Latest / The Regulars / LeBron’s Silent Heist: How He Shocked Philly and the Sports World

Transcript

LeBron’s Silent Heist: How He Shocked Philly and the Sports World · The Regulars

• 0:00
  LeBron's offseason in complete silence and nobody
• 0:04
  knew. Drama at UNC that has nothing to do with Jordan
• 0:09
  Hudson. And Caitlin Clark is really just tired of all
• 0:12
  your narratives. Hey, Tanya, I got a drink, you got a
• 0:15
  drink. We're still across country from each other, but doesn't mean we can't have ourselves
• 0:18
  a good, good Monday night. We're The Regulars. I'm Cody Decker.
• 0:22
  I'm Tanya Ray Fox. I am returning to Los Angeles shortly, but until then,
• 0:26
  we're gonna do it in these 2 tiny boxes away from each other. Thank you
• 0:29
  for tuning in. Let's do this, Cody. Oh, Let's— hey,
• 0:42
  Tanya Ray! Tanya Ray, what a time to be alive. By the way, everybody like,
• 0:45
  share, and subscribe to The Regulars, of course, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
• 0:49
  Of course, thank you for joining us live right now on YouTube and also on
• 0:52
  Tanya Ray Fox's Instagram. And if, by the way, just so we're all clear,
• 0:56
  if you don't see us both in widescreen delete out of the thing
• 0:59
  and click back in, and it'll go to the wide screen. Hey,
• 1:02
  you're welcome. If you comment, it may kind of do
• 1:06
  the thing again. Again, pop back out, pop back in. If you're just trying to,
• 1:10
  you know, get in the mix, you'll be able to hear us, you'll be able
• 1:14
  to interact. That's okay. You might just see our shoulders, and I
• 1:17
  think we have great shoulders. Really great shoulders, you know what I mean?
• 1:21
  Um, Cody, I spent another day on a boat today. What the fuck is going
• 1:25
  on with you? What do you— what do you become, yacht girl all of a
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  sudden? You become this bougie bitch that I've never known you to
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  be. You're taking photos. First it was— remember we had like
• 1:34
  knee gate like 2 months ago and you were over section? You're doing it right
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  fucking now. And now you're posting your knees all over social
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  media from a boat. Suggestive much?
• 1:45
  Yes, exactly. I am on it. So I'm on my, my mom's pontoon
• 1:49
  boat. Part of boat, sits 11. Your mom has a pontoon boat?
• 1:53
  She does indeed, and we take it out on the lake. Why am I pretending
• 1:56
  that's fucking weird? Of course she does. Yeah, yeah, she's big boat girl. Uh,
• 1:59
  she's the driver, she's the captain. Um, and you know,
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  uh, we're, we're out on it as often as possible. And today was Andrea's
• 2:07
  birthday, so everybody say happy to— happy birthday to my mom in
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  the chat. Mama Fox having the best birthday possible. We are big,
• 2:14
  big fans of Mama Fox on this household. Yeah, unfortunately, right before this,
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  I, uh, I played a game of cribbage with her and
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  I beat her ass, man. She just didn't
• 2:26
  have the birthday luck today, but she did beat me last game, so we're
• 2:29
  2— we're 1-1 now. We had to do the, uh, rubber match. Well, she knows
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  not to fuck around with the champ now. That's all that matters. And you ever
• 2:36
  played cribbage? No, I have not. No, I have not. What even is cribbage?
• 2:40
  Oh, you don't know about cribbage? Oh, it's, um, one of those like old school
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  like board. I've heard the name. Oh, is it the one with like the diamonds
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  on it? Like the kind of— yeah. And you— no, that's backgammon. Um,
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  okay, backgammon. This is— you peg, um, along this little
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  like pegboard and you have— and it's cards.
• 2:58
  Oh, okay. That— yeah, I thought— I thought something completely different there.
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  It's a big thing in our Italian family. I don't know if that's a thing,
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  like if you're an Italian-American you play cribbage, but this Italian-American family does.
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  So yes, so we did that. Happy birthday to Andrea. And, uh, for her,
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  for her final gift, she gets to listen to us yap about LeBron for
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  the, what, 4,000th time since we launched this podcast like 6 months ago?
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  Um, listen, it's, it's not that we want to talk about
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  LeBron, but here's just the fact, and I hate to— I hate to just tell
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  everybody this, it just is. Um, LeBron James's news,
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  uh, frankly trumps all of sports news. It just does.
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  There are some players that just kind of transcend the sport itself.
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  This is This isn't just making LA sports news or Philly
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  sports news. This is not even national sports news. This is national fucking
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  news in the absolute full extent of
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  the phrase, to the point where it's being reported right now that LeBron James's,
• 3:56
  uh, contract signing, which by the way did become official today because finally they posted
• 4:00
  it out with a lovely graphic of the number 23 jersey that he
• 4:04
  apparently is going to be rocking this year, Um, he's apparently already
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  raised $250+ million in
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  the area of Philadelphia just by tickets sold and
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  all the merchandise getting around there. It's gonna, it's gonna blow up that fucking area
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  the entire NBA season. Like, I, I still
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  can't believe this is a salary cap league because there are some people that generate
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  so much fucking money. To say that the 76ers are getting
• 4:29
  a steal, Tanya, $8 million, and it's gonna boom the city.
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  And he— yeah, it's so funny because when we were talking, uh, I, I don't
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  know if I said it on the podcast or not, but when, uh, LeBron decided
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  he was leaving and we were talking about, you know, who— where he was gonna
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  go, I kept talking about how he would— he absolutely— it was on the
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  table that he would take the veterans minimum. And people were telling me I was
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  crazy. And I'm like, listen, LeBron, at— for
• 4:54
  a long time, was making statement money. He was like,
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  I'm gonna get paid, I'm gonna get paid LeBron money, whatever. This was not— it
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  was so obvious to me that if he wanted to go somewhere with a team
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  that was built up around him, he was going to take the veteran's minimum.
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  So I feel very vindicated that he did that. Yeah, just so we're clear.
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  And on top of that, yeah, uh, it seems like, you know, I know there's
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  some beef in Philly media already, that's not surprising, but overall the city is like
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  very much feeling like kind of validated, kind of like, oh,
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  LeBron wanted to come here. And that's the impact that he has on the sports
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  world, on the— to your point, outside of the sports world,
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  that's the impact he has on the zeitgeist. Um, and that is—
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  we only get a couple of those, you know, across a couple of generations,
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  really. Like, I've really never seen anything like this. And it kind of just is
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  the perfect way to launch into headline one, because this
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  is a situation where LeBron knew that he was going to
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  be able to go wherever he wanted to go, no questions asked. All 31
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  other teams outside of the Lakers, including the Lakers, would have take— you know,
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  taken him back. But like All— every team was in play. Every team would have
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  taken LeBron. There was no one that wasn't— that wasn't an option for him.
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  And because of that, LeBron basically
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  didn't tell anybody what he was doing. Um, this report from
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  The Athletic, uh, I want to make sure that I shout
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  out the authors when we do these things. It's Joe Vardon and David Aldridge.
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  Uh, Inside LeBron's Philadelphia Decision. The 76ers
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  did not know LeBron was choosing them, and, um, the team believes that the Jaylen
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  Brown trade kind of immediately changed the game for them. But I want to read
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  you a little bit of this because there's this idea that he was stringing,
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  you know, stringing people along for a specific reason, trying to get teams to do
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  certain things. And the reality is he— nobody
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  knew, and the 76ers didn't know, and they really didn't make a strong
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  push for him. They knew that getting Jaylen Brown would
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  give them a much better chance. They felt like they were long shots before.
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  They were much better off once they got Jaylen Brown. But for the entirety of
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  James' free agency, which lasted 25 days, The Athletic spoke to dozens of
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  sources across the NBA— to the business associates closest to James, to executives who
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  run the teams angling for his services, to those teams' coaches,
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  executives who were not in the running, rival agents. And one thing after every conversation
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  was clear: no one knew what LeBron was going to do up until
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  Friday. They may have thought they knew from time to time, but it played out
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  as a mystery. And within the last week, 2 sources close to James said he
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  instructed his tight circle of advisors that when he made a decision, he would
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  inform Paul to call the team he picked and tell them the good news.
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  Paul informed the Sixers of his choice that James was basically going to
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  be paid veterans minimum salary regardless of where he played, uh, and that there was
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  no negotiation to be had late Friday morning,
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  shortly before the post. So the That was it. Like, hey,
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  we're gonna come to you, I'm gonna take the, the minimum,
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  there's no negotiations here, and we're announcing it in half
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  an hour. That's basically what happened. Um, the GM said we didn't
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  sell him hard. Uh, you know, at one point the only overt thing that they
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  really did was, um, Bob Myers, president of sports for,
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  uh, Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment, the parent company that oversees
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  all of the Harris Sports teams, Uh, had said that, you know,
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  there, there was kind of these comments that were made. But other than that,
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  he said, if James was here, I'd say I honestly believe this is your best
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  chance to win. That was it. Um, so I find
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  this fascinating. I know you do too, that this entire
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  thing was cloaked in the actual secrecy that it
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  seemed like to us as people on the outside.
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  Yeah, yeah, no, it was. I mean, but also, I,
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  I firmly believe he didn't make a decision until probably the evening before or even
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  the morning of. I'm sure he went back and— no, because he was doing that,
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  um, he did the thing at the Fanatics, uh, at Fanatics Fest where he was
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  like, he made the shout out to The Process. I heard it. No,
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  I, I heard that and we put— we talked about it. Listen, but he
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  also like said a couple of things that like sounded a
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  little bit like Heat culture as well. Like he was, he was doing all of
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  the things. He was dropping little nuggets everywhere. No, he was
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  saying, I'm going to a place, and he very specifically was like going to a
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  place that, you know, has very much a winning culture. And Aaron's like, he said
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  winning culture, and he's like talking, it almost sounds like he's trying to refer to
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  Heat culture. So we were like picking at a lot of things. Now I definitely
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  heard the process thing too, make no mistake. I heard the
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  process. The process was— that was it. I heard it.
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  I heard it too. But man, like, I think he was— listen, you got
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  to give LeBron James credit. I think he was playing everybody like a fucking drum
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  And we, we were drumming away with them. And how can you— the guy
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  is doing this fantastically. And also, come on,
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  man, I love the choice. I really do. For all the reasons we talked about
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  on Friday, I legitimately love the choice. I love the choice as an intrigue,
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  uh, situation. I love it. All of a sudden it kind of makes the East
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  into like overnight must-watch television in every possible
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  way. I cannot wait to watch LeBron James versus Cleveland. I cannot wait to watch
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  LeBron James versus Miami. I cannot wait to watch LeBron James versus the Knicks.
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  I can't wait to see Jaylen Brown and LeBron James against the Celtics. Like,
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  it's just fucking— I want to watch all of these. And he picked
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  like the best possible place to go that not
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  only is the best basketball fit, it's the most intriguing storyline,
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  period. Uh, that's where all the drama is. You know, I'm glad
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  you brought up all of the matchups that will happen in the East specifically,
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  because a lot of people have obviously— they've tried to say, oh well, he wanted
• 10:31
  to get out of the West with Oklahoma. But the East is nasty right now.
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  He's been playing in the West. Everybody relax. Like, the East
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  was much better than people gave them credit for this year. That, that keeps happening,
• 10:43
  right? And also, you know, someone had
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  brought up in my, in my comments, um, on something else that I talked about
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  with LeBron, they'd been like, I think I'll, I'll just push back and say I
• 10:53
  think the most interesting choice— because you and I had said this is the most
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  interesting kind of like, you know, this is the most interesting, exciting choice
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  you could have made— and they said I think he could have picked the Timberwolves
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  and that would have been more interesting to me. And I was like, listen,
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  everybody on the planet knows I wanted him to go to the Timberwolves. You actually
• 11:07
  were on board with that idea, like even not wanting him in the West,
• 11:11
  right? Like, it's just like, wow, that would be a really great fit. Let's be
• 11:14
  honest though, what you just brought up is the reason why it's so much more
• 11:17
  interesting for him to be in the East. The Cavs,
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  the Heat reigniting that, that, uh,
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  the battles that he had with the Celtics with the Cavs and the Heat being
• 11:29
  up against the Knicks, going into Madison Square Garden, having them come to Philly.
