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The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz

Dan Le Batard, Stugotz

NBA lottery and anti-tanking proposals

From Hour 1: The Creative SherriffMar 30, 2026

Excerpt from The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz

Hour 1: The Creative SherriffMar 30, 2026 — starts at 0:00

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Listed in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue. Hey, still got my hoodie? Nope. But I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on Deepop, where taste recognizes taste. List now with no selling fees. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast . This happened Friday uh early afternoon before uh or after exc,use me , we had all left for the week, uh, Tiger Woods got involved in another uh car accident and has a DUI. And I'm having a hard time getting my head around the fact that one of the most uh recognizable athletes uh in the history of America shows the symptoms of being an addict shows the symptoms of having to self-medicate on pain stuff. And I was asking you guys, I remember this conversation the other day because I know that most people who have money problems think that uh money solves all the problems, and if you didn't have money problems, you would then be okay. So a lot of times rich people don't get your compassion or your empathy on things. So when I said to you guys, how many back surgeries has he now had uh Jeremy? Is it is it nine? Uh, when I said to you guys, hey man, like him still trying to play golf with all of that torque and still having all of these surgeries suggests that none of the other surgeries are working. So he's constantly waking up in pain. And if I asked him, hey, how much of your money here could I get rid of if I promise to get rid of that pain? I'm guessing he would give up a lot of his money not to wake up over in every morning in some kind of pain. It uh our pharmaceutical problem in the United States and the world is a giant one. You mix pain medicine with alcohol, it'll make the pain go away. And I know a lot of people, everyone is saying, why don't you just get a driver? A driver doesn't make the pain go away, and yes, of course he should get a driver, but I am now left with the impression, and tell me if it's an unfair one, to think that if he's getting caught this many times with reckless cars accident, it's probably not he's probably not getting caught every single time that he's doing it. He's not so unfortunate that he can't hide any of these or he can't cover any of these up. So when I present to you guys, hey, is this the behavior of an addict? Does does Tiger Woods have a substance problem? Do you guys just land on yes? Of course now at this point he does. I do. Yeah. What can you say? Yeah. Did you see where he flipped his car? It was a cul-de-sac. And what time of day? Yeah. And it was always a dicey proposition when that person would get behind the wheel and they got into accidents. And they would say that they're in pain, but 10 years after the procedure, you like the drugs too. Like I I don't doubt that he wakes up in pain, but I also think that that could be an excuse for someone that it also really likes the drugs and he needs to get his life in order. Oh, but when people are saying, and I get why everyone ends up there, just get a driver. Yes, of course. There's too much damage. I mean, people like their freedom , but yes, of course, get a driver. But if a person can afford a driver in a way that all of us are like, what are you doing? Just get a driver. Do you know how much access that person has to pain medicine? Do you know how much access that person has? You cannot you think of addicts rummaging through your parents' belongings in order to sell things out of desperation. This person can have access to every single thing they want every time they I I I don't I think there that's two different conversations. Get a driver. He very clearly values his privacy so he can go out and do whatever m he sees fit. Um and part of that is what we saw play out possibly. And TMZ reporting that he's not getting a driver. I don't know how they would know that, but it's a report that came out. Kind of the same situation with Patrick Mahomes Sr. right? That every time we see him in the news, it's like he's got another D feeling of a lack of freedom we look at as a luxury. Like I wish I had someone who could drive me around all the time, but I could see in the eyes of an addict in particular. Well you guys don't trust me. Like there's a lot of the there's a lot more beneath the substance abuse. Right? We we like to just do a one-to-one of saying, oh, it's because he's high or he's drunk or whatever. That's why he acts that way. But no, he acts that way. And then these things enter his system and then that exacerbates the situation. Him stopping doing whatever it is he's he's doing, he d he blew zeros on the on the breathalyzer, so he wasn't but him stopping the pain pills or whate ver will not stop the underlying urge to do it. I just don't think that