The Kevin Sheehan Show - Gibbs & Harris Teaming Up

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Kevin and Thom opened with some Bradley Beal trade leftovers which included a conversation about the job Ted Leonsis has done running the Wizards. Josh Harris's company Harris-Blitzer Sports & Entertainment is investing in Joe Gibbs Racing. Gibbs will take an equity stake in Harris' company as well. What does that mean for Gibbs and the Commanders? The boys discussed that and PFF's ranking of NFL defensive line units. Washington was ranked near the top. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show today presented by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.com or MyBooky.orgie.org. Use my promo code, Kevin, D.C.

For a chance to secure a first deposit bonus of up to $1,000. You just use my promo code Kevin, D.C. to claim your bonus, whether you're a diehard or a casual fan. Simply put, there's never been a better time to start exploring the world of online sports betting with MyBooky. Bet anything, anytime, anywhere with MyBooky again. MyBooky.com, mybooky.ag use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. I just read Tommy's outstanding column on the Bradley Beal trade, so we will get back to that. Have some follow-up thoughts to my thoughts yesterday. we'll update everybody on the poll that I put out yesterday and ask Tommy the same question, but I'm just going to mention this to start the show, Tom.

My oldest son is actually home for a couple of days. You know, he lives in L.A. He was in New York, and he came home for a couple of days. And last night he's like, we got to watch this show that my buddy's been telling me about. It's getting rave reviews. and I'm like, I can't do another show. I want to do the White House Plumbers thing. Tommy's got me into that.

We ended up watching the first three episodes of this show called Silo. Have you heard about it? No, but I have found a new show as well. It's on Apple TV. It is, you know, it's a sci-fi thriller. And, I mean, the fact that I got through... Not crazy about sci-fi. I know you're not.

yet you loved stranger things. I mean, this is what makes you so complex is your simplicity. And you're just occasional forgetting that you actually do like things that you say you don't like and you don't like things that you say you like. But whatever. The fact that I got through three episodes and we started them at about 9 o'clock last night tells you that I am gripped by this thing so far. Now, this is a week-to-week thing on Apple TV, just like Ted Lassow.

You're not able to binge it, but there are eight episodes so far, and I think episodes nine and ten come out later this week and next week. And I did read after watching the three episodes last night that they have already bought in for a season two. It's excellent. It's wild. Rashida Jones is in it. You remember Rashida Jones.

I remember her from Parks and Rec, and from the office. You know, she is Quincy Jones's daughter. I don't know if you knew that. But she's in it. And not a lot of other, Tim Robbins is in it. Common is in it.

And he's he's got a part in there. And the guy that plays this guy, Holston Becker, his name's David Oloio, or Olo-Wo. I actually don't think I know him from anything else. But he is excellent. But it's really good. The idea is that 140 years ago, something terrible happened to the world. And there was this underground silo built.

and there's a whole, you know, a whole population of people living on, you know, like hundreds of floors of a silo. It's wild. But it's really good so far. So I'll keep you posted on this one. But the first three episodes, thumbs up. Very good. What is your new show?

Well, it's an old show. It was recommended to me by Tony Rubo, the bartender at Shelley's backroom, who's a wealth of information. Right. And you gave me a list of shows I should check out. And this one is called Loudermilk. I think I've heard of this. You know, it was on the AT&T audience network. I never heard of that network in 2017.

and it was on for three years, and then the network went out of business. So Amazon Prime just kind of picked it up, and they didn't make new episodes, but they air the three seasons that were made. I can guarantee you 1,000 percent that you will love this series. Really? It's about a guy who was a former Alamos. who now is a drug and alcohol counselor, and he runs the support group. It's created by Peter Farley, one of the Farley brothers.

They made there something about Mary. Yeah, right. Yeah, they're very funny. This is a hilarious show, and so irreverent, it's just unbelievable. There's no rules for this show. What's it on? It's great. It's on Amazon Prime now.

Oh, it's on Amazon Prime now. Got it. Yes. They picked it up. It's called Louder Milk. Louder Milk. All one word. I think I've heard of it.

I think somebody else recommended this to me a while back. Oh, it's really funny. I just pulled up the... Highly recommend it. Yeah. If you can't be... If you can't easily be offended, this is the show for you. It's pretty hard to offend me.

Yes. All right. So two recommendations to start the show off. How about recommending... I think I'll work is done. How about recommending Michael Winger as a guy that somehow convinced, you know, Ace Rothstein that he should trade Bradley Beal within a year of signing him to a $251 million deal? That's crazy. But they did the right thing.

We've talked a lot about this. I do want to get your thoughts, and I just read your column. So I spent, you know, 30, 40 minutes on this yesterday, on yesterday's show. Tell me and tell everybody what you thought. Well, again, it's the argument is not that they shouldn't have done it. They had to do it. I mean, in order to move forward, they had to take this painful step. But it was so much more painful than it should have been.

And to me, the biggest idiot in this move is Ted Leone's, the owner. I mean, I wrote this in the column. He's been the owner of this franchise full-time now for 13 seasons. Right. And this is what he's learned over those 13 years to put himself in a position like this. It was the position that they put themselves into. That's the biggest crime here. of trading a guy who they just signed to a $251 million contract extension

who they gave the keys to the franchise with with a no-trade clause. That's just absurd. That's just absurd. That's a first-year owner. Not a guy who's owned a team for 13 years. And if you take the years he was part owner of the Wizards, he's owned them, you know, a piece of them since 1999. Hasn't he learned anything over that time, or is he too smart to learn anything? Oh, he's smart.

