Local Hour: The Elephant Not In The Room
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The rare elephant out of the room. Yeah. Right? I like that. There's an elephant and he's not in the room. He's not in the room, yeah. But nobody can see the room at the moment. Right. Dan's not here yet. An elephant stuck in traffic is a funny visual. It's a hippo not in the room.

Behind the wheel, like, come on, honking his horn. His entire large, I'm picturing Dan's convertible now, and I've got just a giant elephant sitting out of the convertible, just like, what the hell? He can see more than the rest because he's an elephant. So he's kind of sharing with other cars. Like, there's a fire up there. He has a height advantage is what you're saying? Yeah. He's pointing with his trunk to let him know where the traffic is going. Two trunks in that car, huh? He's actually, since he's on the exchange, he's taking his trunk, dipping it into water, and trying to help by putting the fire out. See?

You have him as helpful, as courteous to the other drivers around him. I have him as just honking his horn hard. Rage. Come on! Yes, rage. I thought Dan only had like a two-mile commute. Like, isn't he very close? Yeah, but I would say this. I'm assuming he takes that causeway every single day. And if there's a worse place for gridlock in an accident...

If there's a worse place than the causeway, I am not aware of that place. I've watched Bad Boys 2, and I can concur with Stugatz. That place is terrible. Cops power sliding in a Ferrari and then opening fire on masses of people. Well, plus you can't get off.

Unless you live on Star Island, Fisher Island, you can't get off. The road's over when it's over. Well, I've seen the Rick Ross hustling video. You can get off the causeway. You just have to jump. You watch a lot of videos that have the causeway. I do. I love the causeway. Apparently there were fire trucks heading that way. So in all honesty, I hope everything's okay. We should get out there with that. But he could.

In theory, walk here and still get here in time. Absolutely. He's going to leave his convertible just on the causeway? I mean, he can get another one. That's true. I'm thinking Dan could get here quicker walking every day than I get here driving. We should do that one day. We should. You have Dan walking, huh? Dan could actually pay one of us.

To walk to the causeway to get in his car while he walks back. That's a great idea. He makes a show. We should try that. Fuentes, go get Dan's car. Anyway. Oh, we're still going. Yeah. I thought that was like a nice, natural, like an inch. It felt like it. Yeah. Well, we can come up with a little bit more. Stugatz, I don't know if you saw the news. What news? Delta Airlines. Yes. Is going to start serving Shake Shack burgers. That's amazing. On flights only out of Boston, though.

What? I might start connecting through Boston. I mean, how about that? No French fries, though. Burger, chips. Why no fries? It's difficult. I mean, fries don't travel well. Yeah. You know fries, you gotta get them fresh. If you don't get them fresh, then... They get even worse as they get higher in the air. Do you guys know about... I'm surprised Billy hasn't brought this up on the show. Shake Shack is sort of taking a shot at...

at Chick-fil-A and offering on Sundays only, because Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, their free, their chicken sandwich, which is free of antibiotics, apparently they say so, and Chick-fil-A's is not, and they're giving away one sandwich free every Sunday if you buy through the app and spend at least $10. So how'd he play? I did it last week, classic vegan meal.

I love the idea that Shake Shack, I mean, for Chick-fil-A for years, their marketing slogan has been like, eat more chicken and the cows and stuff. And Shake Shack HQ is like, enough of this bullshit. We strike back on their biggest vulnerability, Sundays. Mwahaha!

Wait, so why through just Boston? That's it? That's the only airport? Delta has a deal with Shake Shack, but it's only through Boston? Yeah, so typically whenever they launch these type of programs, they pick a market that's not quite as big. Why not out of JFK or LaGuardia? Well, they didn't want to go big. They want to take a nice, small, podunk market first. Right. I mean, Boston is not a small market. It's a small market compared to New York. Right. Come on now.

So it's a test market, is what you're saying. A test case. Provincial, you know. But that's good. We should all be excited. Like baby steps. It takes one city to have it work out well, and then suddenly we all have Shake Shack on our planes. But also, if it doesn't work out, we all know who to blame. Boston. Speaking of Boston, I saw a license plate this morning, and it said, or yesterday rather, it said Dunkin'.

And it was from New Hampshire. And Anthony asked, do you think he's a basketball? And I just stopped him right there. I was like, no, he's just from New England. They love Dunkin' Donuts up there. You didn't just show him a picture of Ben Affleck? No, I didn't. I think he didn't know it was all of New England. I think he thought it was just Boston that was obsessed with Dunkin'. Yeah, I think I'll go to Boston. I think I'll start a new life. I think I'll start it over where nobody knows my name.