• 11:33
  You are absolutely right. That is so much more interesting.
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  Would I have loved to see him with Ant? Of course, absolutely. But come
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  on, this is exactly— he— it's just so fucking wild.
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  It's just wild. And you know what, to bring it back
• 11:50
  to The Athletic article, I think that like The, the thing that
• 11:54
  really strikes me about this entire conversation
• 11:58
  is, and I don't think I've never actually talked to you about how you feel
• 12:02
  about what LeBron did for, um, the player empowerment thing, but you
• 12:07
  know, I— at some point there needs to be a retrospective really on, on how
• 12:10
  LeBron changed the way that NBA free
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  agency and player trades and all that stuff really works through
• 12:18
  the way he approached his, uh, moving around, right?
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  The player empowerment thing became a real almost
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  like NBA dog whistle, right? Was like this, uh,
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  almost like weird thing that Adam Silver was
• 12:33
  forced to embrace. But, you know, fans were kind of mixed
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  on. And you and I always say you gotta root for the millionaires
• 12:40
  over the billionaires. Now LeBron has become a billionaire, but when he was doing this,
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  he was not one. And this era of
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  players being like, if you're going to treat this like a business, then so am
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  I, is really, really LeBron-coded.
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  And to see him play this game
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  all the way till the end— I will determine my
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  own fate on my own time in my own way— really rubs
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  people the wrong way. But I think It's one of the most important
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  parts of his legacy as one of the greatest basketball players
• 13:17
  of all time. I would agree with that. However, as much
• 13:20
  as I want to say that he helps the player, he's one of
• 13:24
  one that can really do this. Not a lot of people can do— no,
• 13:28
  not this. Not, not this specifically. I'm talking about like, let's go back to the
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  original decision, right? Yes. And what he ushered in was a
• 13:35
  whole wave of players being like, oh, you're absolutely right, decide to take our fate
• 13:39
  into our own hands. We can actually stop playing the like we have to be
• 13:42
  loyal to fans, but he also started loyal to us game. Yeah, but he also—
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  we don't have to play the game where a player is stuck in
• 13:51
  a place like Cleveland without the pieces around him, wasting away
• 13:55
  rather than being able to win a ring. We don't have to do the thing
• 13:57
  where people are comparing me to Kobe, who got to play with Shaq, while my
• 14:01
  best teammate is Zydrunas Ilgauskas. I can
• 14:05
  go to fucking Miami. That shit didn't happen before. Then all of a sudden
• 14:08
  Kevin Durant's doing it, Kyrie is doing it. This is 100% true,
• 14:12
  you know. And so that's more what I mean than like there's— there
• 14:15
  might never be a player again who can do what LeBron just did. I really
• 14:19
  don't. I mean, that's— I, uh, what he has done is astonishing. But you're absolutely
• 14:22
  right, he did start that absolute trend, that whole Big 3 trend,
• 14:25
  you know, that we kind of lived through. Even though, even though the Celtics probably
• 14:28
  did it first, I really think they did it first, but LeBron was the first
• 14:32
  to respond. Yeah, I mean, the, the big Celtics Big 3 was
• 14:36
  the first, and then LeBron was like, what if I did that,
• 14:40
  right? What if I built something? And then everybody else was like, look what he
• 14:44
  did. He stopped the Celtics dynasty. That was about to be a dynasty. He stopped
• 14:47
  them in their tracks. Yeah, right. It was, um, you know,
• 14:50
  him and obviously the Lakers beating the Celtics in 2010,
• 14:54
  but then they would have kept getting back if it weren't for LeBron. So it's
• 14:58
  flat out true. Listen, LeBron, it's so easy
• 15:02
  to hate on LeBron, but it's ridiculous. And also on top of that, you talk
• 15:04
  about the player empowerment. He also did things that, like, he was one of
• 15:09
  the first guys to— well, active players that really started like a legitimate production
• 15:12
  company and really kind of diversified his assets in a different
• 15:16
  way. I mean, Shaq did it as well. Michael, not, uh, yeah, Magic Johnson and
• 15:20
  Shaq, uh, definitely kind of led the way, and he took the
• 15:23
  next step. But his next step was getting into the production of it all and
• 15:27
  owning the production, of which Shaq did not do. Like, you know, Shaq got
• 15:30
  in the social media era. Yeah. So like, I would say LeBron
• 15:35
  really is, you know, it's an interesting part of the conversation.
• 15:39
  He really is one of our first social media era superstars.
• 15:43
  Yeah. Not just in sports, like in the world,
• 15:47
  right? Because he got drafted right before Facebook
• 15:51
  launches, and his entire career has taken place alongside
• 15:55
  the rise of social media as one of the most famous people in the country,
• 15:58
  let alone the world. I mean, it's, it's him.
• 16:01
  It's, it's Beyoncé. It is. I mean, that's— these are the people we're talking about
• 16:05
  in terms of, of their, their relationship to social media and
• 16:09
  how they've used it to create, to sort
• 16:12
  of integrate it into their, uh, into their legacies, right?
• 16:16
  Completely. And you know, it's almost funny, you think about that early thing when he
• 16:19
  first got drafted, that video of him using the old camera phone,
• 16:23
  like the old LG camera phone, like that was We weren't
• 16:27
  getting our internet on our phones back then. Like, and that was how inaccessible— like,
• 16:31
  that was how accessible it was at the time. That was during the dot-com era.
• 16:35
  And it is just astonishing how he has lived through all these
• 16:38
  eras. I mean, then, then obviously the, the early eras of social media. Like,
• 16:42
  even Giannis even referenced it. Is this where LeBron did the, the Harlem Shake?
• 16:46
  Like, yeah, that's where he fucking did the Harlem Shake. And by the way,
• 16:49
  that was like fucking 15 years ago. It's, it's And it
• 16:53
  was still like 9 years into his career. I know,
• 16:56
  it's, it's not— he wasn't even that young. It's just,
• 16:59
  it's, it's just absolutely crazy. You really bring it into a
• 17:03
  full context because I think you and I kind of— it gets
• 17:07
  lost on us. We've had LeBron for our— not just our
• 17:11
  entire adult lives, basically the majority
• 17:14
  of our informed sports lives. We've never been without
• 17:18
  LeBron James. Yeah, I mean, what were— I mean, we were like sophomores
• 17:22
  in high school or something when he was drafted. Like, we were— that's like our
• 17:26
  whole— yeah, that's our whole, like, our brains are forming into, into anything
• 17:30
  worth listening to parts of our life. Um,
• 17:33
  I said that when, you know, when players like Shaq retire
• 17:37
  and stuff, I was like, I didn't even remember basketball before Shaq. Like,
• 17:41
  to me, when Shaq retired, I was like, oh, I don't— I didn't know there
• 17:45
  was a world where Shaq wasn't playing basketball. Most human beings,
• 17:48
  you know, under the age of 35 don't remember life before
• 17:53
  LeBron was playing basketball. That's really fucking cool. Um,
• 17:57
  and I— yeah, I've just been thinking a lot about
• 18:00
  this, like, what— seeing just how powerful he is. Um, and you and I
• 18:04
  being so anti the owners, uh,
• 18:08
  and just, you know, there's always a conversation comparing
• 18:11
  his legacy to Jordan's. Um, and Jordan's legacy was all about
• 18:15
  Jordan. Jordan grew the game through his
• 18:19
  fame, through the Nike, through the globalization.
• 18:22
  He grew the game, no question asked. Um,
• 18:25
  but LeBron and what he has done has impacted the
• 18:30
  culture of the players and how they operate within the
• 18:34
  business structure of the NBA in a totally different way. And so it's just,
• 18:36
  you know, another, another way to look at his impact. Um,
• 18:41
  but yeah, uh, you know, that also just wild. Just say we
• 18:44
  just had to talk about the fact that this guy pulled this fucking— pulled this
• 18:47
  off, dude. It's fucking nuts. Like, every aspect of it, it's fucking nuts.
• 18:51
  And I— you know what, I'll go a step further. I commend
• 18:55
  you. I commend you. I commend every aspect of this. Yeah, you fucking
• 18:59
  pulled off a heist. You fooled fucking everybody. I don't give a shit.
• 19:03
  If nothing else, just that alone has really made my fucking week.
• 19:07
  Sure, yeah, good call, good call. Someone else, by the way,
• 19:10
  Cody, that has been around for so long I can barely remember a time before
• 19:14
  him is Bill Belichick. And one thing that Bill
• 19:18
  Belichick has been doing that entire time, Cody, as we enter into headlines— cheating is
• 19:22
  some shady shit. One thing about Belichick, he's gonna be doing some shady shit,
• 19:26
  okay? Allegedly cheating, allegedly. And sometimes he's
• 19:31
  gonna— it's gonna, it's gonna be him taking the fall. Sometimes it's gonna be somebody
• 19:34
  else. We don't know who's going to be taking the fall this time, but as
• 19:37
  of right now, his, uh, longtime right-hand man is
• 19:42
  Michael Mbardi, who has been put on paid administrative leave.
• 19:46
  Um, and that was reported by Pete Thamel of
• 19:50
  ESPN, who said that, uh, the move stems
• 19:54
  from a human resources complaint filed by a former UNC front office
• 19:58
  employee. And Thamel said that there's a pending investigation
• 20:02
  which led to the administrative leave. And on top of that, Pablo Torre,
• 20:06
  uh, reported that the College Sports Commission is investigating
• 20:09
  the Tar Heels football program. Um, they enforce
• 20:14
  rules regarding institutional revenue sharing, third-party NIL deals,
• 20:17
  and roster limits. So it's unclear if there's any connection between these 2
• 20:21
  things. Seems weird that they both happened at the same time if they're not connected.
• 20:24
  But, um, Mike Lombardi is inextricably— Michael Lombardi
• 20:29
  is inextricably linked to Bill Belichick.
• 20:32
  There is like— what? Sure is. Yes.
• 20:36
  Yeah, yeah. So like, there's no— this is one of those things where
• 20:40
  it's like, um, you, you're not, you're not doing anything with
• 20:45
  the program that Bill Belichick's not co-signing if you're Michael
• 20:48
  Lombardi. That's why he has you there. Um, now no
• 20:52
  mention of Jordan. No, no, but I'm always leaving it open that Jordan has been
• 20:57
  pulling the string, will somehow be involved. I will find out. But, but Cody,
• 21:01
  I mean, if we— if you had— if you were a betting man,
• 21:06
  I mean, what are we— we're— are we heading into year
• 21:09
  3 of this experiment? We've already got the— you— we've already got UNC
• 21:12
  getting, uh, investigated. I mean, pure, pure just
• 21:17
  like nostalgia at this point. Is the world right if Bill Belichick's
• 21:21
  program isn't being investigated for something?
• 21:24
  You know what, it's actually making me think even bigger here. Like UNC,
• 21:28
  what's going on at UNC? And think about their hires as of late, not just
• 21:31
  him, also on the basketball side. Yeah, I'm just like,
• 21:35
  you know, you with the, with the absolute dipshittery
• 21:39
  and clown show that's been taking place on the football side ever since
• 21:43
  Bill Belichick got there and Jordan has gotten there, I am
• 21:47
  shocked that UNC went back to the pro ranks for the basketball
• 21:51
  side. It actually is almost kind of baffling. Like, I love, I love
• 21:55
  Mr. Malone. I think he's a great hire for any NBA team, but I don't
• 21:59
  know how this is going to work at all at UNC. Yeah, you and I
• 22:02
  were not sold on that move when it was made. We were both kind of
• 22:05
  like, I don't know about this, this seems a little gimmicky at this point.
• 22:08
  What it feels like, it's a little bit— and that's why it's interesting, it's that
• 22:12
  it's the commission looking into this, because it does very much seem like, how do
• 22:16
  we bring in the most NIL money? How do we like get, just get the
• 22:18
  most possible attention? Which is like, that's legal. You can
• 22:22
  do that. You can just get people to bring in more NIL money. But yeah,
• 22:26
  no, it's a bizarre choice. You're right. Like, UNC in general
• 22:30
  has been making some really weird decisions across the board.
• 22:34
  Um, I, you know, I,
• 22:37
  I think that Bill Belichick
• 22:41
  is always in a place where it's like, what do I have to lose?
• 22:42
  Like, I'm, I'm, I don't care,
• 22:45
  right? Legacy, sanity. If his legacy was
• 22:49
  going to be lost, babe, it was— it would have been happening.