we have a comp on uh a person who has lived this kind of public life as a thing. It's like learning Michael Jordan now had some sort of substance problem. He has been a pillar of excellence at something for a long time. And I remember how betrayed everyone felt because they believed the Buick commercials and were like, how could he be cheating on his wife? I can't believe that this person is not the regal country club figure and icon and pristine symbol that I've always known. This is a flawless human being. How could he be immoral at his core? But what do you do with what it is that you're presently seeing where you have uh you have three incidents now involving a car. One of them that introduced us to the entire secret of his life, which is a a golf club is being used to h hit the back window of his car in a domestic confrontation. There is also the body cam video in the middle of the night of an officer clearly talking to a slurring and not fully functional Tiger Woods. This is a DUI charge, even though you guys are saying uh it's it's blowing a zero zero. How does that work exactly? Like I didn't I didn't think there was such a thing as a DUI charge that has that kind of breathalyzer reading. So that happened actually to Dylan Brooks a few weeks ago in Phoenix. He was pulled over for quote unquote driving erratically. He did a breathalyzer, he did a you know the like the field test and all that stuff. And he's still arrested and booked on a DUI because the officer said there's a scent of marijuana, and I have suspicion that based on the way he was driving that he is impaired. They can arrest you without having a positive kind of a any uh presence of alcohol in your system. Well, but the alcohol is what I wasn't thinking that this is a DUI alcoholism. I think because of the way that he was slurring in the body cam video that we saw in the middle of the night, I'm always assuming pain p medic ation and I'm assuming it because I will I will say it again. What's the number of surgeries, Jeremy? Is it indeed nine ? It's seven. It's seven back surgeries at this point, and the the reason he gets a DUI is because he did do the breath test. He refused to do a urine test um when asked and he, did tell the officers that he had taken medication for prior injuries. I will ask the group if I make the addiction to pain medic ation, do you find more compassion in your heart because of what the excellence cost him when I say seven surgeries, right? You're a lot of these are the same surgery. They're going back in to deal with pain because he's got back problems. It's the reason people thought he wasn't gonna catch Jack Nicholas is because back problems end up harming just about everyone in that sport. You know what else harms other people, Dan? Like killing somebody with your car. I know you're an empath and I don't doubt that he's in pain. He needs to get help. He before he hurts somebody else. Do what you want to do on your own time, hire a driver and deal with your issues privately. But when you're getting behind the wheel of a car, as you we've we yeah, like you're you're endangering others. I am not I am not forgiving the behavior, okay? I'm simply looking at it and saying to all of you, do you guys know how rare it is for someone of this iconic status? I mean Maradona was sort of in the same boat, but Maradona we thought was reckless throughout his entire life. Do you guys realize how rare it is for someone of this status to become this late in life a danger to himself and others . I I would say that uh Tiger Woods has been known to be reckless for several years now, and I don't think it's all that rare. You cherry picked one from sports and celebrity. We see this all the time. He has afforded to him a life of excess. He has people willing to feed his current addictions the same way that top-line rock stars do. It's a very dangerous situation for him. It is an interesting thing you brought up the idea that you typically when we think of an addict, we think of someone like, Hey, I gotta pawn this VCR to get like one more hit. But when your financial situ ation offers you literally limitless, like there isn't enough drugs he can do to like run out of money and then have to scrounge for it. When there is no barrier to access , where's the edge of that cliff? And and and again, that's why I go back to, man, it goes a lot deeper than the guy being addicted to something. It has fundamental issues with how he feels about himself beyond the physical, right? Imagine, again, think about, oh, who was it? Uh was who wrote the the was it right thompson that wrote the really deep uh tiger woods feature where we learn like he's doing like navy seal training because he's trying to feel a connection to his dad who passed away who was in the military and all that. And I just it makes you think if we're doing armchair psychology, you talk about the pain, Dan. Imagine someone who was raised to be the greatest ever and then l lost the person who inspired all that, and then also feels like I'm not the greatest ever. I fell short of that goal. How much does he hate