That's a song. Boston by Augustana. You guys remember that one? 2004? Wrap it up. This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

Today's episode is sponsored by DraftKings. Stay tuned because you'll hear more about DraftKings and all it has to offer throughout the show. DraftKings, the crown is yours. You know, one of the rare things that happens in sports is when someone gets either like a technical foul or a yellow card or something. Right. And the game hasn't even started. We're like, you know, the refs are like, you know what? I'm not having this. So, Jeremy. Minor penalty, two minutes, high sticking. Yeah. Why? Why?

He's paying a penalty. Now he's paying two. Oh, it's for the song, right? Not for the costume? It's not for the costume. It's for what you did. Augustana. You don't remember that song? No, I don't. It was one of the biggest. Think Augustana.

I'll go to Boston. No? No? Nobody? Great song. No, it's not. It's a great song. It's on my Apple Music. I guarantee you. Thank you, Izzy. It is not a great song. It's a great song. I'll give you a good song. It's not a great song. Two minutes. Two minutes. Not a lot of piano-driven pop rock like that anymore. If you're watching on YouTube on Peacock or wherever on the DraftKings Network, yes, he is dressed...

Like a metal stovepipe. Mm-hmm. What are you? He's the Tin Man. He's the Tin Man. What are you? Quick, off the top of your head, what was the Tin Man missing? A horde. Courage. Oh, no. That was the lion. Ha ha!

He's missing hort. I always just think of oil. Oh, he was missing oil. He was missing oil, too. He was missing oil. You know, he was missing two things. He was missing two things. Everyone else is just one. Like the lion, you got a charmed life. All you're missing is courage. Everything else is there. Cool. Scarecrow, you don't have any brains. You know what?

You're not missing anything. I wish I didn't have brains. I wish I was just an idiot. I'm surprised you don't do a lion impression. The cowardly lion impression. Oh, heavens to Murgatroyd. I can't remember. It's been a while since I've seen Wizard of Oz. My wife could not be more excited for Wicked. Really? I'm kind of indifferent. My wife is going with my daughter on Friday. Same. Yeah. My wife's going with your daughter and your wife. Can I ask, is Wicked, I know it's a Broadway musical.

It's been adapted into a movie. I've been fascinated by this story, though I don't know it, for a long time. The idea of like, hey, what if you told the Wizard of Oz from the perspective of one of the witches, right? That's the premise.

My big question is, is it a Grease musical, meaning, hey, we act and every once in a while we have a song? Or is it a Hamilton musical where they just won't shut the hell up singing every little bit of dialogue? What's the problem if they do it that way? I'm not going to even give it, not even a whirl on Max or on Peacock or anything. If it's all singing?

If it's all singing, you can keep it. You'd rather just a little bit of dialogue and then randomly break out into song and not have song throughout the entire thing? Well, I mean, look, if it was my choice, there would be no singing at all. But I realize it's a musical, so my acceptable threshold of musical is Grease.

It's a movie, and then everyone's like, go grease, la-da-da-da-da. And you know what? Song's catchy. I'll live with it. But you're not going to Hamilton me where every single thing we do is a song. And Izzy, why don't you tell me your opinion of the matter? I actually don't have to fake it. I know a lot of the words to Hamilton if you ask. Can you sing the entire show today? I mean. Oh, you know what? That's a grid of death. We should have that as a grid of death punishment. For the audience. You've got to sing. Right, yes.

You got to sing every bit of dialogue. We did that, but we ended up using it on a mystery crate because it was easier. Honestly, I think we did the Tin Man, too. I don't know. Were we runs? I'm pretty sure someone dresses as a Tin Man already. It may have even been Jeremy. This may just be something he likes to do. It might also have been Dan just for fun.

Jeremy is at that point, too, right, where I think he dresses up just for fun, too. Totally convinced of it. No doubt, yeah. Yeah, Jeremy, like 20 years from now, he's going to have the biggest podcast in all the land, just dressing up sitting in the big chair. Sitting in gridlock. Talking about UCI, sitting in gridlock, honking his horn. I'm surprised Dan didn't have the helicopter take him out of the car and fly him to the studios. Again, I don't know how big of a helicopter you'd need, though.