Has he got it all figured out? Just ask him. Yes. Well, I mean, look, like you wrote in your column, this was a guy that, you know, after taking over the Wizards, put out a book called The Business of Happiness, which was, you know, an absolute instruction manual on how you can be happy. You know, I looked in that whole book, I didn't find anything about trading your superstar player for peanuts. I didn't find anything about that.

That might be the seventh secret. He promised, he said there were six secrets to success. I'm thinking this is the seventh secret that he didn't reveal. Yeah. This is, I... Everyone knows it had to be done, but it's still, it's one more insult to. fan base that doesn't deserve any more insulting. It's just one more, you know, just one more, just pile it on.

You know, it's like that old video game, the Oregon Trail, where, you know, at every stop, the family got one more burden on them. That's what Wizard fans are. They're the family in the Oregon Trail. Is that the family of the Oregon Trail like when they were, like the Donner Pass families? No, no, they had a big burden on them. They became dinner. That was a big burden on them.

Remember a Will Smith movie, a true story about a guy who became a successful executive, but at one point he was living in the subway with his son, and he overcame so much. I do remember that movie. What was that called? Was that called Oregon Trail or something? No, no. I mean, it was so absurd, even if it was true. This guy had one thing after another, just like he was a wizard fan.

He had one thing after another, you know, except the wizard's fans, they haven't got a chance to become the company executive yet. They're still sleeping in the subway with their kids. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what else? I mean, I want to read a tweet that I got, and that'll continue this conversation a little bit. But what else? Because, again, I spent the whole show yesterday talking about this, most of the show.

Well, I mean, they didn't seem to have many partners. People speculated Miami was a partner, but later I read from other accounts that they weren't a serious partner. I think they probably were because Pat Riley, I just saw a quote from Pat Riley saying, how hard it is for them to find help for Jimmy Butler, and that he may have to continue to carry the load for the heat. So I think if that's a true quote, they were probably interested in Bradley Beale, I would think. So maybe those reports were true.

But there were only one or two options, and the one that was the legitimate option knew that the Wizards, you know, they were over a barrel. I mean, they had no leverage. And plus, you had to deal with the player, deciding where he wanted to play. Yeah, I think that, I mean, I think there's so much that went into this. Obviously, like, if you rank them in order in terms of the worst possible time to trade them,

A is the contract. To be honest with you, the $200 million left on the contract. contract for a player who's missed 74 games the last two years is actually provided them with less leverage than the no trade clause, which was second on the list. Like I would combine $200 million for a player that's been injured the last two years as the thing that really kind of held them over the barrel. But the no trade clause, I mean, was just insult, you know, and was just icing on the cake. I mean, it certainly was stupid to do and allowed Bartolstein and Beal to kind of dictate where they wanted to go.

So I got this tweet from Brett. Kevin, Ted Leonis's decision to move on from Bradley Beal at great cost and embarrassment to his organization and himself is a major shift in philosophy. Similar to Snyder, Ted's never been wrong in his entire life. This is an admission that he really messed this up. It's a major step in the right direction for a franchise that has been just as poorly run as the football team in this city has been. I'll get into that in a moment comparing the wizards and the skins. So, you know, I talked a little bit about this yesterday. He's not wrong.

Look, Michael Winger and Will Dawkins, but really Michael Winger, wouldn't be here unless Ted, you. You know, unless Ted told him it was okay, the first thing that he did when he got here was to trade Bradley Beale. I'm not so sure that Tommy Shepard didn't tell him that either. It would not surprise me if Tommy Shepard said, it's time to cut bait on this thing. It was a bad mistake. But Tommy Shepard wasn't going to get a chance to correct this either. Look, this is Ted. This is his franchise.

You know, I went back and found the quotes from a year ago. less than a year ago. Okay, remember, this deal was done less than one year ago. They signed Beal to a $2.501 million deal with a no trade clause. And this is what Ted said. He doesn't want to be traded and we don't want to trade him. He said he didn't view the no trade clause in Beal's contract as a point of leverage. Well, he should have. But a point of partnership. It's a way to become a destination for players around the league and to show that the organization invests in players and rewards loyalty.

See, this has been the problem with Ted, is that this is a guy who thinks that their best practices, in business there's this term called best practices. It's like, you know, the right way to do. do things to get, you know, optimal, you know, results. And, you know, this is what Jason Wright's been, you know, kind of bragging about for the last few months, that they now have, you know, the best industry practices when it comes to HR.

And Ted's been a best practices guy and believes that, you know, this culture of caring will lead to a culture of winning, you know, being super loyal and being player-flying. friendly and rewarding for things beyond basketball is like the right way to do it because, let's face it. I mean, he took care of and cared for Alex Ovechkin and rewarded him and it produced a Stanley Cup. And God, I can only imagine what is the esports players, how they're rewarded and cared for. But in the NBA, it's not a culture of caring.

It's the culture of talent, and talent is what, you know, breeds winning. I'm not saying that the culture of caring can't, you know, also be a part of a culture of winning, but, you know, talent, talent, talent, you know, and by the way, elite talent, not really good talent. Brad was really good. He wasn't elite, and yet they cared for him so much, and they made him a part of this culture of caring, and they, you know, they got sucker punched by it because that's not how it works in the NBA. You can't give a very good player an elite contract and make him your elite player. I don't even, by the way, know what point of partnership means. I mean,

yeah. It's this language that he does, you know? Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's said's language to show that he's smarter than everybody else. I mean, it's really, I mean, to the point, he's become a caricature of himself at this point. And, you know, look, I understand the best practices concept is an important concept when you're competing for the best talent, but not if you're a wowsy company that has really good benefits. okay that's basically that's basically what it is you're saying oh we stink but boy you'll be comfortable here you get nine you get 17 floating holidays and we've got great health insurance yeah you know we might be the worst company in the in the insurance business uh but boy you know

you'll you'll like the four weeks we give you for christmas and stuff like that the bottom line is I mean players are one I mean the players are one I mean the players you want are going to go to the place where they feel they can compete the best. Yeah. I just, I have to think that I want to hear, like last week, we heard the beginnings of how he's going to extricate himself from the primary responsible person in this debacle. I mean, this is one of the worst mismanagement of a contract situation in our city's history. And I'll get to the poll that I did yesterday with you in a moment.