himself beyond the the physical point? I f I fell short by finishing second? Yeah. Because I'm the second greatest ever in majors and and most people would acknowledge if I asked everyone who's not a golf fan, hey, who's the greatest golfer ever, most people would just say Tiger Woods. They wouldn't say Jack Nick. You know who wouldn't say Tiger Woods in Tiger Woods mind probably his dad his like and that's his whole life was seeking the approval of this of this man. He's also benefiting from an adoring public that is not really casting that much judgment on him. Still trying to protect him. Still trying to protect him. There are reputable journalists that are doing selfie cam vids that are emotionally talking about this, getting him some help. Everybody is rooting for him and because his his success in sports has afforded him a certain lifestyle no one looks at him like a junkie despite really reckless behavior behind a wheel that would be in line with people throughout pop culture and in sport really, that you would say, man, that that person's a junkie. The thing that I would say to you though is different when you say rock stars are celebrity. Very few have ever had as pristine a reputation as this person did. He's coming from the country club. Like he's coming f he's I mean, we we're we're a long way removed from pristine. Pristine was two thousand eight, two thousand nine. It's it's damn man. His kids are adults. Not since the Marlins started 3-0 for the last time. Remember like Tiger Woods' little kids are they're adults? They're adults, man. Like like that Pristina's long gone. It's out the window. It's not Diego Maradona, obviously, who you said was another boat. I was like, man, he's another ocean. That dude was was on another plane. But this it what the point I'm making about yes, it was a long time ago that Tiger Woods was viewed as pristine. Right. But what is rare is all of a sudden in the forties, whoever you thought was an icon of professionalism, oh no, that person's showing the behavior of an addict. That that looks like that looks like junkie status. Like that's it's just not it's not a usual uh path. Normally with the with the rock stars, with the Charlie Sheens, which whoever it is that succumbs to the uh to the temptations, those person, those people have bad bo y in them before their forties. But Mickey Mantle was worship. Mickey Mantle was an alcoholic. But like combination of like his status and also the way sports was covered at the time. Well that's a good point. Because they kept the secrets. They didn't put it out there Yeah, the thing that I said about Tiger Woods is that the rules uh literally changed on him to catch him with his pants down. We did not cover Michael Jordan that way. If we had covered Michael Jordan that way, following him around, we would Yeah, but but Tiger Woods is not victim to uh a new standard. People actually do protect Tiger's privacy , especially in Jupiter. He is protected. He is in this bubble. He is beloved. If Michael Jordan had police reports the way that Tiger Woods does, you could not avoid that type of coverage. Tiger gets in his own way. And it might end up being a good thing because this is not sus you're gonna kill somebody. This is not sustainable. This this is a very dangerous situation. I mean, there are probably plenty of people in sports and otherwise that deal with this very same thing and you do not know about it. There's something about college hoops this time of year where you tell yourself you're just going to casually watch one game. And suddenly your entire night is gone. That happened to me the other night. I was planning to stay home and keep a game on in the background, maybe pretend I wasn't checking scores every five minutes. Then a text comes in. We've got multiple screens set up. That's how they get ya. So I said yeah. I grabbed a pack of Miller Light on the way. A little while later, nobody's casually watching anything. Somebody's yelling because their bracket is already cooked. Somebody else suddenly cares deeply about a school they hadn't thought about in 10 years, and a game that looked over is somehow tied late. You take a sip, you look around, and realize, yeah, this was absolutely the right move. That's why I reached for a Miller Life. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink, brewed for taste with simple ingredients. The original light beer since 1975, and still hitting different. Cheers to legendary moments with Miller Light. Grape taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLight.com slash Dan and find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per twelve ounces. Hey Roy buddy. Ew. You know that energy shift when the game gets good and everybody, all together, in unison, knows to stand up on their feet? Oh absolutely, Mike. Yeah, you've been at many big time sporting events. 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Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MYRESET. New York, call 877-8 Hope and Y or text Hope and Y. Connecticut call 888- 789-7777 or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas. Wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over in most states. Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Four additional terms are responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftKings.com slash promos. Limited time offer . He's right about that. I mean, he's right about the fact that the only reason we know any of this about Tiger is because it's the police involved. These things become newsworthy when the police get involved. That's how they get in front of us. Lord knows how many people have kept some of these things out of the police. Including including the police. Because it was so egregious. It's like the one in uh Palo Verde, right? Like in California He flipped his car in a neighborhood. I I it makes me think how many times has he been pulled over? Pulled over that the charm and superstar of Tiger Woods being in that in that driver's seat. He's allowed Hey man, let me drive you home. Let me give you like we'll we'll take care of your car. You can get out of this jam. Yeah, man, like like if it's just a you we're never getting the a report that Tiger Woods was doing forty-five and a forty-four, he got pulled over and then he like uh he had dilated pupils. We're not getting that. We're getting, oh shit, he almost died again, like in a car crash. Like that's the ones we're getting. It's it's literally the most egregious. It's surpassing a threshold of we can keep this a secret. And that's what makes it different than than perhaps anyone else. I'm I'm no doubt there are celebrities, superstar athletes, singers, movie actors, whatever, all over the country, who have probably done things that regular people would be arrested for, you know, in terms of uh under the influence, right? But it's just like you can't go ten meters past the the limit and and still continue to believe that I'm gonna be protected unless you have some sort of internal like uh self-destructive self-sabota ge thing that's happened with you where you're like, man, I I just don't care anymore. And that's the part where I get I get worried. Why are you smiling? Well Roy shook his head and Tony uh shook his head at the s at the self-sabbit . Ah damn it. They they both uh noticed this. Uh Justin Timberlake has a body cam video of him being arrested in the Hamptons. Uh do you guys remember uh his discomfort about telling the offer officer, uh yeah, I've got um I've got a I'm on world tour. This is gonna ruin the tour. This is gonna ruin but he he was trying and the and the cop was like trying to be subtle but without being subtle. Well right, right. Well that yes, that's exactly what was happening. He just said something about the world tour, but then the officer said, What do you mean? And he he couldn't he's like this is awkward or something. No, he just couldn't explain what a world tour was. He couldn't, he was trying to figure out the creative way to not say he's just in Timberlake subtly, but he was under the influence so much that subtlety escaped him and he made it worse by trying to do it subtly. I'ma tell you what, Dan. You want to talk about the charm and the the kind of the charisma that these guys have in these moments in that same video when he's looking over the the report. Race. White ? That's that's the ten out of ten. That's the charm right there, man. Funny. The charm offensive. You know what? Let's forget this whole thing. Exactly. Like it was a hell of a hell mary. It's like, yo, let me let me see how I can thread this. Oh my gosh, right? Imagine having the wherewithal to just pull that one out. I mean, world tour. Not a lot of people can just sort of throw at the office or some form of world tour , but then he couldn't explain what a world tour was uh until he just says, Yeah, I'm Justin Timberlake. And that didn't help him at all. Because uh when the officer has uh has you in his sights there. Uh I do wonder how many times Tiger Woods has gotten away with something like this in his enclave because he's not flipping over the car. The the time of day, right? The time it was the time of day . Two PM is but when you think about, when you think let's let's make this not Tiger Woods. Let's just make it somebody who is an addict. If I give you all the world's means and any time you leave the house and go anywhere, someone's willing to take you for a party. Like any single time that you go anywhere, the temptation, whatever it is that sobriety uh requires in terms of maintenance, doesn't have quite the temptation involved that Tiger Woods has anytime he steps into public, anytime with his means, he can get access to just any single thing that he wants. In some ways, it's the most dangerous kind of addict. It's the kind of addict you need to take freedom from because he's gonna hurt himself or somebody else. You can't keep flipping cars. You can't keep flipping cars at two o'clock in the afternoon because you your your judgment is impaired. But when I put in front of you guys the seven surgeries for the same thing, seven surgeries for the same thing, back problems. You assume he's in a giant