Or would it be like Operation Dumbo Drop where they just hold them beneath? What are you doing? That was such a good movie, Operation Dumbo Drop. I mean, it wasn't. Come on, Billy. It was a great movie. Wow. Like the idea of we're going to drop elephants out of this airplane is awesome. Was it an airplane or was it a helicopter? Yeah, no. I thought that Operation Dumbo Drop, they had like the giant cargo planes and they pushed them out with parachutes. Yeah, you're right. I've always like...

I've always been interested by the idea of a plane's back, the butt of the plane just opening up and then everybody just jumps out of it. I'll never find myself in that scenario, but I see lots of movies in which that scenario occurs, so it seems more common than it is. Billy, I've never skydived. I don't think I'm ever going to skydive, but if I were to...

It would have to be from the back of a big plane. And you'd have to run and jump out. Yup. With the ramp. Dennis Leary was in that movie? Hell yeah, he was. What a cast. Yes. I don't think that you can solo parachute anymore unless you have some sort of certification. I think every time you go- You got to be strapped to someone. I think you're strapped to someone now. Then I got to be strapped to someone. We got to run together. Unless you do a class or something. You know, when we did the skydiving here for the show, I think it was like a red

thing or something I don't even remember a couple years ago I was like dangerously close out of character to saying you know what I'll do it wow because I'm never going to do it I think Tony ended up doing it and someone else who else did it or was it just him Witty

Yeah, Woody did it. Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember that. I just remember Tony nestling his head up against the guy's shoulder right before. That's all I remember. And then I think they did another activation where it was helicopters that were doing flips or something like that. And I don't think the video ever saw the light of day. Helicopters doing flips? Yeah, it was something crazy. It was stunt helicopters. Some things...

We don't need to do stunts in. What is going on with Jay Leno? I'm sorry. The poor guy, man. What is happening? I'm looking up and every time I look up, they're showing him showing off a new injury. Like he's got an eye patch and underneath it, it's disgusting and purple and he's got a wrist thing. What is happening? So Jay Leno was doing a stand-up show. I guess Jay Leno like...

just continues to work, even though he has all the money in the world, continues to work. And he was doing a show, I feel like he said it was in the Boston area, it could be wrong. And instead of taking the path down, because his hotel is at the top of a hill, he decided, you know what, I'm going to walk down the side of the hill. And then he fell down the side of the hill 60 feet. I got to tell you, walking downhill is a dangerous game. A dangerous game, and he's probably mid-70s now, right? So like,

This is going to sound mean, and I didn't mean to kind of do like a Jay Leno signing impression there, but like at a certain point, like you have that uncomfortable conversation like with your elders, your parents, your aunts, uncles, whatever. Whoever's like responsible in your life, you have to say like, hey, you know.

Maybe it's time we start hiding the car keys. Maybe, you know, and Jay's rich. Like, Jay, just like take a golf cart down. Take an Uber. What are we doing? Yeah. Oh, my God. Imagine taking Jay Leno's keys. Like he would always have a spare somewhere. Yeah. Because like when you take away elderly people's keys, what you find out, like I had a friend that they did that to the grandfather. Right. They took away the grandfather's keys. Yeah.

And the grandfather knew what was up. And he ended up passing away. When he passed away, they went to clean out his house. Before he found the keys? Okay, so they went to clean out his house. And when they went to clean out his house, what they found was he knew that it was happening. And he made a million copies and had keys hidden all over.

over at the house. So everywhere that they would clean, they'd find a new set of car keys that he hid in the house because he knew they were going to take away his car keys. Now multiply that by like 100 cars because Jay Leno. That's what I'm saying. Right, that's what he's saying, yes. Jay Leno would be impossible to stop him from driving. And it's not just driving, right? He flies too, or Harrison Ford is the one that flew. Did Jay Leno fly things too? Travolta.

No, but remember Harrison Ford crashed an airplane. I remember Harrison. Not too long ago. I don't remember Jay Leno. Yeah. Harrison Ford crashed an airplane. And then a couple months later, it's like, Harrison Ford flying again. It's like, why? Stop flying. What's wrong with you? In terms of Jay Leno, I'm saying just stay inside, man. This whole side of his face is purple. He's wearing an eye patch. Yes, we have sound. We do have sound of Jay Leno wearing an eye patch talking about the accident.

Jay Leno is all bruised up. The left side of his face is black and blue. His eye is swollen shut. And his injured wrist. I broke my wrist. Lost my nail on the finger.