• 22:52
  Yeah, man, oh man. Like, like, let's forget about—
• 22:56
  let's forget about like the personal and all the Jordan shit, which is fucking—
• 23:00
  oh God, can't fucking believe it. Just can't believe any of this shit has been
• 23:03
  like allowed to happen. I can't believe somebody hasn't come in and fucking put him
• 23:06
  in the fucking white coats and thrown him into a padded cell. That being said,
• 23:09
  forget about that. Just the football of all— 4-8 so far, uh,
• 23:13
  2-6 in his own divi— in his own conference. And now after one year we
• 23:17
  got a fucking full-on investigation. Like, this is like— it's only been one year.
• 23:21
  It's been for 2— one year. It feels like
• 23:25
  10, but it's only been one season, Tanya. No, he hasn't
• 23:29
  coached 2 seasons. One. What? It's only been
• 23:33
  a year of this. Oh my God, I thought I had a bet. No,
• 23:36
  it's gonna be forever. Forever.
• 23:40
  This is— that's how long the one year of Bill Belichick at
• 23:43
  UNC has felt. Wow, that is
• 23:47
  fascinating. That's some fascinating shit. Okay, well, uh,
• 23:50
  yeah, even worse than you thought. Yeah, so, uh, keeping an eye on
• 23:54
  that. Yeah, um, I'm, I'm rooting for— I would
• 23:58
  love for it to actually— I— this won't turn out to be a like cool
• 24:01
  cheating scandal. Like, I would love for another gate because we have Spygate,
• 24:04
  we have Deflategate. Like, could we get an NILgate?
• 24:08
  I'm sure someone will come up with a better name, you know. Um, but like,
• 24:12
  I would like a real full gate. I don't want it to be a dud
• 24:14
  at this point. Let's get full gate mode with Belichick because that's going
• 24:18
  to give you and I— we're gonna have the— we're gonna have the sauce.
• 24:22
  And then, you know, somehow at some point Jordan's
• 24:26
  gonna fuck up in some way that's gonna be so ridiculously egregious
• 24:30
  that we're just gonna— it's just— we're gonna be feeding our, our black
• 24:34
  souls off the morsels of it. For like a
• 24:38
  fucking decade. Long after Belichick's dead, we're gonna be
• 24:42
  fucking making a meal out of it, I'm sure. Thank God. All right, well,
• 24:45
  you know, from your lips to God's ears, as they say. Um,
• 24:50
  I'm excited to ask you about this. Uh, finally we get to get back to
• 24:54
  interesting baseball talk. We've had a couple of conversations around baseball in terms of
• 24:58
  the actual business of it, but this is just kind of ball. This is talking
• 25:02
  ball baseball. Um, as the MLB trade line, uh, trade deadline
• 25:06
  approaches people want to know where Tarik Skubal is going to land.
• 25:09
  Um, the— this is— we're talking about the 2-time,
• 25:13
  uh, well, he's the reigning Cy Young winner,
• 25:17
  but he's also a 2-time Cy Young winner. And they have until August 3rd,
• 25:21
  the, uh, the Tigers too— I always call them the Lions— the Tigers,
• 25:24
  uh, until, uh, August 3rd at 6 PM to decide whether they're going to trade
• 25:28
  him and where to. Uh, I'm gonna go through the dilemma and some of the
• 25:31
  rumors, and then I really want to hear your thoughts on this because
• 25:35
  I cannot make heads or tails of what should be done in this scenario.
• 25:39
  So obviously Detroit has rallied back into
• 25:43
  wildcard race. They actually are potentially able to
• 25:47
  make the playoffs. Yeah, the— Skubal is
• 25:51
  a free agent at the end of the season. The reality is they're gonna get
• 25:54
  nothing for him if they don't trade him now. They also won't
• 25:59
  have him if they did think that they could make a real playoff push.
• 26:02
  Rivals note that Detroit is mulling the possibility of a deal but
• 26:05
  will only pull the trigger for an astronomical return, which I think
• 26:09
  that they'll get. Um, player preference— Skubal explicitly stated
• 26:13
  that he prefers to stay in Detroit and finish out the season with the Tigers.
• 26:17
  Okay. Um, the top suitors as of right now are the
• 26:22
  Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are heavily linked to Skubal. Um, the Los Angeles Dodgers,
• 26:25
  though long considered the most logical destination due to their deep farm system, recent reports
• 26:30
  indicate the Dodgers are not currently moving toward a blockbuster deal for Skruble.
• 26:34
  They appear content to lean on their returning injured stars.
• 26:37
  And then other contenders sort of peripherally are the Yankees,
• 26:40
  Orioles, Braves, Phillies, and Brewers. Um, sort of,
• 26:44
  you know, that's— they're, they're still keeping tabs on him at this point.
• 26:48
  So first question for you, Cody, is I,
• 26:52
  I know what you said about this maybe about a month and a half ago,
• 26:55
  2 months ago when we talked about this, but I want to follow up.
• 26:58
  Do you think that the Tigers should trade him? Yes.
• 27:01
  Yes, they do. Period. Stop. I think they do. Um, they're not real World Series
• 27:05
  contenders. If you thought they were real World Series contenders, would you say that they
• 27:08
  should trade him? No, I would say go for it. I would honest to God
• 27:11
  say go for it if I really thought they were World Series contenders. Now,
• 27:13
  here's the thing. The AL is not amazing this year. It just
• 27:17
  is not. There's like 3 teams and then there's everybody else. And let's be real
• 27:21
  clear what I mean by everybody else. Right now, the Cleveland Guardians are holding on
• 27:24
  to that 3rd spot in the wildcard. They are 1 game over .500.
• 27:27
  So yeah, you can make the argument if you sneak in, you got a shot
• 27:31
  at the wildcard or going to the World Series as much as any of these
• 27:34
  other teams. But I firmly just do not believe in this
• 27:37
  team at all. I don't think their bullpen is strong enough to get them through
• 27:40
  October. Their starting staff has more than shown that they're not able to do it.
• 27:44
  And it's just unfortunate because I would love to see a winner in Detroit.
• 27:47
  But at the end of the day, I just don't see it happening. The Tampa
• 27:50
  Bay Rays are far and away so much better than them. The Chicago White
• 27:54
  Sox are still having themselves a pretty good season. There seems to be a very
• 27:57
  good vibe going on in the South Side of Chicago. Frankly, because of the
• 28:01
  Pope. It's got to be because of the Pope. And also on top of that,
• 28:04
  the New York Yankees, they've been still winning despite the fact they've been
• 28:08
  without Aaron Judge. And now they're without Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton like
• 28:11
  this entire season. So like it's been, been an interesting year. Now the
• 28:15
  Boston Red Sox have been going on an insane clip as you've been very much
• 28:18
  celebrating as of late. Guardians are still there and the Minnesota Twins also
• 28:22
  a game out. But like there's also the Seattle Mariners who are 2 games out
• 28:25
  who have such a ridiculous pitching staff that if they wanted to go ahead and
• 28:28
  sell, this would go insane. The Detroit
• 28:32
  Tigers, the Toronto Blue Jays got pieces that are absolutely going to help like a
• 28:36
  Kevin Gausman. Here's the other thing about the idea about Tarik Skubal. Now,
• 28:39
  if the Dodgers were to go get Tarik Skubal, okay, I get it.
• 28:43
  You're adding another ace to your team, but you're also getting back Blake Snell.
• 28:46
  And he's coming off the 60-day IL. So just think of this practically. You got
• 28:50
  Blake Snell who will be coming off the 60-day IL. You have Edwin Diaz coming
• 28:53
  off the 60-day IL. You have Blake Trinen coming off the regular IL.
• 28:58
  You're going to have Tyler Glasnow coming off the 60-day IL.
• 29:01
  That's 4 roster spots all for pitchers that they fucking
• 29:05
  need back. Like, and 2 of those is coming this week.
• 29:09
  And 3 of them are off the 40-man or off the 60-day, which means
• 29:13
  They got to take somebody like off the 40-man fucking roster, like a full-on hitting
• 29:17
  waiver claims, or unless they have options on the guy.
• 29:20
  So for me, it doesn't make much sense bringing in Tarik Skubal in that you're
• 29:24
  going to have to take somebody else off the roster as well. So unless you're
• 29:27
  going to make a trade for the guys that are on your current roster,
• 29:29
  I don't really see that happening. Also, it makes your pitching staff
• 29:32
  going into October really left-handed. I really think
• 29:36
  lately Roki Sasaki has been doing a really good job right-handed side. They really kind
• 29:40
  of pick up the pace for Shohei Ohtani. And I also firmly believe Shohei
• 29:44
  Ohtani will be back on the mound by October. So I don't think the Dodgers
• 29:47
  should go after him at all. For me, if it's me,
• 29:50
  the Tampa Bay Rays absolutely should go after him and empty anything they can
• 29:54
  to get their hands on him. But why not the fucking Boston Red Sox who
• 29:58
  are all of a sudden in this shit? Go get your hands on a star
• 30:00
  pitcher right there. You know why. You know why.
• 30:04
  They don't— they're not making a move. Right fucking there, man. And you have the
• 30:07
  funds that you could sign him back after the fact. It's crazy.
• 30:11
  It is. Listen, my brain hasn't even allowed me to consider them
• 30:14
  going to get Tarik Skubal. That's how much I know they're not going to fucking
• 30:18
  do something. That's so annoying because if somebody else in the division gets them,
• 30:21
  that's a fucking— if the Rays get them, to me, that's fucking— it's
• 30:25
  fucking game over for everybody in the American League. Like, like, play defense,
• 30:29
  like, stop playing on defense and start playing on offense. And like, I mean,
• 30:32
  listen, I hate Aroldis Chapman. I have not— I don't fucking like Aroldis Chapman,
• 30:36
  but I get it. He recently called them out too and was like, what do
• 30:39
  you— we know why we weren't winning, and it's, it's certainly not
• 30:43
  because of the players. Um, and this—
• 30:46
  there's been changes that have been made. That's why we're winning now. And I
• 30:50
  say you just got a, a vote of confidence for about
• 30:55
  the changes that you made, you know, the firings, the like rearrangements from
• 30:59
  the players. Go fucking do something. So I don't know,
• 31:02
  I, you know, what is your, um, you know, my brain,
• 31:07
  no matter what the Dodgers say, my brain is always like, you're gonna get the
• 31:10
  fuck, you're gonna get him. I, I think there's more, I think there's more of
• 31:13
  a realistic thing that they get him as a free agent maybe. But even then,
• 31:16
  I just, I still, I'm still having trouble getting my, get wrapping my brain around
• 31:19
  it. The only reason at this point I think the Dodgers go after him is
• 31:23
  to stop, say, the Phillies from going after him. And I'll tell you why.
• 31:27
  Uh, Wheeler, fucking Sanchez, and fucking— and
• 31:31
  Skubal in a best-of-5 series would be
• 31:35
  a real problem for any team to face. I'm surprised the Phillies aren't
• 31:39
  up there with the Rays and Dodgers in terms of the rumors. The Phillies should
• 31:43
  fucking— this is, to me, this is the Phillies like,
• 31:47
  they're coming at the end of their fucking window. You need to kind
• 31:51
  of fucking do it now. I agree. Frankly, you get Tarik Skubal, that is
• 31:54
  such a terrifying playoff 3-headed monster. That would give the
• 31:57
  fucking Dodgers fits. Imagine if you're a
• 32:01
  Philly sports fan and you get Tarik Skubal and LeBron James in the matter of
• 32:05
  2 weeks. Fucking— what a time to be alive, right? What a time, dude.
• 32:08
  What a time. What a world in Philly. Also, another team that I would look
• 32:12
  out for, Chicago Cubs, who desperately need another arm. They're not doing
• 32:15
  it. I don't see them doing it either because they never fucking do.
• 32:20
  They're the same as the Red Sox. You're right. And then, uh, one more team
• 32:23
  that I think should also really consider it, the fucking Milwaukee Brewers,
• 32:26
  man. Like, yes, and they are— they've been keeping tabs, and the
• 32:29
  Brewers have been knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking. How long are
• 32:33
  you gonna knock on the door? How long? The Mariners, how long are you gonna
• 32:35
  knock on the door? Some of these teams, I'm like, you have been so close.