I mean, you know, a lot of us at the time said, this is ridiculous. You can't give them this money. And yet at the same time, it's like the NBA's weird this way. It's like the wizards are one of those teams that the only players that are willing to stay are the players that are already here. You know, you can't get them to come here. So, you know, on one hand over the years, while, you know, a total rebuild was the right move with Bradley Beale, a significant asset two years ago where they would have gotten two bucks back for the buck that they traded. Instead, they got 10 cents for the buck they traded the other day. And it was just a terrible mishandling of it.

But it is an odd situation that the NBA is. And with teams like the Wizards where it's like we actually have a really good. good player. He's been an all-star, and he's a really good guy. And if we let him go, nobody close to him is coming here because they just don't. But that's where Ted made his big mistake. And that is, you had to embrace the idea of a rebuild with a youth movement through the draft. And you had to do it when you could get the most back for Beal in draft choices and hopefully land on after two to three years of drafting high and drafting a lot, you know, a superstar player or two. But they made the mistake of thinking that Beal was close enough to being a superstar.

But what's going to be interesting, Tommy, is we heard the beginning last week, right? You know, he was focused on telling everybody how great monumental was as a media behemoth and how people all around the sports world view monumental as a media empire and as the standard bearer for teams that own their own media. He talked about all of the championships that his teams have won.

And you wrote a little bit about this and it wasn't necessarily specific to this, but that stuff is just really a reflection of being tone deaf. Nobody cares about that. that. And it's not to say that what you've done with this isn't great. I don't know if it's a behemoth or not, but whatever. And I'm not telling you that, you know, winning a championship with the mystics and with the caps, or I'll leave the caps in the big category. I mean,

caps and the wizards, that's what people want to hear about. They want those two teams to win. Like, you've got to recognize what carries the freight here, you know, what people actually care about. Look, I'll never forget. Remember this? When we did the two hours with him at Morton's for lunch with a legend, and that was roughly 10 years ago now. And he gave us a lesson in what the future was going to be in this town. He really did. He lectured us on all of the hockey that we were missing out on on sports talk radio and how we should. should be doing much more hockey. And I looked at him and I said,

you can, I won't tell you how to run your business, although we do. Because I remember joking about that and laughing. I said, although we do. But trust me, you don't know anything about my business. Because if I talked about your hockey team as much as you want me to talk about your hockey team during football season, I wouldn't be doing this. I wouldn't be here with you today. But anyway, whatever.

I mean, I think, you know, he did say, you know, he gave himself a failing grade. Then he kind of tried to shift. That was, by the way, on the podcast that he did with Woge. He tried to shift kind of the blame to Tommy Shepard. Yeah, then he threw Tommy Shepard on that. And then the press conference last week was kind of a slight of hand move. Like, look over here at all the great things, e-sports, You know, and don't look over here right now.

We've got good people now. I've gone out and hired the best. You know, the edgiest, the youngest. I mean, this is always part of the whole spiel, you know, with a lot of business jargon, just like, you know, our guy, you know, with the commanders does. And the bottom line is the results have sucked. You know, the results of this franchise since he owned it and long before he got here and started to own it.

are abysmal. And they messed up royally the Bradley Beal situation. So I am interested to see when, you know, the trade is finalized and we get Winger up there. If we're going to get Ted on anybody's podcast talking about how, you know, they got the brightest of the brightest in there and they made the best move possible. I don't know if it was the best deal possible. That's the one thing that I hope that, you know, that there wasn't an opportunity with Miami for first round picks instead of a bunch of second round picks. Because when you do this, you're supposed to get a lot of first round picks. Not six second rounders. How ironic is it that they got all these second round picks? And remember how Ernie Grunfeld did with second round picks? I know. He flushed them down the toilet.

Oh, he sold them. The minute he got his hands on them. He sold them for cash. Yes. Yeah. All the time. Now, Brett's tweet about, you know, look, the results are comparable to the football team. I mean, you know, the Wizards have been just as bad as the Redskins have been.

I mean, from an NBA standpoint, because you get many more teams into the postseason every year. So the fact that they did have that run of going to the playoffs for four out of five years, you know, three of them with Randy Whitman and one or two of them with Randy Whitman, two with Scott Brooks, whatever it was, you know, and that they actually, and see, that was something David Aldridge said to me this morning is something we've talked about in the past. You, you, he said, in 2016, you can't hope for Kevin Durant. You have to know that you're going to get Kevin Durant. And if you are, if you don't know that you're going to get him, then you don't make plans to get him. And they flushed, you know, players and a big-time player and contributor, Trevor or Riza,

in the hopes of clearing up all that cap space. And then they had to go out and sign Paul Pierce. And it was like the bottom line is they've been small time. The wizards under Abe were small time. And they've been small time under Ted. And, you know, it's just what they've been. Maybe they will, with this new group, maybe this is a turning of the page, because they are going to try something that they haven't tried. And for their organization, this is the way to go.