And then I'm all black and blue. The comedian says he fell down a 60-foot hill. I said, well, the hill doesn't look that steep. Let me take a... You rolled down a hill? That's not true. Jay Leno says he was staying at a Hampton Inn about 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh on Saturday night when he wanted to have dinner at a local restaurant before his show. Instead of walking a mile and a half down the road, he decided to take a shortcut down the hill.

Not a good idea. The hill is a cliff. Okay, hold on. Wait, he stayed at a Hampton Inn? And then he's like, I'll be fine. Hold on. I'll see you again. Guys, guys, I have some reckless speculation here. Okay. Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call reckless speculation. You're good. The most excited I've ever been after hearing that sound. Unpaid gambling debts.

- Ooh. - Really? - Look at him. Can we get that image back on the screen? Not the video, but just the image of him. That's not falling down a hill injury. - Like how do you get hit in the eye socket specifically and that your eye swells shut? Like it must've been a tree is the only thing I could think of if that was the case.

Like the broken finger? The one broken finger? He's like, I lost a nail. And oddly enough, he's looking around when he says that, as if he just dropped the nail. Okay, he's reportedly worth $450 million. He just doesn't want to sell his cars? Keeps working. He is staying at a Hampton Inn. Staying at a Hampton Inn. He's still working? It's Pittsburgh. Exactly. You're Jay Leno? No.

If you're Jay Leno, you just do the comedy store and you do the comedy cellar. That's how you get your itch scratched. You just walk in there. By the way, Jay Leno, he's the type of comedian, walks in, doesn't matter who's on the set, they're going to bump them and put them up there. I love Billy thinking that Pittsburgh doesn't have any good hotels. I mean...

So he reportedly did a show like 90 minutes after this accident. He just went and did a show anyways. And if you want, you can see Jay tonight back in L.A. He's doing some charity show. Guy doesn't want to stop working. Even more to the point, you got to keep earning. Maybe he's not worth $450 million. Maybe he's broke. You know what I would do now thinking about this?

So this is mean and borderline elderly abuse. So I'm just going to get out on the front end and say this. Clear out. Okay, so we've gotten this out of the way. Borderline elderly abuse, but the ends justify the means on this situation. This is elderly abuse, but it's for a good cause. So as we've seen, Jay is prone to accidents. He caught on fire not too long ago also, I believe. There's a situation with a fire. So Jay...

Obviously, we need to keep him busy because I guess he's bored. That's why he's doing these shows or gambling debts, as Amin said. But I think he may just be bored and looking for things to do. He just wants to keep working, right? Now, we remember that he gave up The Tonight Show and he gave it to Conan and then took it back like three months later. Yeah, whatever. It was a very short time. He immediately took it back. I think instead of taking his car keys, what you do is if he's actually worth $450 million...

you say because this is where it gets you know borderline elderly abusive as you know we've we've seen we struggle sometimes with different streaming services you don't know how to find this fight or that fight or whatever right we don't know where these things are streaming age yeah so I think what you do with Jay is if you're his family and you have access to you know his accounts whatever you tell him Jay NBC Peacock needs you again Jimmy

Something's up there. Right. Jimmy's going to be taking a little break, some time for himself. They need the big dog back. And then what you do is you build a replica set of The Tonight Show and Jay Leno's massive estate. Right. And then you say, you know what, Jay, don't worry about it.

We're going to set it up. We can make you a home studio, right? Or you just rent a studio, whatever. You built him a replica set. Home studio in his house, yes. I think you do that. But then he may be on to what's going on. Or you just rent a studio space and you build a replica set, right? And the replica set actually might be better because in L.A. and Hollywood, my assumption is people just always want to be in crowds on TV shows, right? So what you do is...

You just tell him he's hosting the Tonight Show again. Yes. And then every day you go out there and you do run-throughs for the Tonight Show. You're creating a simulation for him. Exactly. You're creating a simulation of his former life. You get some unhoused people to be the in-studio audience? Well, I mean, I don't know about that, but you just get extras. Everybody wants to be an extra in-studio audience. You can also just pay like 100 people. Of course. No, no, no.

No, no, no. But it's the same 100 people. These are run-throughs. Right. And they're just in a different spot every day. So that way he doesn't notice. You pay less if they're unhoused. Okay. I'm just saying. I think you could just get them for free. I don't think you have to pay them if they think they're in the city audience. And it just- A sandwich. No, not- No. Just chicken sandwich. No, just tourist. Shake Shack.