• 32:39
  Like, come on. We don't— I mean, as much as I know you would
• 32:43
  love to see the Dodgers win every single year, we also— it
• 32:47
  would just be good for my radio. It'd just be good for my radio show.
• 32:50
  That's, that's really why. Outside of that, I mean, yeah, absolutely.
• 32:53
  And I mean, listen, the— if you got to maybe get tickets,
• 32:57
  you know, that wouldn't suck. Some— I might be able to bring certain friends.
• 33:01
  And then like, who might want to go with you, you know what I'm saying?
• 33:04
  But yeah, like that. But there are other teams that I do think baseball fans
• 33:08
  would be really excited to, to see, um,
• 33:11
  make that next leap. And as, uh,
• 33:15
  as people who want to see baseball, you know, someone was saying
• 33:19
  recently like, why don't sports— why
• 33:23
  doesn't sports TV and sports talk talk more about all teams in these
• 33:27
  leagues? Like, why is it always, you know, the Lakers and the Dodgers and
• 33:31
  the Knicks and the Celtics and the Patriots and the, and the, you know,
• 33:35
  Chicago and whatever, right? Like, and, you know, my answer was because you guys,
• 33:39
  you guys tune out. You tune out. The ratings aren't there. We would
• 33:43
  love to. I would love to talk more. About baseball
• 33:48
  on my show all the time. I would love to talk about hockey. I would
• 33:51
  love to talk about a lot of things. You guys don't fucking listen. You want
• 33:54
  to hear us talk about LeBron and
• 33:58
  Josh Allen. That's what you fucking want. If you stay and listen to the
• 34:01
  segments— and you know, they were like, you know, well, that's not true,
• 34:04
  and blah blah blah. And I was like, I look at the ratings for the
• 34:07
  World Series when the Rangers played the Diamondbacks. It was those World Series
• 34:11
  I wanted. But guess what? Found out no one fucking else did.
• 34:15
  And those teams were so fucking fun. So fun. So you
• 34:19
  could— it was some of the best baseball that we've seen in the World Series.
• 34:22
  Those teams were fun. It was cool leading into it. That playoffs was really cool.
• 34:26
  You guys didn't want to watch because it wasn't the Dodgers and the Yankees and
• 34:30
  the Mets. I don't know what to tell you. And so for me,
• 34:33
  I see the, uh, a few of these teams as being able to help that,
• 34:37
  um, fatigue out a little bit while still keeping ratings.
• 34:41
  Chicago White Sox, they help. That helps. People want to watch the
• 34:44
  White Sox. That's a good one. Seattle, underratedly, is the
• 34:48
  kind of team that people would tune in for. I think like we
• 34:52
  could boost it up a little bit. You get what, you know, hey,
• 34:55
  maybe you get a Yankees and a, you know, uh, another one of these teams,
• 34:59
  or you get a Dodgers and another one of these teams. But anyway, that,
• 35:01
  it's, that's neither here nor there. I, I don't want— it's
• 35:06
  not that I am rooting against the Dodgers. Yeah, I just would love
• 35:09
  for a team to really go out there and make the
• 35:13
  move that needs to be made for a player like that. Like, I mean,
• 35:16
  he's— in your opinion, I mean,
• 35:20
  he's got to be one of the most sure thing dudes at a deadline we've
• 35:24
  seen in a minute. It— to me, this isn't even a question. Like, this guy
• 35:28
  takes— he's a sure thing team. It's, it's like, it's, it's not
• 35:32
  a guaranteed win But it is as fucking close
• 35:36
  as you're going to get for this week. He's a guaranteed
• 35:40
  chance to make you compete, to actually give you a chance to really win.
• 35:43
  He will do his job. Like, he's going to
• 35:46
  make your team better, no questions asked. Dude, there's a lot of
• 35:50
  names that might be available. Keep in mind, the Blue Jays, if they, if they
• 35:53
  say put out Kevin Gausman, that's a guy that's going to help somebody win.
• 35:56
  If the Giants trade Robbie Ray, that's going to be a big one. That's a
• 36:00
  fucking Cy Young Award winner right there. I'm a big Robbie Ray guy because wasn't
• 36:02
  he on the— he was on the Diamondbacks. He was on the Diamondbacks. Uh,
• 36:05
  it could be, you know, fucking— they— if they trade Luis Arraez,
• 36:08
  why the fuck is no one talking about Luis Arraez? The guy's hitting like .340
• 36:13
  in today's baseball. Like, like, there's so many names
• 36:17
  that are out there gonna help fucking teams win. And oh, it's gonna be a
• 36:20
  hell of a year. By the way, question totally off topic but still
• 36:24
  on baseball. I'm listening. Nolan Arenado got
• 36:29
  a bunch of— he's got a bunch of like Uh,
• 36:32
  you know, sort of career accumulative stats. So I'm
• 36:36
  talking to somebody the other day, he's got like 10 Gold Gloves, I think,
• 36:39
  right? Yeah, it's crazy. Bats career
• 36:42
  .285. I said to somebody,
• 36:47
  I was like, I don't think— I don't think— no, I think he could have
• 36:50
  25 Gold Gloves and they will not put him in the fucking Hall of Fame
• 36:54
  unless he can get closer to .300 career batting average.
• 36:57
  He told me I was crazy. I don't think
• 37:01
  you're crazy, but continue.
• 37:06
  I looked it up. I looked up— this was
• 37:09
  after I said this— I looked it up. It is almost
• 37:13
  impossible to get into the Baseball Hall of
• 37:17
  Fame no matter how good of a fielder you were,
• 37:21
  no matter how good you were. Unless you're a pitcher, of course, that's a
• 37:24
  different thing. Unless you batted .300 or higher.
• 37:29
  I'll tell you this, if he— he's got over 2,000 career
• 37:33
  hits. Doesn't matter, Cody. He's got over 1,200 RBIs.
• 37:38
  Doesn't matter. He hits— possibly if he gets
• 37:41
  over 400 home runs, I think— doesn't matter— he's gonna get
• 37:44
  in, Cody. He would be. Uh, what I'll say is,
• 37:48
  if that's the case he would be an anomaly.
• 37:51
  Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. I'm not saying— I'm not saying
• 37:55
  it should be like that, but there are guys with, with that kind
• 37:59
  of— like, it's essentially he's an anomaly because most of the time guys with
• 38:03
  his accolades have hit at least like .290,
• 38:07
  .295. At least, at least they're
• 38:12
  usually over .300. He's such an anomaly in that way. He's just like not the
• 38:15
  kind of hitter, but he hits for power. He can hit for power, you know,
• 38:19
  he's got an unbelievable glove. Yeah, so just wanted to throw that out there,
• 38:23
  something to track, uh, as a baseball stat nerd myself, something to track.
• 38:27
  And I want to— all right, um, I want you to have that in here.
• 38:29
  I, I appreciate it. I'm looking it up right now. I just want to see
• 38:32
  all the players who have a lower batting average than him that are in the
• 38:35
  Hall of Fame, and the list is not long. It's a very,
• 38:39
  very short list. You're not wrong. So there are 4.
• 38:42
  Roy Campanella was a .276 hitter. Um,
• 38:46
  but he was also— he was an 8-time All-Star and a 3-time MVP, and his
• 38:50
  career was cut short by that, that car accident, right? Um,
• 38:53
  Harmon Killebrew was a first baseman, but he hit nearly 600 home
• 38:57
  runs, which over 500 home runs is a guarantee in. Uh,
• 39:02
  Rabbit Maranville— I have no idea what a motherfucker— now are we
• 39:05
  getting into the, uh, this is 1914 Braves player.
• 39:10
  So good old, good old Rabbit was a good one out there.
• 39:14
  Why is he in? Well, he's a legendary defensive shortstop who played 20 seasons
• 39:17
  and stacked up 2,605 hits. My goodness,
• 39:21
  what a time for the Boston Miracle Braves. And, uh,
• 39:25
  Ray Schalk, who, uh, uh, what,
• 39:28
  regarded as one of the greatest defensive catchers in baseball history. Schalk revolutionized
• 39:32
  how position was played in the dead ball era. So another guy who,
• 39:36
  um, is on old cigarette cards, I guess. So this is right
• 39:40
  now. Now you learned something today because I know what's going to happen is someday
• 39:43
  down the line when you're on, on the radio with D-Fish or whoever,
• 39:47
  right? Something's gonna come up and you're gonna be like, actually, something you need to
• 39:50
  know about the Baseball Hall of Fame is that— well, then, you know, no,
• 39:54
  no, but I have an answer now. My answer is now, well, Roy Campanella's in.
• 39:56
  What do you— what now? Fuck off. Yeah, but to your point, the 3— those
• 40:00
  3 MVPs, man. I mean, yeah, if, if Arenado had 3 MVPs,
• 40:03
  I wouldn't think it was an issue. But like, again, it's there— that, that,
• 40:06
  um, co— that coalescence of those specific things in one player is
• 40:10
  super rare. And it's crazy. So my point essentially was that like
• 40:15
  the, the Hall of Fame favors hitting so much
• 40:19
  over fielding that like I genuinely think he could win a Gold Glove
• 40:23
  in every single career he played, like every single year of his career. But if
• 40:27
  he hits .280, they're not letting him in unless he hits 500 homers, right?
• 40:30
  Yeah. Um, he could get just 400. He can get to 400. I mean,
• 40:34
  it's gonna take him probably 2 more seasons to do it, but, uh, oh,
• 40:37
  it's even in the chat. Yeah, he's got 367 career home runs. Yeah, no,
• 40:39
  he's got probably 2 more seasons that he could probably get it done if if
• 40:42
  he plays for 2 more seasons. So how do you like that?
• 40:46
  Sometimes I can talk about baseball with you, Cody. Hey, listen, I, I love
• 40:50
  the opportunity to talk a little bit about baseball. I just, you know, shooting the
• 40:53
  shit on a couple of players. I just like remembering— I love remembering that you
• 40:56
  played baseball, you know what I mean? Well, I posted a photo of me playing
• 40:59
  baseball the other day, and I think it tripped you out like a motherfucker.
• 41:02
  I'm actually a little upset because that blue thing— I'm having so much trouble with
• 41:05
  editing photos and shit and putting things on, uh, Instagram lately.
• 41:08
  Uh, it's been really frustrating. Uh, I, I keep like having writing— there was writing
• 41:12
  underneath it that said another time and fucking didn't
• 41:17
  even come through. I know, I saw it, I saw it. No, for me it
• 41:20
  just said, uh, it was just all blue. No, I saw the little— like
• 41:24
  you put like a little caption on it. It said another
• 41:27
  time. Is that what you're talking about? The caption on the— on your live?
• 41:30
  Yeah, but it wasn't on your story. It wasn't supposed to be small,
• 41:33
  it was big writing. It just like disappeared behind— disappeared like behind the thing.
• 41:37
  And I'm like, what the fuck? Keeps doing that to me over and over and
• 41:40
  over again. Well, you know what, either way, I do really
• 41:44
  enjoy that. Um, I remember every once in a while that my,
• 41:48
  my dear friend and podcast co-host actually played baseball. I did. We talk
• 41:51
  about it all the time. It's— I'm telling you, it's the weirdest thing because
• 41:56
  to me you're just the sports media guy. You're a sports media guy.
• 42:00
  Well, just imagine— but I know, I obviously know you played
• 42:04
  baseball. I just wasn't there for it, so it's weird. I know, but you have
• 42:07
  to understand because you know me in a completely different life. I know, like,
• 42:10
  my my baseball playing years, it honestly feels like a fever dream.
• 42:13
  I like how to look back and I like remember it as like dreams.
• 42:16
  It's like not even real to me anymore. And it— but it fucking happened.
• 42:20
  I was there. Uh, well, imagine being me. If you can't believe it
• 42:24
  being you, imagine how I feel now. Imagine how I feel.
• 42:27
  I am now a sing— when I'm a single man like going on
• 42:31
  dates, and then like I looked you up and I saw that you were a
• 42:34
  pro baseball player, and like I— then, then the conversation
• 42:38
  like goes that way. And it was, it was way worse whenever I— it was
• 42:41
  actually way worse in New York because my divorce for, you know, because my marriage
• 42:44
  was like online. Yeah, but my divorce wasn't. Did you
• 42:48
  have drama in like the New York Post? Did they put your shit in like
• 42:51
  the tabloids? No, no, amazingly, which I had a feeling for,
• 42:55
  they didn't give a fuck about my marriage. They wrote
• 42:59
  about me several— they wrote about me several times but never once about that.