As I mentioned yesterday, Tommy, though, there are no guarantees. Like, this is not guaranteed to produce a big outcome, but it is the right decision in the moment. This is the way they have to go. They're not going to get LeBron or Kevin Durant to bring a big three to D.C. And the reason these people haven't wanted to come to D.C. is because it's been a small-time franchise. Yes. Yes, it has.

And, you know, for Ted, for all his talk of, you know, doing things the right way and creating this atmosphere, he's been relatively cheap. He really has. Not with Bradley Beale. Not with Bradley Beale. I mean, let's face it. part of the reason why most people think he didn't get rid of Ernie Grunfeld. I know. He didn't want to pay a GM, a high-priced GM to come in here for years.

And I heard, look, I was listening to your show today, Loeb. I heard David when he was on, and David talked about the practice facility that they built. Right. And how, you know, how it's not quite on the par with, you know, what's a guy in Phoenix is building. Right. you know, separately just for the sons. I just want to point out, Ted did not, Ted talks about that practice facility. His teams work at that practice facility.

He's a partner in that practice facility, but he only put up about 7% of the money for that. That's a city that built the rest of it. Right. But still, it's their practice facility. That's a city structure. It's not an owner's structure. The owner owns a small piece of it. Right.

And he gets to put his teams there based on the lease. Well, doesn't that further David's argument? Is that he didn't? Yes, he does. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It does.

I mean, if you're dealing with the city, you know, they're not going to say, oh, don't spare any expense. Right. When it comes to building a, they're going to, they're going to check off. We don't need this. We don't need this. We don't need this. They could share this locker. They could share this bathroom.

Of course they're going to do that. Yeah, look, this is the right thing to do. Okay. It's going to take some time. I mean, and there's no guarantee. You know, David brought up the Oklahoma City. You know, they're headed in the right direction, but, you know, they were 40 and 42 this year. And, you know, and Chet Holmgren hasn't played a game.

Like, there's still, you know, if Giddy and Holmgren and these guys come together and they have, you know, the makings of a championship contender, they're still three years away from that, you know? You know, because look, this is a league where young teams don't win anything. You know, it's a league of older, physically grown men. Those are the teams. I heard you talk about that on the radio show. That's a really good point.

Yeah, so it takes time. So even if you, like, you're starting this process now in 2023. Let's say it takes three drafts to get the nucleus of a championship contender. Well, those players are going to be one and two and three-year vets. Rookie, a second-year vet, three-year. You don't start winning and contending until your fourth year, fifth year, sixth year, seventh year. So that's why I said to David this morning, you're really from a championship contending team, if it were to ever materialize because there's no guarantee it will.

I mean, we're talking about five, six, seven years down the road. I may not. Tommy, I may not even like basketball anymore. But it's just, but it's the right thing. One last thing about Ted. Yeah. One last thing about Ted that really galled me, which I put in my column. He went on 106-7 last week and couldn't help himself at one point.

You know? He had to boast about. his track record as an owner. Quote, just look at my track record as an owner. And what we did with the caps, fine. And with the Wizards,

when I first came here, we made the playoffs five of the last 10 years. Oh, my God. He had the nerve to boast about his track record as a wizard's owner. Oh, my God. That's, well,

I mean, I read that five out of the last 10 years. They've won one playoff game in the last five years. Okay, they've had, they had that one stretch with some solid players

and I'm talking, and I'm not talking about the Gillarinas, that was pre-Ted, because they went to the playoffs several years in a row with that group. But you know that I really did like, Now, I recognize they weren't championship contending teams, so he didn't create anything.

But they could have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals with those teams. You know, two different chances. John Wall doesn't get hurt in 2015. I think they would have made it. And then in 2017, they were in a game seven against the Celtics to make it to the Eastern Conference finals. But they weren't going to actually be in the finals. The LeBron teams were going to be in the finals. They weren't an actual chance.

championship contender, but they were more than just in the middle there for a couple of years. You know, they were on the other side of the middle, the positive side of the middle, because they were, you know, a legitimate top four, top five team in the east. Although, to be honest with you, I don't think they ever finished with anything other. I think the highest seed was a four seed. And that was, am I right about that? I think that's the highest seed they were. It was a four seed.

Yeah, I think so. Look, they haven't won 50 games since 1979. Yeah, they haven't been to the Eastern Conference finals since 1979. It's the longest drought in the sport by 11 years over Charlotte. That's an embarrassment to talk about your success as the Wizards owner. That's disingenuous, too, because with Snyder, you question whether or not, like, he was all there at times. Ted's not a dummy. You know, he knows.

This is slight of hand. This is, you know, trying to get ahead of it publicly. He's got to on some level. And if he isn't, there should be some level of embarrassment over the way the Bradley Beal deal was handled. He's taken a beating today for the most part. You can't say. And I would be surprised if you see him, you know,

when they have a press conference at some point, like after the draft or something like that, I don't think you'll see Ted front and center in the next couple of years. I don't need him to take the walk of shame. I don't. I want to see Winger and hear from Winger and Dawkins anyway. I think that'll be it. And that's fine. But when less than a year ago, you were talking about points of light on point of partnership.

and, you know, the organization that invests in players and rewards loyalty becomes a destination for players. And then less than a year later, you're trading a guy that you gave $251 million to. And, you know, again, people, it's not Beal's fault. It's not Beals fault at all. And I, you know, it's weird because I, and I said this yesterday, I, I, feel like I've really, you know, picked at him over the years. Because I've had people tell me, man, you're harsh on Beal. And I guess it's because, like, there were parts of his game that drove me nuts.