And this is all just to keep Jay Leno safe. To keep him safe, to keep him from driving. You just basically have him doing the Tonight Show every day. It just doesn't air anywhere. Right, thinking it's going to lead up. Exactly right. And then you make sure he's off the street and he's fine. He's not walking down mountains for fun. Billy, how much security will we need here? None. No one knows this is happening except Jay Leno.

The mob knows. Well, but this goes back to you seem to be stuck on two things today. You seem to be stuck on potential gambling debt and the unhoused. And I don't understand why we're stuck on those things in this scenario. My scenario didn't involve either of those things. We just keep bringing it back to that. Do you have to call him big dog? Is that part of the routine? Do you have to call Jay Leno big dog? He's a big dog and he knows it. That's how you lure him back in because he's like, no.

He's like, no, I don't know. Jimmy's doing a great job. So it's like he doesn't want to step on Jimmy's toes. He's like, well, when I did to Conan, it was the first time. So no one wants to step on his toes because he got the bad reputation when he did to Conan. So he doesn't want to do it to Jimmy. But then when you throw in the big dog, you're like, Jimmy needs you, big dog. And he's like, okay.

And then he gets back in, puts on his leather jacket, gets on his motorcycle. But even his motorcycle, you just put it on a treadmill and you have like the scenes going by. Yeah, exactly right. He doesn't know.

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Don Levitard. Go ahead, Billy. Ask him your question. Is gymnastics possibly corrupt? Oh, wow. Stoogatz. I got some phlegm in my mouth. Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. Is gymnastics possibly corrupt? This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stoogatz.

Hey, Dan. Fell down a hill is a great old person way to get injured. It's a dangerous game. I was telling the guys walking downhill as you get older, dangerous game. I really thought that your observation was the correct one on that entire story beyond the grotesqueness of Jay Leno's face and just the funny in falling down a hill. Hampton Inn.

It's stunning. I was just, that was the most shocking fact in that story. What do you mean Jay Leno was staying at a Hampton Inn? Pittsburgh. Billy has the right take when he's like, wait a minute, you're still grinding it out on the circuit working material when you've got an airplane hanger filled of Porsches? Like...

Or does he? Why are you staying at a Hampton Inn? I like the idea of him. Please get me some nearby hotels there or something. He needs to still feel the rush. Tell me what I can find. He needs to feel like he's traveling. Forgive me, Billy. I can't hear you. Something's wrong. It's better this way. Yeah. It's better this way. You're not missing much. I just felt a real enjoyment in doing this show. We're onto something. I feel like I've

We can only hear Amin and Stugatz right now and not the rest of you. We saved the show. Forgive me for being late. I was going to start with a screed about how Joel Embiid has to get to games and practices and team functions on time.

How rare is it, Amin, for a guy like Maxie in the pecking order to have to go after his star player because the 76ers are the biggest disaster in the sport? They're 2-11. They've got the same record as the Wizards. Well, first and foremost...

Let's give a shout out to the columnist who got shelved, who today is doing his own Peloton victory laugh somewhere. He's like patting himself on the back like, I told y'all everybody was starting to yell at me, talking about I'm a bad guy, but I told y'all. So according to reporting by Sham Sharania, not that out of place, out of common, because Maxie A has a greater relationship with Embiid and they hold each other accountable, but

And B, Maxie has been more vocal recently within the locker room. So it did not, for the people inside the room, and ultimately that's the most important group, for the people inside the room, it did not come across as, who the hell is this young whippersnapper to tell our MVP this? It was like, yeah, that's his place. So I'm going to assume from the reporting that it's not a big deal. And again, Maxie, this is his fourth year in the league.

He's clearly one of the best players on the team. He's been an all-star. And most importantly, he's got a relationship. Now, I'll give you a great example of someone that, resume-wise, you would say he can't say anything, but really was one of the best at doing this. And everyone's going to laugh. One of the big reasons why he was on the Bucs for all those years was because he

And reportedly, he was the only guy that could tell Giannis, hey, man, you're full of it right now and you need to shut up and listen to these people. And Giannis would listen to him because it's his older brother. But, you know, a lot of times those characters come together.

In packages and way, like, you're not someone who can say, think about Udonis Haslam. Who's Udonis Haslam to say anything to anybody all those years? You barely play, you're an old man. But the respect level was there, and when the message came from him, people accepted. I just think it's pretty interesting that you have a player in his prime who has an assortment of health issues, but is MVP worthy.

In that sport, Stugatz, that I imagine part of the reason somewhere that ratings are down as people argue about whether it's three-pointers or social justice or load management or whatever it is, I imagine there's a general dissatisfaction with the idea of a guy like Joel Embiid can't be bothered to play all the time when he's an MVP talent.