• 43:03
  But also like didn't make it all that much public. But it was so funny
• 43:05
  when I was going on dates when I first became single, right? I was going
• 43:08
  on dates and like it was awful. I, I read that you're
• 43:12
  married. You're like, yeah, I'm not.
• 43:15
  Yeah, well, I'm sorry, I'm not editing my Wikipedia and I decided not
• 43:19
  to Wikipedia my divorce. You want to edit my Wikipedia for me then? Please,
• 43:24
  please do. So that was always fun. And that and the whole pro baseball thing,
• 43:27
  because one, I didn't look exactly the same as I did when I was a
• 43:30
  pro. That's true. Yeah. And 2, uh, you know,
• 43:34
  I, I was good. I got to the big leagues.
• 43:37
  I was good. Like, I was very, very, very good. But like,
• 43:41
  oh, there were better ballplayers than me. So sure,
• 43:44
  I mean, there's better ballplayers than everybody except for like 6 ballplayers,
• 43:49
  so it's all good, you know? That's true. That is true.
• 43:52
  I, I play— I know I played against those 6. Exactly. Fucking good.
• 43:56
  They're really good. It's like I'm on there playing the same sport. Exactly. So you—
• 44:00
  I mean, listen, and you're much better at baseball than I am. That is true,
• 44:03
  that is true. But then again, I've never seen you play, so— well, you don't
• 44:07
  want to. No, probably not. But hey, that has been phenomenal,
• 44:11
  phenomenal headlines. Let's get it over to, uh, a little bit
• 44:14
  of Media Corner because— yeah, listen, Media Corner, I have been dying to talk
• 44:18
  to you about this. This is so weird. Since I got this, uh,
• 44:22
  notification the other day, I was like I need to talk to Cody.
• 44:25
  Um, so as everybody knows by now,
• 44:28
  hopefully, Kyle Shanahan, head coach of the 49ers,
• 44:32
  was in a like terrifying car accident a little over
• 44:36
  2 weeks ago. Uh, was it? Yeah, it was like sometime in
• 44:40
  July, and he suffered a,
• 44:44
  a lot of intense injuries. Has 40 stitches in his face, broken hands,
• 44:47
  broken rib, uh, massive concussion, like a
• 44:50
  bunch. Like he's lucky to be alive kind of car accident.
• 44:55
  That is bad enough. The whole thing is
• 44:59
  that it was reported the other day after it
• 45:02
  had happened weeks ago. Yep. Now immediately that
• 45:06
  I clocked that as incredibly odd. This is one of the
• 45:10
  most famous people in the NFL, player or coach. Kyle Shanahan is an incredibly
• 45:14
  famous person in the NFL. Nepo baby, the whole deal.
• 45:17
  We've known about Kyle Shanahan forever. Uh, has coached in several Super
• 45:22
  Bowls. Then Chris Sims
• 45:26
  gets on, uh, his, you know,
• 45:30
  whatever platform he was saying it on and says the whole— uh,
• 45:33
  he reveals that he's known the— oh, he was on PFT Live. He reveals he's
• 45:37
  known the entire time essentially about this and that he, you know,
• 45:42
  because they, they've been friends since back in the day. He said knowing
• 45:46
  what he knew, Sims said he found himself checking the news daily,
• 45:50
  half expecting the story to break each time it didn't. I was sitting there
• 45:53
  every day it happened going, is the news going to break today?
• 45:57
  Is the news going to break today? Is the news going to break today?
• 46:00
  I certainly looked at my wife a few times in the last 12 to 13
• 46:03
  days and we looked at each other and said, huh, this— it's still pretty
• 46:07
  amazing it hasn't come out. He said the whole concept of friendship is different
• 46:10
  than the concept of doing your job as a reporter. In sort of the
• 46:14
  answer to why he didn't say anything
• 46:19
  himself as somebody who's been in the media for a while.
• 46:22
  Um, you and I have talked a lot since the Diana Rossini,
• 46:27
  uh, news about the double standard that is being held,
• 46:30
  uh, around her having these specific relationships with people that may or
• 46:35
  may not have— we have no proof it ever did— but may or may not
• 46:38
  have affected her uh, decisions to report specific
• 46:42
  things. We now have something that
• 46:47
  undoubtedly dozens of reporters at least knew
• 46:51
  about. More than that, more dozens
• 46:55
  more outside of direct beat reporting that knew about it.
• 46:59
  People like Chris Sims, all the people that are friends with Kyle Shanahan that may
• 47:03
  or may not have told a reporter nothing, Cody.
• 47:07
  Nothing came out for 2 weeks about one of the most famous successful
• 47:10
  head coaches in the NFL nearly dying in a car accident. What do you think
• 47:14
  about that? Um, I think that it's really interesting that
• 47:18
  all of the reports from ESPN and Schefter and everyone all
• 47:22
  came out— oh, and the team statement all came out within, I don't know,
• 47:25
  1 minute of each other. Um, that seems very problematic because
• 47:29
  we actually have discussed this multiple times about how all the coordinated efforts to
• 47:33
  get out statements Um, where,
• 47:36
  where are the sports journalists is my question. Where is
• 47:40
  the— give me— because I keep telling you, I think sports journalism
• 47:43
  in sports is completely dead. I think this is just fucking
• 47:47
  proof because the journalists that reported on it had
• 47:51
  a very lovely calculated effort through the NFL and
• 47:54
  ESPN and the 49ers,
• 47:57
  what, 12 days after the fucking incident? And by the
• 48:01
  way, I'm not even mad at Chris Sims because I, I don't really look at
• 48:03
  Chris Sims as a quote-unquote reporter. That being said, like,
• 48:07
  the double standard about friendships in this business to this point is
• 48:11
  just fucking outrageously nauseating. You know what the worst part is?
• 48:14
  People are gonna look at that statement from Sims and go like, and oh,
• 48:17
  like, oh, what a great job, that's so wonderful. Where the fuck were all
• 48:21
  of you fucking 5 months ago? Like, what the fuck is this?
• 48:25
  Like, like, and again, this has nothing to do with Chris Sims,
• 48:27
  it's just the fucking situation. Also on top of it, the fact that it was
• 48:31
  12 days after the Now I have actual questions
• 48:34
  about this. Like, why was it 12 days after the fact that it was reported?
• 48:39
  Why was it a coordinated report altogether? 12 days.
• 48:43
  12 days. As you already eloquently already said, that it was one
• 48:47
  of the most famous people in the NFL and we don't know about it for
• 48:50
  12 days. I think it was actually 14 total. That was— what the
• 48:54
  fuck is going on here? How was this being able to be
• 48:58
  bottled up? And, and why is the NFL and
• 49:02
  the team and reporters coordinating about its
• 49:06
  conversation? Means to me— now, there might not be anything more to
• 49:09
  this, but now I 100% think there's so fucking much
• 49:13
  more to this that I think actual investigators need to get
• 49:17
  involved. And I wouldn't have said it if you just fucking told us when it
• 49:21
  fucking happened. Like, right, you just— and Ryzan affected this
• 49:24
  bitch. A hun— that's a perfect way to say it because the Streisand
• 49:28
  effect has become essentially how news is now
• 49:32
  because this is exactly what happens. Why on earth would we
• 49:36
  not— now everybody, every single time we talk about something like this,
• 49:40
  there's somebody in the comments, HIPAA, man, you can't just release
• 49:44
  medical information. First of all, no one's asking for that. We know
• 49:47
  Mitch McConnell's in the hospital. Okay. Why do we
• 49:50
  know that? Because that's reporting. You can report that somebody's in the hospital.
• 49:54
  That's not a HIPAA violation from a goddamn reporter because you didn't get it from
• 49:57
  a fucking doctor. Thank you. Um, car accidents are public record.
• 50:01
  You can report a fucking car accident. You can report that somebody is
• 50:05
  in the ICU. You can report that somebody is being treated for something. You do
• 50:08
  not need to— if you share someone— if a doctor shares his personal and
• 50:11
  what he went through, that's a different story. We didn't know— need to know even
• 50:15
  how bad the injuries were. We just needed to know that Kyle Shanahan was in
• 50:19
  a terrible accident, which is something we hear all the time about literally everybody else
• 50:22
  who's in terrible accidents. I don't know what the fuck we're We knew Tony Romo
• 50:24
  got an OUI real quick, right? Like, come on now. So now
• 50:29
  you're like, okay, I look at the report. Part of the report says nobody
• 50:34
  was cited for this 2-car crash. Neither— no
• 50:38
  one cited. No, no issues,
• 50:41
  right? We've got a crash that nearly killed somebody. I don't even know
• 50:45
  how the other driver is. I think everybody else is okay. I know no one
• 50:48
  died, at least But it's not reported that— to your
• 50:52
  point, not been reported that anybody else— I don't know. Do we know that
• 50:55
  anybody's reporting anything anymore? Because that's
• 50:59
  odd to me, not being— not a single citation in a car
• 51:02
  crash that bad. So 2 people accidentally just
• 51:07
  ended up in a disaster. Okay, interesting. Did anyone exchange,
• 51:11
  uh, insurance information? Sounds like we don't know shit.
• 51:15
  Right. And here we are, months and months after
• 51:19
  all of the hullabaloo around journalistic integrity.
• 51:23
  How dare you? How dare you have personal and
• 51:27
  professional relationships that, that may, or that may compromise
• 51:33
  potentially your ability to report completely unbiased news to
• 51:37
  the general public? And we've got— by the way,
• 51:40
  you're telling me Adam Schefter didn't know Kyle Shanahan was in a car accident?
• 51:43
  You're telling me Ian Rapoport didn't know Kyle Shanahan was in a car accident?
• 51:47
  You're telling me none of these people knew? Chris Sims knew because
• 51:51
  this is buddy. Nobody knew? Interesting.
• 51:55
  That's interesting. So now you know what else I'm going to ask, Cody?
• 51:58
  I'm going to ask how people somehow know what the hell
• 52:02
  is going on with 49ers wide receivers
• 52:06
  when there's leaks out of that building. I'm going to wonder how the fuck
• 52:10
  that's possible? How is it possible that we're getting
• 52:13
  anonymous sourcing out of San Francisco? Because as far as
• 52:17
  I can tell, you guys are so locked down we didn't know your head coach
• 52:19
  almost died. So now I don't trust anything coming out
• 52:23
  of that fucking media at all, or that building. If something leaks
• 52:27
  out of that, if, if I get an anonymous source out
• 52:30
  of San Francisco from Adam Schefter— oh, that's— we know,
• 52:34
  we know they wanted something out there. Yeah, period. Stop. Like This,
• 52:38
  to me, this was a tell. Like, this was the final tell. Like,
• 52:41
  that's it. Adam Schefter is not a reporter. He's not an insider.
• 52:46
  He is not. The NFL owns what, how, how much
• 52:49
  of ESPN? Like, like an actual percentage of ESPN at this
• 52:53
  point based on the whatever the current TV deal is? I don't even fucking know.
• 52:56
  Like, all I know is the intermingling— it— when you
• 53:00
  own your own fucking news outlets you have a problem.
• 53:04
  And this is what we're dealing with, man. And I need people to fucking
• 53:08
  understand what we're dealing with. We're not dealing with any
• 53:11
  semblance of reporting anymore. It's, it's over. Like, first,
• 53:15
  it's really— I want to, I, I want to not be cynical and say that
• 53:18
  it's not over and that there are serious journalists out there, but I don't
• 53:22
  believe it because I— this— because this is this, this right here.
• 53:26
  Yep. I'm really glad that you are as, um, frustrated,
• 53:30
  confused, and suspicious of it as I am, because I felt like gaslit looking
• 53:34
  at this. So thank you. Um, we will revisit this,
• 53:38
  I'm sure. This is not the last we're going to talk about. Oh no,
• 53:41
  there's way too much to find out here. Some actual journalist is going to
• 53:44
  fucking dig into this. It's Pablo Torres. He's our only hope. It's all right.
• 53:48
  Pablo Torres is our only hope. I guess so. Fuck. At this point, at this
• 53:51
  point, I'm like, do I have to start being a beat— like, do I have
• 53:54
  to be an insider? Maybe, maybe this is where my lot in life is.