He was a very inconsistent defender. He was incredibly casual, which is why he always, you know, he had a lot of unforced errors and turnovers that I always felt could have been coached out of him, maybe. I don't know. You know, there was that year where he spent all year on one end of the floor complaining about the calls he didn't get. But he really was a good player, who, by the way, kept him proving. And, I mean, he led the league in scoring, you know, one year. So he was a really high-level NBA score. And I'm going to root for him in Phoenix. Like, you know, I do recognize

that people who have gotten to know Brad say he's really a nice young man who tries to do the right thing and has done a lot of the right things. But again, no offense to that. As a fan of the team lifelong, I care that they win. I want them to actually, I told you this a couple of weeks ago, as I was, you know, very much overreaching, overcompensating, I think was the word you used for my NBA playoff excitement. And I was like, I just wish my team was in it. Like those few years, like that game seven against Boston, that Boston series, I actually was so into that. Like, I'm like, come, this would be so cool to see them in the Eastern Conference finals or winning game seven in Boston. You know, I was at that game six when, when Wall hit that shot.

I mean, it was exciting. But, you know, they've been mismanaged. As far as, by the way, Brett comparing him to Snyder look, you know, Let's be fair here to Ted, okay? Dan's organization was an absolute shit show of bullying, of toxic treatment of people, of harassment, of some of the dumbest people that you'd ever want to see in charge of various areas. And at the same time, so goddamn arrogant that it made you want to just swing at them. in conversations that you would have with them at times.

That's not Ted. I mean, Ted's been certainly annoying with the sitting on the team's bench and, you know, the book about happiness and the real naivete, I'll chalk it up to naivete about sports gambling. You know, the idea early on that, you know, people who used analytics could somehow turn this into a profession but this isn't he's there aren't there aren't 29 other owners in the NBA

praying every night that Ted sells his team okay you had 31 NFL owners that wanted this A-hole out for years years that's never really been the TED situation here not to mention he does have a stand Stanley Cup title. He does. Yes. Snyder could have never found

his way to a title in anything he did. No. We're talking about we're talking about arrogance and incompetence versus evil. Okay. Yeah, but Snyder's arrogance and incompetence is at a level much higher than Ted's.

No, Snyder's the evil part. Oh, yeah. Ted is the arrogance and incompetence. Yeah, but the arrogance and incompetence. Yeah, but the arrogance and incompetence with Dan is 5x what it is with Ted in his organizations. Yes. But it's evil. Yeah. All right. So, oh, one other thing. Okay. Wait, one last thing. Yeah. Go ahead. One last thing. Yeah. As eventually and reality probably won't set in until the first home game next year maybe of this franchise.

but that arena is literally going to be a mausoleum. It's going to be bad. They're going to have to do what's your face used to do. They're going to have to market the other teams in a big way. I mean, the Wizards were at the bottom of the league this year in percentage of capacity in their home arena. They were filled 75% of the time, supposedly, and they averaged like 15,000.

500 a game. Yeah. So it's going to be for a couple years like that. It's going to be a rough couple years. Well, this is what he's wanted to avoid, Tommy, for so long. He's wanted to be just good enough

so that he could... Look, I'll never forget, as part of that sit-down with him, I asked him about the economics of the NBA, because I remember I had been reading that a lot of teams, not only were they not profitable. They weren't even close to profitability. And I remember something, and this was

before that collective bargaining agreement of whatever year 2013 or whatever year, the new one came into being. And he said, look, we've got to make the playoffs and have a couple of home games just to break even. And, you know, look, the TV deals are bigger and better. And I think most NBA teams now make money. You know, I think they all make money now. The leagues in a different spot than it was back then. But he didn't want to see what he's going to see. He didn't want to see that happen. He thought that they could continue to kind of jury rig this thing together to have a chance to win 44 games and have a playoff series or two, which would mean as many as six home playoff games. And he just never remember. He said they'll pretty much in response to what Josh

Harris did in Philadelphia. We'll never, ever tank. Yes. You know? Never tank. Never tank. I'm looking at, so there's, they averaged in 2023 this year. They averaged 17,328 a game. They were 21st in the league in overall attendance, but you're correct, dead last in percentage of capacity. Behind, by the way, the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are on the rise. Like there, I mean, and there's nothing else to do in OKC. But, yeah, I mean, he's going to see. It's going to be a rough couple years.

And you know what? It's going to be rough on the business. And this is the stuff that fans don't see. He's going down this path now. And you do have to, again, it's late. It's too late. But, you know, I guess it's better late than never. but this is going to require real investment, real taking it on the chin financially from a business standpoint,

as they're doing the right thing to try to produce something that this town hasn't had in nearly a half a century, which is a contending NBA team. So, you know, he's the owner and, you know, he's going to be investing. He's back in the investment business in the NBA. Yes, he is. for the next few years. You know, this is like... Don't be surprised. Don't be surprised if you see some new money coming to this franchise.

Or Ted, really amping up the promotion of the casino next to the arena, the sports book. Anyway, so yesterday I put out a poll, and I talked about it a little bit on the show, and basically it was comparing the way the wizard's... handled Bradley Beal to the way the Redskins handled Kirk Cousins. You know, which team mismanaged that situation worse? $2,500 plus votes. 58.2% came in on the Cousin's situation was worse in the handling of it. I actually think the Beal situation is slightly worse.