I would say that's the biggest thing working against the NBA is people are hesitant to go to games or tune into games because the guys they want to see aren't playing. I don't know the reason, and I'm going to defer to Amin on I'm sure because this has been his industry, his business for a long time. He cares deeply about the reason.

the reasons that people have less interest. There is a bit of a changing of the guard. We've been having the same stories for 10 years now, right? Same players, and now there are new players coming. But Joel Embiid, part of the dissatisfaction, I would imagine, with the sport is...

All of the players, they get upset wherever it is that they're playing and then they change teams. And everything is breaking in Philadelphia in a way that will make him feel unappreciated by everyone there and not want to be there anymore. Available as an MVP talent in his prime. I mean, because it can't start worse than it has.

It's like he put a bookmark in last season. He's got Bell's palsy because of the stress in his face trying to play against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden. Then this season starts and it starts with him and Paul George aren't playing. And it starts with this story now. Maxie, it starts with him telling Philadelphia, hey, you don't appreciate me enough.

I mean, we're real close to this guy not wanting to be there anymore because of how poorly everything has started there. And here's the thing about Philadelphia getting upset about that. They need him so much more than he needs them. Like that's part of how it is you get to this kind of entitled when you've overcome everything he's overcome and you arrive late for stuff and tell your fan base, do you know what I've given you? Shut up. I'll play when I'm ready.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a bunch of things happening. Part of it is health. How much of that is under its control? How much of it isn't? There's a city in Philadelphia and a media base that is one of the more critical ones in the league, right? There is a team that is...

Has entitled him I given him entitlement since he was a rookie I mean I I remember hearing stories from people close to the Sixers back then or they're like yeah They had to hold the bus for Joel Embiid This is when he was a rookie and as or his first second year in the league and I said what do you mean? They had to hold the bus that what first of all holding a bus when have we ever done that second of all? Why did they just take the second bus?

And the guy told me, that is the second bus. And I said, hold on, you have a rookie who's taking the second bus? Now it's different, ladies and gentlemen. It's all gone to shit. Oh, wow. Here we go. I love when he goes full old man falling down a hill with his basketball analysis. It's all gone to shit. You should do that with an iPad, Sean. Tell us how they used to travel back in the horse and buggy days when you were running the league. I mean...

Look, I'm not saying when I was running the league, but when I worked in the league, it was known if you were a rookie, even the number one overall pick, even the number one overall pick who was dominating, we're on the road, you take the first bus to the arena. If not, take a car service to the arena before the first bus because you want to get extra, extra work in. The second bus was just vets.

You never had young players on that bus. And so for a guy to be taking the second bus as a rookie or a second-year player, that was unheard of. And then lump onto it, we're holding the bus? Dude, there are a lot of vets who have been left. You've got to get your own taxi or whatever, Uber from the hotel to the arena if you are late to this bus. So this is the backdrop of which...

He has been raised for young players. That's why it's so important for rookies and young players that everything is held to a higher standard for them. Because whatever they experience, that's what they think this thing is. And that's why you get so many guys who are at one organization and do things a certain way, and they get to their sixth and seventh year in the league. And then they get traded somewhere, and they're like, oh, that's how they do that? Think about how many guys come to Miami today.

And a shell shock about the level of regiment because they've lived a life where it's like, nah, this is the NBA. You can just show up late to the bus. Miami's interesting in that Miami's a bit of a military school and LeBron and a bunch of others sort of shocked at the way that the place was run when they got here. But I remember one of the first things to bounce against it was Shaq getting here, the Shaq economy, right? They did a certain...

thing a certain way and then he gets here and he bounces against like wait a minute I'm a bigger star than basketball and what Embiid's story is

Not just everything that he overcame to be one of the top 1% of the top 1% against all odds playing basketball professionally for all the money. He's the entire process. He's the only reason. Well, he's the part of the process that works. Well, he's the entire franchise's...

reason for having value and interest in basketball and he's been the only good thing about what they do for a long time and so when he looks up and Daryl Morey is summoned as his administrative assistant to go get him Paul George and maybe I'll resign maybe I'll want to be here like

All of these guys have taken over their franchises the way Aaron Rodgers takes over a franchise, which is what happens when you get star power and the star actually has power. Dan, can you hear me?