amount of pain, correct? You assume that that's the starting point on all of this, that he's medicating pain. That if if I give anybody, anybody who's listening to this who's in pain, if I put in bottle form something that's going to take you out of out of pain, we're all gonna get addicted there. Everyone is. No. Uh uh that's a cavalier statement. There are people that plenty of people that go through knee pain, corrective surgeries, whatnot, and they don't get addicted to it. I look these things are highly addictive. It's what this not with these means my I'm not I'm not comfortable speaking like with that kind of base level knowledge. I just know like I I know what it looked like in my in my own experience with family members that it ended ended up killing them. I I I I do think that there's some aspects of this that are, you know, that there is some selfish behavior here, some reckless behavior here. I mean Kurt Engel somehow found a way to get off of his astronomical intake. You know, there are people that power through that have real addictions and somehow find a way. And I while addiction is a thing that needs to be dealt with with a certain type of tact. I also am not on team let's absolve this kind of behavior. Especially when you're getting behind the wheel of the car and and can take other people out. I th Dan, I I keep going back to this. Like, yeah, he's in a lot of pain. Yeah, he has access to drugs. Man, there's something else happening there that's not about surgeries or or back pain. But you guys misunderstand. Uh I'm not saying that addiction can't be managed, though it is hard, and I would say pain medicine addiction probably has to be among the hardest if we're not talking about heroin or crystal meth. Uh what I'm saying is anyone who is in pain and wants to relieve the pain and finds that relief in a bottle, that person can get addicted and then can figure out how to manage it. But Kurt Engel first got addicted that he, figured out how to manage it. It starts with, wait a minute, there's something that makes the pain go away? Yeah, it's gonna destroy my organs. Yeah, it's gonna shorten my life. But today I get to wake up and my back doesn't hurt and, I'm not thinking about my back hurting. That would be a temptation for anyone who's in a substantive amount of pain that requires seven surgeries. And I'm not even excusing the behavior. You're not wrong in any way. Of course. You he's he's fortunate that he hasn't harmed someone yet. No, i I mean in part his body's in pain because he got into a car accident before, too. Like it's not just the back. His leg got completely jacked up . I I I'm I definitely have sympathy for what he's going through, no doubt. But there there is a a level of behavior here that definitely deserves being criticized and is dangerous and he is in the position where people are rooting for him. He hasn't yet hurt anybody. And I hope to God it doesn't get to that point. Also, how does he still have a license? But just like like let's just start let's start there, right? Not you shouldn't drive anymore. You can no longer drive you I I think at this point we s we can say, regardless of whatever is happening with him and we hope he's alright and all that. Yo, you forfeited the right to be able to drive a car at this point. But who's gonna force that? Who's gonna tell Tiger Woods, hey, you can't do that now? The government? The DMV? How did it happen? He's got he's got friends in high places. No, but you know when that happens, I don't think Dante Stallworth can drive anymore because he killed somebody. I don't I I think he is still being driven around however many years later on this strip of land over here that uh I I I know that for many years. Maybe he can drive now, but for many years he couldn't drive. How many car incidents is this for Tiger? Is it three? Because the the golf club and the back of the wind uh the the back window of the car, that was not a DUI He flipped his car, I don't think uh recently I don't think that had anything to do with it when he was leaving the shoot in California. I he just got yeah I I think he just got in a bad accident. He did have the previous DUI in which like I think MBC during their golf coverage had to apologize because they showed the wrong incident when they were trying to talk about this one. You're talking about they they had so many tiger was DUI incidents to pick from, they're like, oh my bad. Not that one, this one. I don't think it's four car incident This is the fourth car incident. So the first one when it was everything with with his wife, he hit a fire hydrant and then a tree in Orlando at two thirty in the morning. Two thousand seventeen he was found asleep inside a vehic le. Um and then in twenty twenty one it was life threatening car crash in Los Angeles. So you're of the thought that that will get your car just taken away, your privileges as a driver taken away? Because I do believe you have to harm somebody. It's not uh Patrick Mahomes' father has uh he got several several DUIs uh over a course of time, but he also didn't harm anybody other