And the only reason I, well, there are a couple of reasons I say that, Tommy. The reason Washington didn't sign Kirk Cousins to a long-term deal at market value is they weren't sure about Kirk Cousins. They really weren't. And it wasn't a totally unjustifiable position in 2015. Now, really good franchises, you know, have to project. They've got to evaluate. They've got to say, this is something we haven't had here in a while. This is a guy that can be, you know, a top 10 to 15, 16.

top half of the league quarterback, and we haven't had one of those in a long time. Let's get ahead of this and offer him a deal that he can't turn down, and it'll look great in a few years. They didn't do that because they weren't sure about him. The Wizards, on the other hand, were sure about Bradley Beale, and they were dead wrong. And anybody that knew anything about basketball could tell you, this guy's not an elite player. How many years have I been saying that about Bradley Beal. He's not a number one on a contending team. I don't even think he's... I think he's... Yeah. I think he's been saying it for about 30, 40 years now. You do know that I've been saying that. Yes, I know. Okay. I mean, I even suggested that he's probably more of a number three on a true championship team.

And that's what he is right now in Phoenix. Right now. And I don't even know if that's a championship team. I don't see them being better than Denver. But look, both of them were handled poorly. There were lots of responses to this, and a lot of you think that the Trent Williams handling was worse than both of them. That was bad. That was bad.

But, you know, Trent had something to do with that, too. But they could have traded Trent, no doubt. They could have traded him to Houston. They could have traded him to Cleveland. There was even a chance briefly for a trade. to New England for a lot more than what they ended up getting back from San Francisco. But which of the two do you think is worse? This was a really good poll question.

Because it's hard to really say. I could see why it was close. 52 to 48? No, no, no, no, 58 to 40, 58.2 to 41.8. It was actually, you know, majority cousins. I thought it'd be closer. I did, too. I did too.

I'm going to say cousins because they kept paying him. They kept signing him. They kept giving him the franchise tag money. You know? I mean, they did it over and over again. And they had a chance, even after paying him $44 million in two years, to trade him to San Francisco for the number two overall pick at minimum, and they didn't do it because they didn't want to trade him to the Shanahan's.

That was stupid and petty. That part of it may be. That's evil. That's petty. That's evil. That's beyond competence. Yeah. That is, you know, cutting off your nose despite your face thing.

That was idiotic. Completely idiotic. All right. Joe Gibbs Racing got a big investment from the soon-to-be new owner of the Washington commanders. We'll discuss that next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley's. Well, you know, it's getting close to dinner time, guys. What is it? As we're recording this and I was looking over their menu at Shelley's backroom.

It might be close to your dinner time at 250. It's not close to dinner time for most people as we're recording this. Well, I tell you what. Most people keep growing. Most people keeps growing to my age level. You better watch out with that most people because we rule the world. Yeah. Dinner at 3 o'clock is just for a few, I would hope. But go ahead. I was looking over their advertisers list, and it was making me so hungry. They have these things called Campfire Wings.

they're roasted, they're not fried, with marinated jumbo chicken wings with a choice of honey, mustard, blue cheese, and ranch dressing. One of my favorites is the basket of fries. When I used to, you know, go out drinking in the early days, I'd stop in a diner, and I'd always say, usually drunk, give me a plate of fries,

and I'd put my elbow on the table, and I'd say, I want them this big, okay, to the waitress. I want them this high. Did you want her to go back and peel the potatoes and cut them differently for you? No, I wanted the French fries to be that high. Oh, that high. I thought you meant that big. No, from my elbow to my hand, I wanted them that high on the plate.

That's that high. Tommy, there was a place way back in the day. It was called Farrells. It was an ice cream parlor concept that Marriott launched. And the only reason I know it was Marriott because my father-in-law, who moved to D.C., came to D.C. to work for Marriott. And Farrells was this ice cream parlor. And they had, for those of you that, I think there are a couple around town. The one that I went to all the time was in Bethesda off of West Bard Avenue.

And they had, you know, all of these different ice cream dishes, including by the the zoo, which was like this ice cream extravaganza for like 10 people. But one of the food items they had was a mountain of fries. And it was a true mountain of French fries that they would bring out. Ferrells. God, that place. I'm going to see if there's any Ferrell's pictures online anywhere. Well, Shelly's had the opposite of a mountain.

Yeah. Shelly's has a basket of fries. You can add chili. You can add cheese. You can add bacon. Or you can add all the above. Right. On those.

Also, meatballs with marinerar, stuffed poppers. You can get a shelly sampler with a little bit of each one of them. And they have spice shrimp. You know, crab artichoke dip. Do you like artichoke? Love artichoke. Love artichoke dip. Really?

Yeah. You know, that's funny. I've got this t-shirt, and it's from a little rascals episode, where Stimey, somebody gives Stimie an artichoke. And he had never seen it before. And he says, what is this? And his buddy says, it's an artichoke. And he says, well, may it choke artie. but it ain't going to choke steamy.

Okay. You can get the art, you can get the crab artichoke dip. All at Shelley's backroom, great menu, great selection of drinks, whiskey, and great cigars, 1331, F Street, Northwest in the district. All right, so Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment is a company run by Josh Harris. Now, let me just tell you, this is not the company. that's buying the Washington commanders. Josh Harris is leading a group of investors in buying the Washington commanders. But Harris, Blitzer, Sports, and Entertainment is a company he runs,

and that company owns the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils, and I think Crystal Palace. Anyway, it was announced earlier today, reported, I think, first by David Aldridge, in fact. I could be wrong about that. but Harris, Blitzer, Sports, and Entertainment reached, have become minority investors in Joe Gibbs racing. Gibbs will become a limited partner at the same time in Harris, Blitzer, Sports, and Entertainment. But he is not a part of the Harris Investment Group in the commanders.

The investment was termed as significant, the investment into general. Joe Gibbs racing, and then Joe Gibbs also becoming a limited partner of Harris, Splitzer Sports, and Entertainment. That means Gibbs is going to become one of those limited partners in the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils. Now, Gibbs has been an advisor to Josh Harris through this process, so it's not coincidental that they just did a business deal together. The issue is, for me, and I'll just net it out.