Would you like to say hello to Billy? Because I know you missed him earlier. No, that's okay. The last nine minutes were so much more tranquil in my head. Just generally, I felt like I was walking through a spa for the last nine minutes. Because of me? I got to tell you, Swap Week was picking up steam yesterday. I had a very influential college voice reach out to me and say, I love Swap Week. We can get to that later. Yeah, let's get to that later. Right now, Dan is skipping past...

the best thing that Joel Embiid said. And it's basically him announcing that he wants to go. Do you know what I'm talking about? - I do not. - He said, in a slow trickle, if you will, that Jimmy Butler is the best player in the league.

He started off by saying one of and then got to the best player in the league. If that's not him pandering and saying, hey, I want to go to Miami, I don't know what is. Hold on for a second. Do you guys remember the movie where there's two guys and they both have issues with someone and say, well, if I murder your person and you murder my person, no one will suspect us because we're random people. It's crisscross, right? That's what's happening here. Because Joel Embiid is probably unhappy in Philly and Jimmy Butler probably not thrilled about being in Miami. And they're like, you know what we should do?

we should just throw chum in the water and give each other compliments. And everyone's like, oh, Joel Embiid's going to Miami. And people are like, oh, Jimmy Butler's going to Philly. They both like doing that more than any other players in the league. Let's go ahead and play Joel Embiid doing this here because this is going, I think, in Philadelphia about as badly as it could possibly go. What kind of problems did Jimmy present tonight offensively? I mean, Jimmy is Jimmy. He does everything. He's going past the ball.

commanding, you know, while being on the floor. You know, both sides of the floor. You know, one of the best players in the league. Probably top five. Probably the best, actually. Wow. It really escalated there quickly. One of the best. Top five. All right. He's the best. Not quite a trickle. What?

What just happened there? How did he elevate that quickly? Was his unhappiness rising and he just kept going higher? Why would he go from top five? Why would he argue with himself that way? I'm just picturing him like, oh, one of the best. Oh, that's not going to make news. Top five. That's not going to do anything either. Oh, the best. He's the best player. Is there anyone other than Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler who think that Jimmy Butler is the best player in the league? Carl Anthony Towns.

So there's a third person? Not a one. Andrew Wiggins also? All of those Timberwolves? Everyone who's been bullied. Ben Simmons? You say that Embiid needs, or Philadelphia needs Embiid more than he needs Philadelphia. And I would say no. He's been a failure there. Oh, yeah.

No, I'm serious. He hasn't played more than 70 games. He's never advanced that team to a conference finals. And yes, maybe they got parts of the process wrong, but they did get a maxi. Now he has Paul George. He hasn't been good enough. It's him. He hasn't been good enough. And if he leaves and goes, tries to connect himself to Jimmy or go find a super team elsewhere, he'll just be another guy like Kevin Durant who couldn't get it done on his own. You can have that opinion.

I'm more interested actually in the, like the fault line of what do you do

When your unhappy superstar is entirely the reason for your relevance. Like, what do you do? Because if I make that Paul George and Maxine, no one thinks that's beating Cleveland and Boston. The only way that advances anywhere is with that guy. That's why the power is real and that's why the value is real because they're a nowhere franchise without him. It almost seems like he's just realizing everything this year where he's like, man, I've

been through some teammates. Man, I've been through some injuries and now I've got this reporter talking about my dead brother and I've got this going on and I've got to talk about Jimmy Butler because I can't stand it here anymore.

And I don't feel like playing, and people in Philadelphia, the worst fan base for that. Oh, boy. For that. I don't feel like playing, and it may indeed be your body, and it may be at that size, flopping around, falling on the floor, playing the way that you do, that you do have to try to preserve your body for the playoffs. It's a smart business move.

But when you start at 2-11, you're going to have a lot of ground to make up. This is a disaster to start the season when they're as bad as the Wizards. The playoffs start now. Well, they literally did in the in-season tournament. The wild part about that day in particular having this happen is Embiid started the day as doubtful to play.

and ramped himself up to be able to play that game against the Heat, but went out there and was laboring, whether it was his knee, whether it was his conditioning. He simply could not perform at the level we're used to. It was his first game not taking a free throw since 2018.

That was how ineffective he was. But all I can think about is Caleb Martin that night, who showed up that morning to shoot around his first time walking back into the building in Miami. Now, as a member of the 76ers going and playing against the Heat. And then after that game, Kyle Lowry calling a meeting after they blew a 19 point lead against Miami at Jimmy Butler.