• 53:57
  Um, before we head out of Media Corner, I do want
• 54:01
  to talk about somebody that you and I have talked about before that we really
• 54:04
  respect in terms of her, uh, broadcasting and commentary is Monica
• 54:07
  McNutt, uh, who countered Caitlin Clark's comments by calling for accountability
• 54:12
  and self-awareness. Yes. Now before I read, uh, what she said,
• 54:16
  I— it should be noted that this is, this is sort of splitting. It's splitting
• 54:19
  WNBA fans. Some people, um,
• 54:22
  are on the side of Monica, some people feel critical of her, and there's,
• 54:26
  there's not a monolith of, of, uh, of public opinion on
• 54:30
  this. So nuance, people. Yes. During ESPN's,
• 54:33
  uh, Women's Sports Sunday show, uh, McNutt was asked to respond to
• 54:37
  comments, uh, made by Clark to ESPN during an interview at WNBA All-Star
• 54:40
  Weekend in which the Indiana Fever star said that narratives about
• 54:44
  her were not based in reality and that she sometimes borders on
• 54:47
  being fearful of the fervor behind the controversies that she
• 54:51
  faces in the league. She said, when I walk out of the locker room,
• 54:54
  I shouldn't be, uh, not fearful of what the conversation is going to
• 54:58
  be. But it's emotionally exhausting. It's draining. It makes your shoulders tense because
• 55:01
  people don't want to talk about the basketball. They just want to stir up something
• 55:05
  else and make it something else. Uh, McNutt argued that Clark was
• 55:09
  wrong to suggest she was scared of these fans and media narratives,
• 55:12
  given that other WNBA players have faced real threats,
• 55:15
  sometimes as a result of run-ins with Clark. She said,
• 55:18
  I thought the choice, the word of being fearful of the conversation
• 55:22
  after a game that she alluded to, was interesting because Oftentimes
• 55:25
  it seems, at least in the larger discourse— and not that this is an emotional
• 55:29
  experience, this isn't an emotional experience for Caitlin Clark, because I believe
• 55:32
  it is— but it's the folks that are accused of doing outside the parameters
• 55:36
  of competition who are fearful when you look at their social media. She said just
• 55:39
  last week, um, that, you know, we're talking about like the, the racist,
• 55:43
  uh, threats and physical threats to other Black players, all that stuff,
• 55:47
  a lot. And, um, just the stuff that the you and I
• 55:51
  have talked about Congress stepping in on behalf of Caitlin Clark,
• 55:54
  a lot of really white supremacist fans stepping in on behalf of Caitlin Clark,
• 55:57
  and Caitlin largely being fairly silent about just how big, uh,
• 56:01
  of support she's getting from a very specific demographic of
• 56:04
  people. Um, and then last, you know,
• 56:08
  however, on last week, you know, Shenee Agumoke urged women's basketball media to
• 56:12
  recenter the conversation about Clark back towards basketball.
• 56:16
  Um, so people see that as potentially being in
• 56:20
  contrast to how McNutt spoke about it today, but she did say that prior to
• 56:24
  Caitlin Clark saying these comments at All-Star Weekend.
• 56:27
  Yeah. So as always, since I
• 56:31
  led us into the topic, I would like to know from you, Cody, kind of,
• 56:36
  um, you know, as,
• 56:39
  as a media entity, right? I think WNBA media
• 56:43
  in general is doing a pretty good job of trying to approach nuance.
• 56:48
  We have different perspectives from different players, former players,
• 56:52
  longtime broadcasters. Someone like Monica McNutt and Malika Andrews having this
• 56:56
  conversation, we're talking about real broadcasters here, um, and good ones.
• 57:00
  And then we're talking about the way— and I really like both of these people.
• 57:02
  Like, I don't like a lot of what's at ESPN. I like both of these
• 57:05
  two very much. I think that this is some of the most interesting media happening
• 57:09
  because unlike a lot of the other leagues,
• 57:12
  we don't have— it's not, it's not the same echo chamber
• 57:16
  you would think. You know, I don't think that there's anybody out there who's like,
• 57:20
  you know, not being critical of what's happening to the Black
• 57:23
  players or whatever else. But some people want it more about basketball. Some people
• 57:27
  are saying we can't ignore the outside stuff that's
• 57:31
  happening here. What Caitlin Clark is facing is not about basketball, and how she's
• 57:35
  perceiving it and how she's talking about it affects Where do you
• 57:39
  fall on this particular situation?
• 57:42
  Because I, I think that it's important that, like,
• 57:46
  because this is a more well-rounded conversation than some of the ones that
• 57:50
  we have that, that do exist, where it's, it's a, it's a much more—
• 57:54
  it's a little bit more controversial, you know, people are having different takes.
• 57:58
  Um, how do you see all this? You and I have talked about Caitlin Clark
• 58:01
  a lot, so— yes, well, one, I'd like to preface
• 58:05
  by this requires an outrageous amount of
• 58:08
  nuance to start with. Um, but also I'd like to start with,
• 58:12
  I don't think either of these two are wrong technically.
• 58:16
  And I'd also— and you might really be mad at me for this— I'd
• 58:20
  also will come to a little bit of the defense of Caitlin Clark's comments as
• 58:22
  well. Because listen, this is a 24-year-old woman who
• 58:27
  has been— I don't know what is like— listen, I, I can make assumptions
• 58:30
  about what she thinks and what's in her heart, and I could be very critical
• 58:34
  of how bored and I am. It drives me nuts. The,
• 58:37
  the leg contusion thing a fucking week ago was a goddamn clown show.
• 58:42
  I— but I also have seen endless
• 58:47
  amount of bastardizations of using her for outrageous
• 58:51
  political theater over the last couple of years, and a lot of bad actors taking
• 58:55
  everything she does with and really using it in
• 58:59
  the worst possible way. But also I see her not trying to
• 59:03
  push back on any of it either. Could be that she's trying to distance herself.
• 59:07
  Could be that she agrees with some of it and loves to play that victim
• 59:10
  shit. Listen, I truly do not know that answer, but I do
• 59:14
  know that she has been used as a pawn by a lot of really bad
• 59:17
  actors. And for that, I can only imagine how exhausting that portion is.
• 59:21
  And the fact that she is this member, this person who's a lightning rod of
• 59:24
  conversation, of controversy, really, no matter what she does at this point.
• 59:28
  And I will admit that is also the case. But the
• 59:31
  use of the word fearful— I hear Monica McNutt and I hear the words that
• 59:35
  she's saying because yes, a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of the discourse
• 59:37
  around Caitlin Clark has led to actual threats to women
• 59:41
  of color specifically throughout the league. And that is something Caitlin
• 59:44
  Clark is not being a part of. Is she being a battering
• 59:48
  ram of outrageous sexism? I, I can only fucking
• 59:52
  imagine. Uh, do I think she likes being used as
• 59:56
  legislation If I was a pro athlete and I was being thrown
• 59:59
  around in legislation that everyone needs to protect me,
• 1:00:02
  I would be fucking embarrassed. So, yeah, I think that as an athlete and
• 1:00:07
  a competitor, I would be embarrassed by that. Like, horrifically embarrassed
• 1:00:10
  by that. I don't know if she is or is not, by the way.
• 1:00:14
  I'm just giving you my perspective as a former athlete. But I will
• 1:00:18
  tell you this. I also agree with Monica
• 1:00:22
  McNutt in her perspective of this because I think she sees a perspective
• 1:00:25
  that Caitlin doesn't see. Uh, and I also think at
• 1:00:29
  times— and when I'm critical of, of Caitlin Clark
• 1:00:32
  not seeing this perspective— I also think I gotta remind
• 1:00:36
  myself at times she is a 24-year-old person who's only a couple
• 1:00:39
  years into this, and it's been an outrageous amount of rude awakenings in this
• 1:00:43
  league for her. She's had some success, and she's had some moments where she's been
• 1:00:47
  knocked right back down to fucking earth by the physicality and just by the really
• 1:00:51
  good play. I almost feel like I'm copping
• 1:00:54
  out because I'm kind of trying to see every single perspective here.
• 1:00:58
  Yeah, I mean, I don't really— what I'm trying to do, I think it's a
• 1:01:00
  cop-out to, to see like, okay, I can see where I agree with every perspective.
• 1:01:05
  Because I think if you really did not agree with one particular perspective,
• 1:01:09
  you would say it. It's not like you're somebody who generally is just trying to
• 1:01:12
  appease people. So I, I don't think you're copping out. Yeah, I don't think— I
• 1:01:16
  think that's a, that's a thing that we sometimes end up in where it's
• 1:01:20
  like no one's wrong and no one's completely right either.
• 1:01:23
  That is absolutely like a fair place to arrive at.
• 1:01:27
  Um, you know, I, I understand
• 1:01:31
  Shanay being like, I wish we could just recenter basketball around Caitlin Clark,
• 1:01:35
  because I understand that part, because I understand that when we don't
• 1:01:39
  center basketball around Caitlin, it means we're not centering basketball around a lot of other
• 1:01:43
  players. That— and that's— that is what a lot of That's what
• 1:01:47
  someone like Shanay really wants. She's not like, we need to make sure everybody cares
• 1:01:50
  about how Caitlyn's playing. What she's saying is like, if we can talk about basketball
• 1:01:53
  around Caitlyn, we can talk about— but the thing is, Caitlyn likes to talk a
• 1:01:56
  lot about basketball, uh, at her, you know, whatever,
• 1:02:00
  where it's like there's so much complaining, there's so much whining, there's so much flopping,
• 1:02:04
  there's so much— there's so many turnovers, there's so much going on there that she
• 1:02:08
  then goes and whines and complains about, which would be fine.
• 1:02:12
  She would just be like a whiny sort of turnover machine. And we could
• 1:02:16
  talk about how she's still like, you know, all these other things, just like we've
• 1:02:18
  talked about plenty of NBA players, except for the politicization,
• 1:02:23
  right? And here's the thing,
• 1:02:26
  Cody, and I've probably said this on the show before,
• 1:02:30
  there is no way— no one could ever use me
• 1:02:34
  as political theater, right? Oh, me neither,
• 1:02:38
  right? Because, because— and now, yes, I am much older than Caitlin
• 1:02:42
  Clark. I am much more experienced. However, with great
• 1:02:46
  power comes great responsibility, right? And she's
• 1:02:51
  not too young to take the endorsement deal. She's not too young to get on
• 1:02:54
  a mic and complain about referees. She's not too young to unders— to, to fuel
• 1:02:58
  shit with Angel Reese in college. She's not too young for any of that shit.
• 1:03:02
  And now she's suddenly too young to be dealing with all the fearful bullshit,
• 1:03:06
  right? So, okay, all I know is that I,
• 1:03:10
  I've been loud and outspoken my entire life, and if I did not want
• 1:03:14
  people in Congress and white supremacists saying what they were saying on
• 1:03:18
  my behalf, I'd make sure people knew. And she just doesn't.
• 1:03:22
  Now, on the flip side, the Black women speak up for themselves all
• 1:03:26
  the time, and by speaking up for themselves, they put a bigger target on their
• 1:03:28
  back. They be— you know, do you see how that kind
• 1:03:32
  of isn't fucking fair? Caitlyn says nothing, we still feel bad. Completely agree.
• 1:03:37
  Say something, you know, whatever. So I agree, that's where I tend to agree a
• 1:03:40
  little bit more with Monica. On that front. Do I understand that
• 1:03:44
  absolutely it's a lot to deal with at 24? I do. I really
• 1:03:48
  fucking do, 100%. But I also just
• 1:03:51
  think we have to stop— like, like, at what
• 1:03:55
  point do you own that you are in
• 1:03:59
  a unique position that is very difficult and there are comforts
• 1:04:03
  that you will be afforded in life that 90% of the world will never know?
• 1:04:08
  Right? Like, you're living a crazy life, and that
• 1:04:11
  is going to come with crazy consequences and crazy benefits.
• 1:04:15
  That's how it works. You don't get the
• 1:04:19
  benefits without the fucking consequences. And one
• 1:04:23
  thing's for goddamn sure, the Black women and the queer
• 1:04:27
  women in your league definitely don't. That's how I'll always feel about that.
• 1:04:31
  At the end of the day, I would love for
• 1:04:36
  things to be just about sports. They're never just about sports.
