just learning now in our maiden voyage episode here that she is stealing it from the machine. She is giving the machine's proper credit, but we are not totally sure as we talk to her, whether she is not AI generated generated and frankly honestly like the only the only thing the only thing that can be said she's not is how bad she's at

the mechanics of radio and television how they can found her but that might be proof that she is a i because that the machines haven't taught her how to properly put the on button on when her microphone is needed. I was about to say which, who do you think actually is the most likely to be I, but I feel like that is such an insulting conversation that we can't have.

It really is. That's gotta be offline. It really is. I do like the idea though, that we're already in pods with like the Matrix wires sticking out of the back of our skulls. And what we've been doing this entire time is living the dream, the illusion of human potential

by arguing about whether we're gonna be replaced by the robots that already replaced us. That's when the simulation blows up, right? Is when you realize you're in the simulation. What's the term for that? I think the term is being super stout. I do think then it does require a useful Benedict Arnold and that would in fact yes, as Mina pointed out the Mina and also future Mina's Upatreas. Future Mina's otherwise known on the birth certificate of her soon to be baby by the name of 0111010.

I have thought about that. Do I have to follow? Like, we have children. We have to AI proof their jobs. Yeah. You have to worry about that. Climate change is coming for all of them in the robots. Don't worry about anything. Don't worry. We're all ready all dead. All right, Dan. Bring us home with the truly sunny topic that you've got lined up. Yes. I read a story this week that made me laugh.

A handful of people in the mixed martial arts community in Miami have told me last year they were analyzing the games better than I was because they were saying, Hey, toa, no one has taught him how to fall. Someone needs to teach him how to fall. Someone needs to teach him how to fall. These were martial arts people. And then he, you know, over the off season does Jiu Jitsu and trains in Jiu Jitsu so that he can protect his brain in a violent sport from falls that might harm his brain. But this gives me an avenue, Meena, because I really did wanna talk to you about what to a is

because in my history covering sports in this market, I've never seen a player this polarizing around. Is he good or is he not good? The country is arguing about it. I believe it's at least in part because a whole lot of young people from this generation, social media generation, and also the generation raising Miami on LeBron, Wade, and Bosch, and fighting everybody.

I believe they finally got a national figure at quarterback. They finally got hope for what has been largely a regional franchise this entire century. They have a player they think it's a national entity that will take them to championships. And I'm not sure people believe in how good he is because his coach is very good, his skill position players are very good. His numbers are exceptional, inarguably exceptional. And yet there is doubt about him beyond the health for reasons that I find confusing.

And so everyone fights, even though his numbers, when he was healthy, mean, the last year, he was Josh Allen without the turnovers. He was Patrick Mahold passor-rating, whatever numbers you want to use to measure him, he was absolutely great. Health is the biggest concern with him, obviously, but I want to know what you think of him and if you're willing to rush into fights with Tuanon by daring to question whether or not his excellence is because of him or it's because of all of the pieces around him that make him more excellent than he actually is.

How did you use a jujitsu story to lure me into this toxic? That's right. Yet again. A bit of a jujitsu move you might argue. Oh, I was ready to make a bunch of jokes about the martial arts experts saying that, of course, martial arts helps you. I think you put your finger on something that's not just true of Tuha, but is true just largely of the quarterback position, which is that the discussion of who is truly great and who is not is always going to be incredibly fraught because it's the

most contextual position in professional sports, any sports, not the NFL. It is so hard to separate quarterback play from circumstances, coaching, schemes, all of that. Actually, this kind of goes back to what I was saying about the machine learning. One thing that I like is that a lot of the stats being sped out are trying to isolate this. Because to your point about to a stat stand, like Jimmy Grapalo statistically is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.

And I'm not comparing them again. Don't yell at me, Dolphin's fans, kind of am. But my point is. He feels like you are. It's really like, he really is, by the way. Like if you look up, you know, all-time career leaders, like hundreds of years, you will see Jimmy G. at the top of every list. I love that you have them playing football in the 1600s and there was some kind hundreds

of years ago just tearing up the field with slams. Yeah, when two boots Carlson was. I don't know. But anyways, my point is, you know, there are stats matter, but with the quarterback position, it's not that they matter less. It's that they're harder to evaluate. And I think with a guy like Tuah or just any quarterback, when the circumstances are good or when they're really bad, by the way, which was obviously the case with him earlier in a career,

when context is like so complicated, it's really hard to get at this sense of like what's real, I think, or at least it's hard to arrive at a consensus of what is true. There are certain quarterbacks, we watch them, and we're like, yeah, Patrick Mahomes, that's the best Aaron route, whatever. I look at that, I know it's great. It's born out in the stats. I don't care who's playing with him. I see it with my eyes. And I think with two-eyed in and some of the other quarterbacks, like him, it's complicated.