I'm glad that they said specifically that Gibbs isn't a part of the purchasing of the commanders. Not that I would have had a problem with that at all. I don't have a problem with Joe Gibbs being involved in the commanders at all. But I want to make this particular point. I'm beyond needing Joe Gibbs to be a part of the commanders. And I think what happened was Tommy over those many last years of Dan Snyder, How many times did he trot old Joe out when he was in trouble or when the team did something stupid or they were on a major losing streak? And there was Joe there sitting in his box to make everybody feel good.

And I don't want to see Joe handled that way. If Joe ends up being an advisor or was a limited partner even, I'd have no problem with that. But I don't need Joe Gibbs anymore to be a part of it if he doesn't want to be a part of it. This is a whole new day. And the truth is, is that nobody under the age of 40, or maybe under the age of 35, they're not yearning for Joe Gibbs to be a part of the franchise moving forward. They don't remember the glory years. I mean, we've had generations that have grown up with this team being, you know, a big-time

loser and an embarrassment. But anyway, your thoughts on this. Well, to be honest with you, and I love Joe. I was privileged to cover him in his last year in the first go-round as the Redskins head coach. But it was always a bit troubling to see his continued relationship with Snyder. like, I mean, I know there were people out there, and I was one of them who would say, you must know how bad this guy is. And this is a bad guy.

You know, can't you see that? Now, there may have been financial reasons for that. Who knows? You know, and it may just be Joe, you know, felt so strongly tied to the football team all these years that he felt an obligation to support them no matter what. But I think for some people, it was always a bit troubling to see this Snyder Gibbs coupling in recent years. Tommy, in part because we didn't want him to be around Dan Snyder.

You know, it was like, I know what you're saying, the troubling part. And look, I'm pretty sure that Dan Snyder was a pretty, significant contributor to Joe's, you know, Youth for Tomorrow Foundation. And Dan, look, the actual organization for as bad as it was was a very charitable organization in town. And, and they were, you know, big time, you know, donators to Joe Gibbs's, you know, Youth for Tomorrow Foundation. So, you know, there's a bit of a, Joe wasn't there every day. I doubt Joe, I mean, I would hope Joe knew, didn't, I would hope Joe did not know how toxic the place was, how much of a bully and how, I mean, he had to know how incompetent it was, clearly. But that's not a thing you're going to,

you know, turn your back on when this guy's giving you a bunch of money for your foundation. And by the way, what you said, I think is part of it too. And that is, Gibbs didn't want to lose that connection with the fans. It was important to him. This franchise has always been important to him, genuinely. But you know what you're never going to get? You're never going to get Joe Gibbs telling you what he really thinks of Dan Snyder. Yeah. It's just not his style.

No, it's not. It's not. I'm happy for Joe. I'm happy for Josh Harris. Yeah. You know, it sounds like, it sounds like, something special happened while, you know, they were having conversations, maybe advising him about, you know, buying this football team, where they connected. And that's good. It wasn't great for when he connected with Snyder, maybe this one will be different.

I'll tell you what, Joe having any level of ownership and anything usually produces a champion. So maybe we do want him to be a limited partner in the football team. The 76ers and Devils should know that they've got a limited partner now that has won at everything he's ever done. He's one of the greatest winners in the history of sports. He's in two Hall of Fame. Absolutely. Yeah.

All right. I had one other thing, and maybe you've got a couple of things as well, but I did want to talk about a pro football focus ranking of Washington's defensive line on the list of D-lines in the NFL. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Rate us and review us if you don't mind on Apple and Spotify. Follow us as well. That's a huge help for the podcast.

So pro football focus, I think I mentioned this last week. If I didn't, then you'll hear it for the first time from me. They ranked offensive lines last week, and Washington's was ranked 27th by Pro Football Focus, projecting 2023 offensive line. And I think, you know, that makes kind of sense. I mean, there's no indication that they've improved significantly along the offensive line. But they came out yesterday, I guess, with their ranking of defensive lines.

in the league. And this would obviously be the position group for Washington that you would think would be ranked the highest. Not only are they ranked high, they're ranked third in the NFL, their D-line. Philadelphia is one, San Francisco's two, and both of those defenses and those defensive fronts are nasty. I mean, the Eagles in particular, I mean, when you think that, think about what they drafted this year and last year in the first round, draft. Drafts. drafting, you know, Jalen Carter this year from Georgia and Jordan Davis last year from Georgia. And they still have Fletcher Cox and they've, you know, they've got Brandon Graham and Josh Sweat on the outside. This is a dominant defensive line. And then you've got what you've got, you know, Hargrave left Philly.

He's in San Francisco. So Philly won San Francisco's two, and that would have been my guess. And I would have guessed, Washington somewhere in the top five or six, but they're three. I was thinking that I can't remember the last time this football team has had any position group unit ranked in the top three by anybody ranking position group units. I can't remember the last time. Look, I think it's deserving of the top three. They're really, really good along their D-line. It's a hell of a defensive front. Ranked just behind them is Miami, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo, Dallas, the Giants.

I mean, all four NFC East D lines are in the top 10. And then Tennessee's is 10th. I actually really like their tackles, defensive tackles in particular, Tarton Simmons. But, I mean, I couldn't come up with it. If anybody can tweet me at Kevin Shee and, DC to tell me the time you think that any one of these legitimate rankings of position units that we always get in the offseason had any position group ranked as high as top three. I was even thinking like did the offensive line with Trent Williams at any point?