• 1:04:39
  I love Shanay with all my heart and soul. I know why
• 1:04:42
  she wants it to be all about the basketball and the WNBA, but she's got—
• 1:04:46
  you know, they got players out there dropping. Dijonae Carrington
• 1:04:50
  started spilling the tea about her ex-girlfriend in the league cheating with her,
• 1:04:54
  with other WNBA players in the league, on Threads and Twitter.
• 1:04:58
  They're not even making it about basketball. This is a league full of drama,
• 1:05:01
  just like the NFL is, just like the NBA is, just like baseball is.
• 1:05:05
  It's never— you've said this how many times— it's never just about sports.
• 1:05:08
  It's politics. It's everything. Sports aren't just sports, and they
• 1:05:12
  never will be. So can we try to reclaim the narrative and actually talk
• 1:05:16
  about the basketball more? Absolutely. I would love that. I would love to pop on
• 1:05:19
  here, talk to you about the 3-point competition, which, by the way, Caitlin Clark didn't
• 1:05:23
  take part of. No, she didn't. You want to know why? Because she's got a
• 1:05:25
  shitty 3-point shooting percentage. But that's neither here nor there, is it, Cody? Is it?
• 1:05:29
  No, I guess it's fucking not. I guess it's not. We don't need
• 1:05:33
  to do that. But you know what? AZ FUD was great, and I would love
• 1:05:35
  to talk to you about AZ FUD. I would love to talk about those things.
• 1:05:38
  Fact of the matter is, we are in Media Corner, so this is where we
• 1:05:41
  talk about media. We don't talk about ball. We talk about media talking about ball
• 1:05:44
  in Media Corner. That's what we're doing. And I appreciate your
• 1:05:48
  nuance on this, and I don't think that you are ever coming at things
• 1:05:52
  trying to parse, you know. I don't know. I think that you gave
• 1:05:56
  good perspectives for each corner of this, and I think that
• 1:05:59
  sometimes that's— we don't need to have big hot takes. No, no, sometimes it is
• 1:06:03
  just that. No, and I, I want to have a stronger take for—
• 1:06:07
  my stronger take for Caitlin Clark is simply this: I
• 1:06:10
  need her to have a take at this point. I don't give a fuck what
• 1:06:13
  it is. I need her to be on some side. I would literally— I would
• 1:06:17
  That's a great— I would literally prefer if she was just out and MAGA.
• 1:06:20
  Like, I own— like, just say, just be
• 1:06:25
  the MAGA, and that's it. Be the fucking MAGA girl. And then just be Nick
• 1:06:28
  Bosa. Yeah, like, just be Nick Bosa. I just, just— I'd
• 1:06:32
  rather you pick a side in this so we don't have to have— keep having
• 1:06:35
  this nuanced conversation. Yes, because if the conversation isn't nuanced,
• 1:06:39
  then it's no longer nuanced. The end. And then we
• 1:06:42
  can just— then we can just just call her, you know, then we can just
• 1:06:46
  call the racism what it is and stop just— and stop arguing about what— whether
• 1:06:50
  it is or not. Because MAGA is always going to say that it's not,
• 1:06:52
  and we're gonna always say it is, and then we can just all agree to
• 1:06:55
  disagree on that. Yep. Um, yeah, I don't agree to that. Neither do
• 1:06:58
  I. Something else I don't agree with, Cody,
• 1:07:02
  is there has been a massive pushback on a,
• 1:07:06
  on a, a recent announcement from something at Comic-Con. Lots of
• 1:07:10
  big announcements at Comic-Con, which you and I are going to talk about a little
• 1:07:12
  bit. We're gonna We're going to get into some follow-up thoughts about The Odyssey in
• 1:07:15
  Pop Culture Corner here, but the first thing I want to ask you about is,
• 1:07:18
  um, is the, is the pushback on David Johnson being
• 1:07:22
  cast as the next Black Panther. Now from what I know,
• 1:07:25
  correct me if I'm wrong, he's not playing T'Challa because he's
• 1:07:29
  playing a different— exactly, a different character who is going to
• 1:07:33
  become the next Black Panther. That's how this works in the comics,
• 1:07:37
  everything else. So A
• 1:07:41
  lot of people wanted Damson Idris cast. A lot of people wanted all these people
• 1:07:44
  cast. Everybody fan casts everything and then they get mad that they didn't— that the
• 1:07:48
  person that they didn't want. But, uh, there's critiques
• 1:07:51
  about him being British, which is funny because Letitia Wright is British. There's like— I
• 1:07:55
  mean, whatever. There's critiques about him being too small, even though Chadwick Boseman was
• 1:07:59
  never a huge guy. And a lot of these dudes aren't huge. They're fucking Hollywood
• 1:08:02
  actors. I don't know if— I hate to break it to you, but none of
• 1:08:05
  them are the size of WWE Superstars, okay? Um, Unless they are a
• 1:08:08
  WWE superstar, they're the Guardians of the Galaxy.
• 1:08:11
  Um, my whole thing
• 1:08:16
  is that if Ryan Coogler casts a shit
• 1:08:21
  as Black Panther, I'm gonna believe that
• 1:08:25
  Ryan Coogler cast the right shit as
• 1:08:29
  Black Panther. What are we doing, Cody? Are, are we now in the
• 1:08:33
  business of questioning a man who's never made anything but a
• 1:08:36
  fucking masterpiece? What are we fucking doing?
• 1:08:40
  What? Who? We are not talking about a
• 1:08:44
  fucking schlub here. We are not talking about somebody who doesn't take their culture
• 1:08:47
  seriously. Ryan Coogler represents Black American culture better
• 1:08:52
  than anybody outside of fucking Spike Lee ever.
• 1:08:56
  Like, truly, what are we talking about? You're You're
• 1:09:00
  mad he's British-American or he's a British actor?
• 1:09:03
  It's Ryan Coogler. You're gonna be really mad. Wait, wait, wait, wait,
• 1:09:07
  real quick. You're gonna be real fucking mad when you, when you find out about
• 1:09:10
  Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield. Also, I hate to break it to
• 1:09:14
  you, but Wakanda is not in America, baby. No, like, that's not—
• 1:09:18
  we don't have— close, baby.
• 1:09:22
  Cody, are we in the business of, of, of questioning the
• 1:09:26
  casting choices of Ryan Coogler? These days? Or are, are the people doing that
• 1:09:31
  losers who need to go outside and touch grass? Fucking such
• 1:09:34
  loser shit. I don't know. Ryan Coogler is such a
• 1:09:39
  fucking culturally important and staggering
• 1:09:43
  filmmaker that Marvel— I, I'm amazed that
• 1:09:47
  you thought that this was the big story, that, that, that, that, that David Johnson
• 1:09:50
  got the role. Because by the way, David Johnson, I've only seen him in 2
• 1:09:52
  roles. He fucking stole both fucking movies.
• 1:09:55
  Fucking— I didn't even like Alien: Romulus. You know what's the only thing I
• 1:09:59
  remember in Alien: Romulus? The only fucking thing was this cat's
• 1:10:03
  performance. Outside of that, you could have fucking scrapped the whole movie and thrown it
• 1:10:06
  into the sun. He was fucking fantastic. I would like
• 1:10:09
  more of that character. Yeah, that's it. He's a good actor. Ryan Coogler
• 1:10:14
  is going to be shooting this movie on film, on celluloid film. He is.
• 1:10:18
  Marvel's letting Ryan Coogler shoot this movie on
• 1:10:22
  celluloid film. Marvel, which doesn't let anyone do
• 1:10:26
  fucking anything, just said, oh,
• 1:10:30
  Ryan Coogler, you are willing to do another— yes
• 1:10:34
  sir, whatever the fuck you want, sir. Yes, yes,
• 1:10:37
  yes. He's Ryan fucking Coogler. This is a man that has yet to make anything
• 1:10:42
  that wasn't a masterpiece. And I want to say that again, a masterpiece.
• 1:10:46
  Yeah. His first movie was Fruitvale Station. This movie,
• 1:10:50
  um, it was the movie that made me realize that, that Michael B. Jordan was
• 1:10:54
  a star. It was such an— I'll never watch it again because it's
• 1:10:58
  just such a fucking hard watch, but it's a fucking perfect movie. Uh,
• 1:11:02
  Creed. A movie like Creed on paper should be a direct-to-fucking-DVD
• 1:11:08
  fucking feature. It was a— it might have been the fucking second
• 1:11:12
  best Rocky movie ever made. I, I do. Like,
• 1:11:15
  as I love Rocky, and like, there— I,
• 1:11:19
  I really think it's— there's an argument that Creed is better than any Rocky movie.
• 1:11:23
  And I'm not saying it is, but there's an argument. That's fucking crazy. It's crazy
• 1:11:25
  that there's even an argument. That's crazy that there's even an argument. Black Panther— what
• 1:11:29
  else do I need to say about Black Panther? You know what I think is
• 1:11:31
  even a bigger accomplishment than Black Panther is Wakanda Forever. And it's not because I
• 1:11:35
  think it's a better movie, it's because how the fuck did you make any of
• 1:11:38
  this work? Yeah, none of this should have worked. This should have been a
• 1:11:41
  shit show. Nope, that's Ryan Coogler working, that's why. Oh, and I don't
• 1:11:46
  know if any of you have heard of Sinners, it's a fucking masterpiece. Yeah,
• 1:11:49
  so anybody been around for any of this? So any of you questioning Ryan Coogler,
• 1:11:53
  you guys need a fucking— the only thing that can help you at this point
• 1:11:56
  is like a beheading or something. And by the way, the brain does not work.
• 1:11:59
  The person you were comparing him to, Chadwick Boseman, guess who
• 1:12:03
  cast him? Ryan, guys.
• 1:12:07
  Am I in a— am I in the Upside Down? Holy fucking shit.
• 1:12:10
  Okay, so there was one other thing from Comic-Con you wanted to talk about,
• 1:12:14
  and then we're gonna do a quick Odyssey, uh, catch-up. What was it from?
• 1:12:18
  There was something else from Comic-Con that you wanted to hit. There was one thing
• 1:12:20
  I wanted to hit, and that is I, I'm— I am, even though this wonderful
• 1:12:23
  announcement here, and I am looking very forward to Ryan Gosling playing Ghost Rider,
• 1:12:26
  one of my favorite characters of all time, very, very cool. Um,
• 1:12:30
  I can't help but think about the Doomsday panel and its reveal and
• 1:12:34
  I, I've seen a bunch of think pieces on the trailer and everything.
• 1:12:38
  I am excited, but I am so much more worried
• 1:12:41
  than excited, and I'll tell you why. Okay. Yeah, I'm a bit— I've been looking
• 1:12:45
  forward to do— just so you know, I've been looking forward to Doomsday so much
• 1:12:49
  for the— like, forever. Yeah, so, so have I. I truly mean that. But like,
• 1:12:53
  Marvel has gotten away with murder for a very,
• 1:12:56
  very long time, um, and the murder that they've got— and it has caught up
• 1:13:00
  with them, as, as the box office has shown. As a lot of their
• 1:13:04
  output is shown. As you know, like, like Captain America 4 was
• 1:13:07
  a bad movie. It just was a bad movie. I wanted it to be good,
• 1:13:11
  it just wasn't. And it wasn't because they've got some duds. Are you worrying that
• 1:13:14
  Doomsday is gonna be— and, and, but here's my reason why Captain America 4 wasn't
• 1:13:19
  great. It was because it was practically stuck together with duct tape and bubble gum
• 1:13:23
  at the end with so many reshoots that I— it just, and it just kind
• 1:13:27
  of felt like, oh man, the whole crescendo— when you start getting into lots
• 1:13:30
  of reshoots, it's never a good sign. It's a problem. And, and this movie's entire
• 1:13:35
  existence is basically the longest reshoot
• 1:13:39
  that's ever been done. This movie is constantly being
• 1:13:44
  redone. They even said as much so like the movie will be done when Marvel
• 1:13:47
  officially takes it out of our hands at distribution, to which I'm like,
• 1:13:51
  there is just so much work. And, and then also coming out of The Odyssey
• 1:13:54
  and seeing the trailer going, yeah, I do want to see this movie, but just
• 1:13:57
  like seeing— going from The Odyssey and the beautiful spectacle of the camera shots
• 1:14:02
  and the locations to just going back to a fucking green screen of so much
• 1:14:05
  digital effects. Maybe it's cool, like, I don't want to see that anymore.