It's really, really hard for everybody to agree. And that's why it's so toxic. Because if it was easy, if everybody agreed he was good or bad or mediocre, I don't think it would inspire this kind of reaction. And it is unique to the position because the position is so freaking important. It's the position that's hard, the hardest to evaluate, the most contextual and the most important.

And like, that is such a toxic brew from a take perspective. Yeah, it does feel like the accidental throughline of the three topics we selected are human beings, flawed human beings, asserting that they matter, that they can control their own destiny. And in each of these cases, we're finding that there are complications that lead us to have great doubt about whether actually any of us are that good

and what we think we're good at. And in two of his case, it makes me laugh also. The other 76ers sort of parallel here is that the only other time I heard about an athlete, Dan, being taught how to fall, is Joelle and bead. Joelle and bead falls all of the time and Mina has made fun of me for bringing up that in fact, these are not flops.

These are biomechanically optimized moves to protect a very large and fragile body. Offensive flops. Thanks, folks. He has been taught to protect himself by, yes, doing the thing that may look to the naked eye, like he is in fact, just trying to draw a foul. And this just speaks to the nature

of what you're trying to do the fool's errand of self-protection, right? Like the whole thing about too learning to protect himself, I'm not talking to Alex Smith about this on ESPN Daily after the concussions. Like Alex Smith went through a career in which he was the problem.

It wasn't NFL rules, it wasn't the idea that oh, someone is oppressing this quarterback into injury. He would lie. He would figure out how to game the concussion protocol so he could play. Like the idea of being job insecure because of all the reasons, all the reasons mean a said. People have doubts about you. Are you really that good?

Those are all reasons to go and push the envelope even further to prove that you're tougher and you're stronger and you're better and the only enemy in that really is the fact that two oh wants to do it to himself that's where i think it's a fool's errand mean i he is such an apologies for all things the process that not only can he turn james harden into a geopolitical chess master but now he has turned uh what can be argued is jo Joel and Beads clumsiness into grace that is self-protection of the franchise and of his body.

Have you seen, though, even what we're talking about at the quarterback position, it's the glowing nuclear epicenter for that city's hope in the most popular sport? I don't believe I've ever seen anyone like Tuha. What happens around him, where it's not only toxic and you say negative syllable X or not even negative syllable, just mildly critical thing that makes him not the greatest quarterback in the universe and what ends up happening to you is a rabid, passionate defense that I don't think that you have that gulf of difference on any other quarterbacks measurement in the entire league. I can't believe that this one guy has more extremes around him in terms of disagreement

between excellence and ah, he's a product of the system. You tell me, is there anyone else like that in the league? I've I've encountered a very similar dynamic in the past always with quarterbacks always with teams that are good or playing well or contenders because nobody is a **** the team's bad right and Always where there's some disagreement over how much the quarterback is responsible for the team's success. I mean, I am not, I want to go in back. Are we going back? Are we going back, Prescott here?

Yeah, I want to be clear. I am not comparing these two quarterbacks, but honestly, when I used to criticize Mr. Trubisky in Chicago, I would get similarly very angry and I think too as much better than Mr. Trubisky. I want to be clear. Try to feel pretty. She's scared. The legal language. I don't want to. I don't want to.

All the disclaimers. We should get her to talk really fast. We should get her to do like those car commercial disclaimers. And you mean we should? We should. We should. We should be held against her. And any sort of way, she's not comparison to any other quarterback.

She's simply saying an opinion on to her and you're going to find it unpopular. We can put like the guitar acoustic music they put underneath like the warnings on like Viola. Yes, like a happy ukulele. I wanna be clear, I am not comparing these two quarterbacks, and I think Toa is much better than Mr. Biscay. I wanna be clear. I think the meaning of that is about Toa is not to be held against her. And any sort of way she's not comparison

to any other quarterbacks you're simply saying an opinion on Toa and you're gonna find it unpopular. Listen, the point I'm just not comparing them to any other quarterback she's simply saying, and if anyone's doing it, you're gonna find it a popular. Listen, the point I'm making is, the fans really wanted to believe, because I think, and I saw that I saw this with Jimmy, although I think Niner's fans were more much more split on him, but I don't think, and this kind of actually really connects back to the AI discussion Pablo.