In order for Maxie to call out Embiid and they're 2-11. I can't imagine what Caleb Martin is thinking. You look ridiculous. If I only had a heart, Dan. I used to before I started working here.

Billy, did you did I leave any meat on the bone when it came to this Jay Leno story? Because there was something about him falling down a hill and the conversation that you guys were having about trying to take away the keys from old people. Because I just had this conversation yesterday with my mother.

Really? Where they did not make Thanksgiving plans far away because, and she made a whole bunch of smoke and excuses and lies to trick my father about why they're not doing it. But it's simply because she doesn't want him getting into a car and driving far. And I'm like, mom, thank you. Just please start lying to him because he will not let me have

the keys to his car. And five years ago, I drove with him someplace driving 45 miles an hour among 70 mile an hour cars. And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I've got to take this old man's keys, but he won't let me. How about you get your old man a driver? He won't take one. Really? He won't do it. It's a tough discussion. I've had it with my dad. He will not give up the keys as well. He's very stubborn. But Dan, imagine, because years from now, you know, 15 years from now...

20 years from now, Mike Ryan's going to try to take your keys. Are you going to be willing, because you don't have kids, are you going to be willing to give those keys up? Yeah, that's fine. I don't mind being chauffeured around. I think you say that now. Just tell Poppy that they renewed HQ. You build them a studio. You do the show. And then you just say, like, Poppy, one of the perks this time is

They got you a driver. Yeah. They're just going to send someone to pick you up every day. Dan, to answer your question on the meat on the bone, Billy's been over here looking up Hampton Inns in Pittsburgh for the last 20 minutes, so I'm pretty sure there's plenty of meat there. There's 18, it looks like. Billy, if we do that for Poppy, how much security will we need? Because, you know, the gambling debts and the mob. Hmm.

I love the way Stugat says stubborn. He puts the R in front of the O. It's a tough one for me. Yeah, it is. It's sometimes. No, it's not all the time. There's a Ritz in Pittsburgh. I really don't understand why it is Jay Leno was staying at a Hampton Inn. I know why it is. I was told that Jay Leno only spends the money that he makes doing stand-up. He's like Gronk. Didn't they say that about Gronk? Like Gronk only. He would save all his football checks and all his advertising. They got that from chat. But, like, Jay...

What are we saving it for? You know what I mean? Like, this is what you saved it for, to have fun now. This was the same conversation that my parents were having just the other day. Like, my mother's yelling at my father for being cheap. And she's like, I thought this is what we were saving for. This time, when are we going to spend it? Poppy has never done saving. We're in our 80s. That's right. All right.

Nice try. You know what? Behind the curtain, you push the button, the sound was supposed to come out. Sometimes that little thing that you've got in front of them there doesn't work. It's because earlier, I mean, had the reckless speculation running for like 15 minutes. So I had to turn it down. Is that what happened? Reboot? I mean, I just hit the button once. I'm just that's why it was down.

A lot of finger pointing in this one. What were you trying to push, Dan, so we can get it? Yeah, it was thank you, Billy. That's the joke we were sitting around waiting for. That one father sound. It's nice. It's a nice sound. It brings me back. You guys have me tricking him into here's your driver, Dad. We're doing highly questionable again. And then what happens when there's no highly questionable? No, no, no. We've got to go the whole way. Like, do I have to show up or Bomani?

No, we've all got to do it. Jason? Oh, we've got to just keep doing this. Yes. Okay. Jason's got to be behind the camera again, like back in the day. No, yeah, that's the thing. We've got to do everything back in the day. Exactly right. You bring up the old cast from The Clevelander, and then you have one of the drivers be, I don't know...

I don't want to go to air with this, but we will. I don't know who he liked and who he didn't like from the old cast. So then you have the driver be that person. And then the hope is they just get in such a chummy conversation that like Lucio or whoever just spends the entire time driving Papi around town. And they're just talking and it's like, oh, Chino, I didn't know that you're a driver now. And it's like, yeah, oh, Kendry's back. Like, what are you doing, Kendry? He's like, oh, he's driving now.

Yeah. How's the family? Exactly right. And then just every day they talk, it's always a different person from the past. Danny's there one day. Bruce is back. Bruce. Is he? Is Myra back? Myra.

You guys are just delighted with your inside jokes. That entire Billy story was just so that he could name Kendri, Chino, Danny, and Bruce by name. And Myra and Lucio. Yeah, but just for... It doesn't matter. I hate so much when they do just a show for each other. Can't forget about Lucio. Myra has to still be talking.

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