• 1:14:08
  I want to see these characters but grounded
• 1:14:12
  in a real world, like how it kind of started. And we've gotten so into
• 1:14:15
  the fantastical that it's just— it— I mean, especially the X-Men movies
• 1:14:19
  were a lot more— they, they were a lot more grounded in that.
• 1:14:23
  That early, that early stuff was there. And to have all of these
• 1:14:27
  actors and all of these, like, worlds brought together and fuck it up,
• 1:14:31
  I mean, that's like Yeah, yeah, it's bad. And I— you're right, I don't
• 1:14:35
  have a ton of high hopes, and I've been looking forward to it forever.
• 1:14:37
  I mean, I'm gonna see it no matter what, but fuck. Now, now keep in
• 1:14:40
  mind that this is how the Russo Brothers work. They do a lot
• 1:14:44
  of improvisational work, and that— and they've made phenomenal movies
• 1:14:48
  stuck together with duct tape. I just— at
• 1:14:51
  some point, I, I'm worried the luck's gonna run out, and yeah, it might
• 1:14:55
  be this time. Imagine it runs out in Doomsday. We're like, yeah,
• 1:14:58
  motherfucker. Fuckers, for sure. Naturally. Really? Yeah. But that
• 1:15:01
  being said, I'm really excited because I got Spider-Man tickets for this week.
• 1:15:04
  I'm really excited for the new Spider-Man movie. And, uh,
• 1:15:08
  listen, I'm— you know I'm a big Marvel fan, but I'm, I'm also a big,
• 1:15:11
  uh, DC fan. I'm very excited for Lanterns, the new— do you see the new
• 1:15:14
  trailer for Lanterns? No, I— you need to show me.
• 1:15:17
  Let's watch it on Friday when I come watch it on Friday. Okay. Um,
• 1:15:20
  but yeah, no, I'm very excited for a lot of these things. And yeah,
• 1:15:23
  let's get away from the Comic-Con of it all. I'm worried about Marvel, but I
• 1:15:27
  think ultimately everything will be okay. Yeah. Um, that being said, uh,
• 1:15:31
  I did catch, uh, The Odyssey yet again. Yeah, you got
• 1:15:35
  to see it in IMAX. You said IMAX, IMAX 70mm, which I want
• 1:15:38
  to apologize to— there are only 41 IMAX 70mm in the entire world.
• 1:15:42
  I think only like 27 in the country. 2 were in Los Angeles.
• 1:15:46
  Okay. Um, now, um, I, I,
• 1:15:49
  I, I— seeing it in that— I saw it at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
• 1:15:53
  It was just— it was a staggering experience again, right? I love that.
• 1:15:57
  The visuals of this film, I mean, it just, it's, it just reminds
• 1:16:02
  you how good filmmaking can be. Yeah. And, and I wanted to hone in on
• 1:16:06
  something this second go-around while being kind of encapsulated in, in, in the,
• 1:16:09
  in the picture. Um, I wanted to focus a little bit more into
• 1:16:13
  the performances and, um, really kind of zero in
• 1:16:16
  on a couple. And I want to take away a couple of things just right
• 1:16:18
  out the gate. Um, John Leguizamo is fantastic
• 1:16:22
  in in this movie. And just like, just getting to see it again, he is
• 1:16:25
  just so fucking good in this. Um, Robert Pattinson
• 1:16:30
  is just so fucking good in this. Like, I, I don't know which of those
• 1:16:33
  2 is going to win Best Supporting Actor, but it's got to be one of
• 1:16:37
  them unless they switch up. But it's not because I didn't
• 1:16:41
  think R. Pattinson is great, I just think, uh, Leguizamo held it down. Yeah,
• 1:16:44
  they— these 2 were so good in this movie, just truly so good. Uh,
• 1:16:47
  and I heard everything you said with Matt about Matt Damon's
• 1:16:50
  performance, so I went in with that lens. I wanted to kind of go in
• 1:16:53
  with that lens. And I, I know you may still disagree with me even if
• 1:16:57
  you go have a second viewing. It honestly made me appreciate the, the performance even
• 1:17:01
  more. I, I just— yeah, there was something to this performance
• 1:17:06
  that really fucking worked with me a lot. I,
• 1:17:09
  I— well, you know, a lot of it's working for a lot of people,
• 1:17:12
  and a lot of people are split on it. So we are kind of a
• 1:17:14
  perfect example of how people are sort of feeling about this. Um,
• 1:17:18
  so I, I'm not surprised. Guys. Like, I'm not— you know, I think that it's—
• 1:17:21
  we're probably a great example of a gen— of a larger experience
• 1:17:24
  people are having with the film. Yeah. So, but, but as a
• 1:17:28
  film, I still think it is— I really still— I'm walking away
• 1:17:32
  thinking this might be his very best work. I'll tell you this, I didn't
• 1:17:35
  originally want to see it again. I might see it again, and I'm going to
• 1:17:38
  tell you why. Because I have seen a lot of discourse. Um, I told you
• 1:17:41
  some about some of it, people talking about just how Christopher Nolan—
• 1:17:45
  like, real film people, people who are far better than you or I at breaking
• 1:17:48
  down films— talking about how Christopher Nolan as good of an— as an auteur as
• 1:17:52
  he is, is just simply not an actor's director. That there's a very specific reason
• 1:17:55
  why he casts superstars in his, um,
• 1:17:59
  in his roles, and why he reuses actors and like very famous,
• 1:18:02
  uh, very, uh, experienced actors. Because he, he doesn't
• 1:18:06
  redo takes. You get 2 takes, you better fucking get it right the first
• 1:18:09
  time. He doesn't really care. Robert Pattinson told a story about asking for a little
• 1:18:13
  bit of direction and him being like, that's your job, mate, like whatever. He does
• 1:18:16
  not direct actors. Actors, right? And that's just a,
• 1:18:20
  a weakness of his in his— in his list. Every, every director
• 1:18:25
  has their thing. I love Christopher Nolan movies. Um, he's not an actor's director,
• 1:18:29
  uh, in the way that some of these directors are. This is a well-known
• 1:18:33
  thing across film critics. On the flip side,
• 1:18:38
  um, you know, he makes films
• 1:18:42
  in a way that no other, uh, director can either. Um,
• 1:18:48
  with that in mind and with hearing the actors talk about the experience
• 1:18:51
  of working with Christopher Nolan and just how,
• 1:18:54
  um, that process is, and then seeing Emily Wilson's
• 1:18:59
  really— do you know she's extra incredibly upset with the screenplay?
• 1:19:04
  Who was? So Emily Wilson. Oh yeah, yeah, I read her comments today.
• 1:19:08
  She, she really hated it. Which I thought was— hey, she hated it. She thinks
• 1:19:12
  all the nuance of all the characters was completely stripped out of the story.
• 1:19:15
  Yeah, yeah. And, and as somebody— listen, if,
• 1:19:19
  if I translated The Odyssey and someone used my translation and
• 1:19:23
  I didn't like it, I would be loud about it too. Um, and so I
• 1:19:26
  want to take what she said and take that to heart as well, and then
• 1:19:29
  take my own experience with it, right? And so then I think about that.
• 1:19:32
  I would like to go back and look at, at Matt Damon's performance under the
• 1:19:35
  lens of what the script he was given,
• 1:19:39
  which I, I think I actually might have blamed
• 1:19:43
  Matt Damon for things that's the fault of the screenplay,
• 1:19:48
  which is a thing that can sometimes happen. Um, because upon reflection,
• 1:19:53
  some of the plot, uh,
• 1:19:56
  emptiness that I was feeling in some of the spaces, uh,
• 1:20:00
  I— that might have been a part of it. So I, I, I am going
• 1:20:03
  to potentially do what you did and kind of go into it with looking at
• 1:20:07
  some of this stuff and seeing where I land with it, just so you know.
• 1:20:11
  So I'll keep you in the loop on that. I appreciate it. We'll be talking
• 1:20:13
  about the Odyssey for so long, we'll be on our own odyssey with the Odyssey.
• 1:20:17
  Not the same— the same way USC's on their own odyssey, which is still my
• 1:20:22
  favorite tweet of all time. Oh my God, I love
• 1:20:25
  it when— I love it when academic institutions tweet
• 1:20:29
  out things that show that they are not an academic institution. Yeah, right,
• 1:20:32
  I know. I know, well, this happens frequently. I feel like that's everybody.
• 1:20:36
  Everybody's just a hot mess. Yeah, yeah. Um, but no, I, I, I,
• 1:20:40
  I'm gonna see it a 3rd time. Um, and also, um, I got a
• 1:20:44
  question. Uh, I, I gotta talk to you probably about this off, off thing because
• 1:20:47
  I guess Annie doesn't want to go. I got 2 tickets to go see,
• 1:20:51
  uh, maybe I can maybe make it 3. 2, uh, tickets go see Sinners on
• 1:20:54
  Saturday night, 70mm at the Arrow. Maybe I can make it 3 or 4 tickets
• 1:20:58
  and convince if I convince that you and Chris go, maybe I can convince Andy
• 1:21:01
  to go. Yeah, I will. I'll text Andy and be like, we're all going.
• 1:21:05
  Um, I'll get 2 more tickets. That could happen.
• 1:21:09
  Text her. Text her right now. Say we'll double date at Sinner's on Saturday night
• 1:21:12
  if you go. Right now I just need— I haven't seen
• 1:21:15
  Chris in days. Hopefully he's getting home shortly, and then, well, we'll catch up
• 1:21:19
  on everything. But yes, I love this. I love this idea. First of all,
• 1:21:21
  we got— I mean, we have a lot of catching up to do. It's been
• 1:21:24
  way too long. Way too long. Is Mama Fox coming soon? Because I,
• 1:21:27
  I need to— yeah, we need, we need to sit down and talk. Is my
• 1:21:29
  dad still haunting her? He's been leaving her alone this summer. He's been
• 1:21:33
  chilling the last, last— I'm, I'm glad he's taken the summer off.
• 1:21:38
  He needed it. Yeah, so we should be good.
• 1:21:42
  Um, flying back on Wednesdays, which means you and I will be back in
• 1:21:45
  our comfy cozy studio, man, back together in the air-conditioned
• 1:21:49
  booth, and we'll be sweating in the in the room here with the, with the
• 1:21:53
  windows closed. We won't have to worry about this ring light cutting out, which it's
• 1:21:56
  going to do any second. If I make it through this whole episode without the
• 1:21:59
  ring light cutting out, I'm gonna be so proud of myself. So we have,
• 1:22:01
  we have to end it now so that we could just— I can just
• 1:22:04
  go out with the beautiful light on my face. Well, in that case,
• 1:22:08
  in that case, let's just be real clear. Like, share, and subscribe to The
• 1:22:11
  Regulars Pod wherever you get your favorite podcast. And of course, like, share, and subscribe
• 1:22:15
  right here on YouTube. We will have clips that are going out @theregularspod
• 1:22:19
  on Instagram. And of course, check out Tanya Ray's posts because she posts them.
• 1:22:22
  And check out my posts because I post them. Also, we didn't get
• 1:22:26
  to talk about the Bloody Sock because the reason why— and there's an actual reason—
• 1:22:29
  it's because she's in Boston and she's being like, it's like propaganda
• 1:22:33
  there, and she's being affected by nostalgia. Oh, you think I can't— you
• 1:22:37
  think I can't be, um, I can't be, uh, as unbiased as I need to
• 1:22:40
  be in the conversation if I'm in the glow of Boston? You'll be in fucking
• 1:22:43
  fucking capable. You'll be sitting here like quoting Cheers episodes.
• 1:22:47
  You'll be, you'll be sitting here being like, no, no, I think the new Frasier
• 1:22:49
  is great. And, and it just be— it'll be a nauseating
• 1:22:54
  conversation. So we'll wait for you. You know what? Well, you know what, Cody,
• 1:22:57
  that's okay, because for now I do
• 1:23:00
  have one thing I can contribute to the conversation regardless of where
• 1:23:04
  I am. I say this East Coast, West Coast, and if I was in the
• 1:23:07
  middle of the country in, in, in the Central Time Zone, I'd say the same
• 1:23:10
  thing. You know what it is? What's that? Fuck Kurt Schilling.
• 1:23:17
  We're the regulars. We are.