I don't think fans like the idea of a team not being quarterbacked, or even though the San Francisco for eight Niners, it does not fucking matter. Right, we have seen that. And I think they're fans right now, or we get to go whatever, although actually they're not,

no, they're starting to be like, well, you don't believe in property. And I'm like, oh my God, we're gonna do this again. How many times are we gonna do this? Like, I feel like it's a little different between Trebuski because you have a very small sample size of two of being amazing.

Like, you have, it's not just this false hope Trebuski didn't have games like that, where everyone laughed at Trebuski, laughed at, you know, national, even if he may have been one of the best quarterbacks. I thought he was good, Dan. I lived through a full season of people arguing that he was quite. I remember it very vividly. I'm not, I do think he was played at a higher level. I think Tuwa has very, like, unique traits in terms of his accuracy and anticipation that are responsible for

his success and are not are responsible for his success and are not, he's not just a cog in a machine in the way that like a shanny hand quarterback, whatever. But my point is that I wanna make is like, you know, I just think you're asking about why is it so toxic and why are fans so impassioned around this one quarterback? And I really think fans want quarterbacks.

They want to, obviously they want their quarterback to be good, and they believe, but they also want him to be the driver. Like, they don't need to want to. You look at this team and say, we've got the guy, and he is why we are winning. And if you're like, oh, there's a lot of reasons why you're winning. You know, they don't like it. It does remind me of AI.

It also reminds me of how, you've ever seen those like, those videos of scientists feeding a baby condor, what they do is they wear a very sad and obviously fake puppet on their hand of a condor, kind of bald like fake feathers, and they feed food into the baby's mouths because the babies need a familiar face to give them this,

even if it's a shitty facsimile. And that's what it feels like with AI. That's what it feels like with a quarterback who isn't responsible, but the coach knows that actually it's better if this guy is the face of our team, because I can't be the face of the team, it needs to be the quarterback. We just need to be fed something in a form

that we're familiar with. It's like how John Harbaugh, so he's got nerds in his ear, telling him to go for and fork down. But for the camera, he's like, hey, Lamar, you want to go for it? All right, dude, yeah. And it's like the fans will do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or quarterback wants to go for it. Aggressive. There's a nerd in his ear telling him to go for it. No, but that that the same mechanism, same mechanism. Yes. Meena, I just wanted to say in completion of the thought on Trubisky, what I was trying to get to is the Chicago Bears fans, given that Jay Cutler is the best quarterback they've ever had, have no idea what a good quarterback looks like. So they would choose to believe in Trubisky, but I was derailed by the bird example of Pablo because I'm not making up what I'm about to say here. Ron McGill, our resident zoo expert, went many, many steps beyond that.

There was a giant bird. I don't think it was a cast-wary, but it was somewhere near the cast-wary family, a cast-wary can disemball you in his danger, so it wouldn't be a cast-wary. But Ron McGill had to dress like a bird and do a mating dance in front of him and then bend over in front of the bird as the bird came and released into a receptacle that he had in his in in a you know where it had to be where it had to be yes that's something our animal expert did.

And I just thought I'd share that story with you because it's one of the most magical stories I know. He was like a blow up doll. Yes, he was dressed in a bird costume. He's got a ridiculous mustache, but he brought that bird to climax. Yes, by doing a dance in front of it and then bending over in front of it.

That's correct. Can furries be birds? Because fur's have feathers, not fur. I just cannot grasp the mechanic. So do how we reached our climax. I don't believe Ron McGill at all, but that was the reason he did that. I think we're done. I think we too, like that bird, are done. I think we too, like that bird, are done. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Um, do we want to... there's one I think that final thing is we can try to do, is we all go around and say one thing that we learned today.

My chief takeaway from this entire Delight Flower we spent together is that uh, Mina thinks that Jimmy Garoppolo is better than two of us. You know what, Dan, it's funny you mentioned that because my chief takeaway is that Mitch Trebuski is a lot like two of us. That's what I found out today on public Torrey Fondz out. Mina, what did you find out? What did you learn? What did you learn? I'm still thinking about Ron McGill as a bird furry, but I do want to say it's been, you know,

I haven't had a chance to work with Pablo now for a little bit, and your ability to turn everything into a sister's topic is truly incredible. Like, I eat it. It's really unparalleled in our industry. And honestly, I'm not even sure an AI could replicate it. Thank you. I've always said that my process is uniquely trustworthy. I thought Meena was simply going to say, I learned how to say, SOTeric correctly.

I'm not trying to remind me. Admittedly, by the way, my real takeaway is I'm still thinking I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I I can't. I can't. It's horrifying. you