than himself in the doing of it. Yeah. I l I I live in Arizona and it's like a zero tolerance state. They can literally book you for a DUI for just ha you could blow a point zero one, which I believe is like mouthwash, and that they can send you to Tent City. Yeah. Like book you and like put you in a very uncomfortable we don't have Tent City anymore, but it used to be this this literally tents. It was outdoors in the sunlight in the middle of summer. Yeah, Barkley got sent there. Yeah. So they make you wear pink underwear. I never understood that part. That's racist Sheriff Joe Arpaya. Sheriff Joe. That's what that was. What do you mean you never understood? I never like I don't understand like what like oh this is a punishment. Like you gotta stay outdoors in the summer. Oh my god, that's awful. Yeah. And you gotta spend thirty thirty days with convicts and people oh my god that's awful. And your underwear is pink. I'm like, okay. I don't even understand it. Like, what is that? Can we go back to the signal? What was that rule? How did they how did they put that in place? I'm wearing pink underwear right now. Uh that was racist sheriff uh Joe Arpayo did whatever it is that he wanted uh back uh back when america was great again. Racist sheriff Joe R. Pyle, not creative Sheriff Joe R. Pyle. That's what they never called him Creative. No. . No. It's like and we'll make him wear big underwear. Yes . Those guys are like, yeah, yeah, you tell them, Joe. Like, come on, man. That's the best we could come up with for punishments. 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Kraft Mac and Cheese, best thing ever Dan Levat ard! The whole Captain Slappy! Stu Gats! Is this chumbucket? This is the Dan Lebatard show with the Stu Gats ! I wanted to get to uh some NBA stuff with a mean being here uh and not necessarily the Raptors going on a 31-nothing run against Orlando. Uh that that is, we've been talking a lot about the heat around here, but Toronto and Orlando are really in no man's land, even if you look at the way Indiana and Dallas have made it to the finals the last couple of years as as middling seeds. Toronto has no earthly way of getting past the New York Knicks. Like there is no there's no circumstance in which they will play the New York Knicks and then defeat the New York Knicks. If they avoid what do you mean? What? They match up very poorly with New York. It's just there's something about you have Quickly and you have R.J. Barrett. Like if I'm gonna write Nick's horror story fanfiction, it's RJ Barrett and and uh Emmanuel Quickley destroy them in the playoffs. And then it's like, oh my God, it's all happening again. Jeremy, can you look up for me, please, the number of times consecutively that the Knicks have beaten the Raptors b oth in to ra in both countries. No, because I can't remember the last time I don't believe this group of Raptors has beaten this group of Knicks. I don't believe not one time every time I watch those two teams play, the Knicks are winning by double digits. None of the games are even closed. Dan, I can tell that you don't think that the show is big in Toronto and in Canada because after an incredible historic feat that they accompl accomplished last night, you're going after them for not beating the New York Knicks. They had 31 straight points at the Orlando Magic. Couldn't score a point. Not a free throw, not a put back, not nothing. Nellin. You know how hard that is . Thirty-one. It's hard enough for four touchdowns and a field goal. For an NBA team to not be able to score in that span. But Orlando's actually a good team. It's not even like, oh, the Wizards. If this happened to the Wizards or the Kings, we'd be like, oh my God, you guys are terrible. Orlando's actually a decent team. They could score. Thirty-one unanswered. The Knicks have beaten the Raptors in twelve straight matchups dating back to twenty twenty three, but they're not gonna square off in the playoffs unless they get to the conference finals, cause Toronto's presently the four five seed. Then they'd go against Cleveland, but I guess if the Hawks catch them, that's how that could happen. That's how it's happening. We're tuning up for that three six. But again, thirty-one and 0 run ? I'd be out of timeouts. I'd get ejected. Do something. Run the core tackle something. At 21-0, like I'm out. You guys got it. You figure it out. That uh I don't know if that is the game that made it. Uh 81 games this season decided by 30 or more points, but it's never this is the most it's ever been. This is the this is the most but numerically, empirically, the most lopsid ed this league has ever been. There have now been, according to Tim Reynolds, eighty-one games this season decided by thirty or more points. It's a new single seas on record topping the mark of 80 last season. This is the new normal, correct? The new normal is there are going to be more blowout NBA basketball games than there have ever been. Is this a small sample to look at the two seasons and tell you 30 plus point victories are more common today and in the last two seasons than