Was it right? No, it wasn't in the top three. I mean, Trent Williams and the Washington offensive line wasn't even the best offensive line in their division for those years. and Dallas's was. Certainly wasn't quarterback, wasn't running back. Yeah. You know, even with Alfred Morris, wasn't running back, wasn't wide receiver until recently. And they're maybe top 10 in wide receiver groups.

I think some recent ranking had them 13th or something. I think we went through that a couple of weeks ago. But their defense is good. Their defensive lines legit good. and their defense is going to be good this year. I know we've talked about it ad nauseum, but I'd be really disappointed if they're not a legitimate top 10, top five-ish defense. And Connor Davis, I know you're listening,

and you think all of this investment into the defense over the last few years that really good isn't good enough, it should be great. And that's not an unjustifiable expectation with as much as they have invested defensively. with first round picks, et cetera. Maybe we should expect great, like top three, top, you know, four, rather than just hoping it's a top 10 defense again. But they're going to be really good on defense. It'd be nice if offensively they got some help.

And they had some complementary football in 2023 with an offense that scores points and see a defense with a lead in the fourth quarter, being able to tee off and go after a team that's coming back, you know, down two scores. It's been a while since we've seen a defense have a comfortable lead in the fourth quarter against somebody.

Other than Dallas in that Sam Hal game at the end of the year. I had one other thing for you and then if you've got anything you can add to this. Somebody sent this to me over the weekend. It was this guy from Channel 9, Eric Flack,

who's done a lot of reporting on the sale in the stadium. And he had this story that a little known clause in the DC Code could be the latest roadblock to a potential Washington commanders return to the RFK site. Last Tuesday, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelsohn added a budget amendment to extend a provision in the DC Code prohibiting the Washington Convention and Sports Authority, also known as Events DC, from spending city funds to bring the commanders back to the district. The Clause states, events DC shall not expend funds to purchase all or a portion of the property comprising the RFK Memorial Stadium or induce a national football league team to locate in the district. And so this would appear to be another roadblock

to the team returning to D.C. But I did have a thought or two on this, but I'll let you respond to it first. Do you know anything about this? Well, I was not aware of that. It doesn't surprise me. I've told everybody all along how difficult. How difficult, yes, at least. It would be on the council to get support for this thing. If you remember, the baseball stadium was a one-vote difference on the council way back when it's not this kind of expenditure,

or this kind of support does not play politically well in a lot of the districts in the city. So you're not going to get a lot of support for it. I know the mayor is a big backer of it, but I think their best bet is to bypass the city and get the federal government to lease the team the land. And that's going to be hard to do. Yeah, they have to, the way I understand it and correct me if I'm wrong, either have to purchase the land from the federal government, have the federal government just give them the land, which they do in some areas of the city, or they have to amend the current

lease. They have to extend it, first of all, and then they have to amend it that will allow them to do more than just build a stadium on the property. It'll allow them to do a lot more, like, you know, build everything that they want to build, retail, restaurants, you know, residential, etc. around the city. But, you know, you know, the city. But, you know, you know, to me, Tommy, like, let's just say all of this, there was a way to solve this to get the land or amend the current lease. I still think that the biggest hurdle is taxpayer contribution to the new stadium and everything that surrounds it. Nashville and Buffalo, the last two stadiums to, you know, start the process of building a stadium, have gotten significant. significant taxpayer contribution in Nashville and in Buffalo.

And Josh Harris is going to look at that. And by the way, let's not forget that he had to really, he had to stretch himself and everybody else. I know what their aggregate worth is, the investor group. It doesn't mean that they want to spend it on a new stadium. They just paid $6 billion for a team, and it wasn't easy to come up with it. but to me that's still the biggest hurdle is getting this getting the politicians to convince

you know to convince the RFK district that this is going to be a boon to the area to jobs to lots of other things which is I had this guy Kenyon McDuffie he's a council member a council member yeah I had him on the radio show like two weeks ago. And, you know, he's a big, big proponent of the stadium being there. And he thinks right now, like you look at that area and there's nothing going on, but, you know, asphalt and the stadium that's going to disappear, and he sees jobs and huge economic opportunity. And he thinks that people that live down there can be convinced to that. I know that you haven't been convinced that they can be convinced. Now, I've been to neighborhood. And,

sea meetings in those neighborhoods. And they have no taste for this whatsoever and are ready, willing and able to put up a strong fight against it. I stick with my prediction, path of least resistance right next to where the stadium is now. Maybe a little bit closer to the Morgan Station metro stop, but I think it's going to wind up in Maryland right next door. I hope you're wrong.

And let's remember, you know, Josh Harris's company, the one Joe Gibbs, is now going to be part of, is also trying to build a new privately funded arena for the 76ers in Philadelphia. So he has a lot of commitments for new facilities for his sports franchises. Like he said, his effort down here is not the Harris Blitzer company. company, it's just Josh Harris. Right. All right, you got anything else? I got nothing else for you, boss.

All right. I intend on being back tomorrow. There is a possibility of no show tomorrow, but we might have a show. We'll definitely have a show Thursday. Remember, the NBA draft is Thursday night. So Tommy will be here with me to preview the draft on Thursday. We won't do that for too long. We won't do that for too long. But we will certainly talk about the draft.

By the way, my homework? By the way, Kyle Kuzma, as expected, declined his $13 million player option. And he will become a free agent. And we'll see what Porzingis does. He has a $36 million player option. Yeah, yeah, I want your big board on Thursday. if you can provide that to me. All right, sounds good.

I'll work on that. Thanks for you. You were great today, by the way. I appreciate it. I thought I was. Thank you, boss.