they've ever been? New normal, correct? I mean, yeah, because again, it goes back to what we talked about with Duke and Yukon, which is when the three-point shot becomes more and more prevalent, and I'm telling you that your defense really does not have that much of an impact on whether they make or miss. Your defense has an impact on whether they take or not. Then you have this kind of variability because you can go through a cold stretch and you can go through an incredibly hot stretch. Having said that, this one right here, you know, this is for the books. I a 31-0 run. I mean, look . I don't know how I I don't know how that's possible. I I honestly don't know how that's possible. How do you get to that point of I'm going to score and not be scored on for that long of amount of time for that amount of points? Like Tony said, you didn't get an offensive rebound. Not even a tip back like one of these. Not even a hey, they got fouled kind of 40 feet from the basket, now they're in the penalty. Your level of basketball was so inept that you couldn't even manufacture a single free throw. That's that's next level. What did you think of the NBA's anti-tanking proposals? They've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this. They're trying to fix a Have a culture of vigorous debate intern ally because you come up with ideas that are so preposterous. Let me let me let me go glass half full. The simplest idea they came up with is actually the best one, which is every team that the ten bad teams plus all the play-in teams, they all get into the lottery. The ten bad teams, they divide 80% of the odds among them to get a top five pick. The uh eight play-in teams, they divide the remaining remaining twenty percent. And so it doesn't matter whether I win my play play-in game or not. Doesn't matter whether I make playoffs or not. If I was one of these teams, I have a chance, and my chance is just as good as the other play-in teams. I like that. It's nice and simple . It it it there's no risk of anyone saying I'd rather be a seven than a six in order to have ping pong balls. It makes very clear the lines of delineation. Teams would rather be in the play-in and in the playoff than not, but you don't miss out completely. When you start to talk about, and we should include the teams that lost in the first round of playoffs, why? Or we should uh calculate uh how many wins you had the last two years, and if you had 14 wins, we'll say you had twenty. I'm like, it cannot be something where I have to pull out a manual to explain to people why uh their team does or do es not have a chance of getting into the uh the lottery. And then the final one and this one, I was like, yo , I would have laughed in the room if someone brought this up. We're gonna have a lottery and then we'll have another lottery. If you miss that lottery, we get another lottery at the five by five . These are insane. Like, and anytime these news stories come out, Dan, I always think the same thing. That's not only the stuff that made it through emails and conference calls and like spitballing in in in your office to the board of governors meeting. That's also the idea that they felt comfortable enough. Hey Shams, these are our three ideas. Like to for that to be leaked? Are you is that are they trying to prove to us? Oh yeah we're trying our best. No you're not. Not if that's one of the ideas and someone said, you know what? Put it on the list. No such thing as a bad idea. But is that something to kind of get the uh the temperature of what fans are thinking, fans are seeing and be like, ah, you know what? Like that's something we were thinking about, we're not gonna do it because there's been such bad reaction to it. I'll tell you what the temperature is. Sub zero. You think they're all bad. There's no you've heard nothing. You've heard nothing good. I think I think the one where you include play in teams into the lottery, albeit with smaller odds than the non play in teams. I think that's nice, it's simple, it makes sense. Right? And it's easy to explain. I think all the other ones , not only are they over overly complex, but I don't think they address the actual problem. And it's it's like going to the doctor and saying, I have a stomachache, and it says, Here, rub this on your forehead this VIX on your forehead. Like no, but I have a stomachache. Oh no well you know what? Uh let me prescribe some munjaro for you. Or whatever like Awelas, Awelas was Bibaporu works. You know if you're c you're sick, you put it on your feet and then you put socks on. Takes it a way. My favorite tanking rule I I saw proposed on on Emotional Hoops and it was by a fan that said what you should do is based off the standings, you then draft opposing franchises that you think are going to be the worst the next season. And that links you to your pick for the next draft. So if you were the Pacers, for example, you have the worst record this season , right? You then enter the draft with the number one overall pick. And what your pick is, is I think

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