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This is the Dan Levatore Show with the Stukatz podcast.

I want to hear what Lucy and Jessica have to say about the new college football measurement system. I want to hear what Lucy and Jessica have to say about Sarkisian at Texas getting $10 million a year in a couple of cars and a private plane, like a lot of the big coaches have.

Are they measuring first downs differently now? You keep saying measurement system.

Oh, just how we determine a champion. I don't believe that anybody was better than Georgia last year, but I don't believe Michigan was appreciably better than Alabama last year.

Alabama was in one game.

Yes, in one game they were. That's right. And Michigan was good in another. But our measurement system is flawed in that sport, I think. They keep changing it, making it a little bit better and telling us that that's the best one. And now they've changed it again. I just wanted to go back for a second to what Amin was saying about George Karl and Carmelo Anthony, because this is a dirty pettiness that really is unbecoming a couple of adults, what is happening here, that the two of them, one of whom has been to hell and back, to death and back, because George Karl has overcome a ton in his life for him to be yelling still at Carmelo Anthony about the following. This is the back story. Carmelo Anthony says George Karl has always him since he arrived in Denver. He arrives in Denver as the big-name coach. He arrives. Carmelo's the star. He tells at the first practice, Carmelo, according to the podcast that he does with Morrow, Carmelo says that he called me overrated upon meeting me and that he saw a Detlef Schrempf roll for me. Now, Carmelo is a Hall of Famer, and Detlef Schrempf is not.

They keep going back and forth, back and forth. George Karl has wanted to be on that podcast with Morrow, He has to be on the podcast with Mero, and doesn't do himself any favors when he sends out a tweet on the birthday of Nikola Jokić, where he says, Happy birthday to the greatest champion in Denver history, greatest team player, and greatest number 15 in Nuggets history. Carmelo Anthony has said that they're doing petty things with his number, number 15, even though you can say the best of his career was in Denver, correct? It wasn't in New York. He was a great player in Denver.

I went This is a couple of months ago when Melo first talked about it on 7:00 PM in Brooklyn. I went on Bully Ball with Rachel Nichols and DeMarcus Cousins, and we were talking about, was it petty the Nuggets to give away 15? I said, Absolutely. Because you know when a great player has played for your team, you hold that number back. So Jokuj came in not as a top five pick, not as this incredibly illustrious great resume guy. He came in as a backup center. Nerkuj was their stunning center, and Jokuj was the backup, and then they tried to play them both at the same time. They didn't know. Jokuj didn't know he was going to be this great. So the fact that they gave him the number 15, it was an FU. Now, you could say that the exit was also Dirty or whatever. But ultimately, that wasn't a mistake that they gave Jokich 15. They knew what they were doing.

The exit of Melo was dirty? Yes, it was dirty. For months in the news, Melo endured the stain of when player empowerment goes wrong, where he was stuck in a purgatory in Denver, where he wanted out and they needed to trade pieces and get value for somebody who wanted out. He had to live with that. He did very gracefully under impossible circumstances.

He did, but he caught, as you mentioned, the flak of like, Oh, these guys don't want to play. All that crap. It was an ugly exit. As a result, the Nuggets, I feel like they gave that number out very freely in a way that when in Phoenix, Steve Nash got traded to Los Angeles, which was a division rival and all that stuff, Marcin Gortat was acquired right around there. At the end of that season, he asked, Can I switch my number to 13? Because I've always won 13. Jay Gaspar, who's still the equipment manager there, said, Absolutely not. Because it's understood, even though Steve's exit, Was it great? Was it not great? No, we don't give that number away. That number is going It goes from here up there. That didn't happen in Denver. So automatically there, Carmel was walking around with that. They gave my number away like that. Now, is Joketch a better player than Carmel was? I don't think anyone's arguing that. We all know it now. We all accept it now. But at the time, he wasn't and wasn't projected to be that.

Is there another story like that in the history of the NBA where a guy comes in and they're like, We're not sure if he's going to be any good, and then he's better than everyone in the entire sport? Oh, he's amazing. I can't believe it. Steve Nash. He's better than everyone ever. Yeah, that's pretty. Steve Nash. But no one rises to this level of, I didn't think he was going to be any good. Curry. Yeah, Curry. Curry is a little bit- Curry is a little bit. But I mean, okay.

But Curry was a top 10 pick. At the same time, he was a top 10 pick.

But the first couple of years of Curry was like, ankle problems. Is he too small? He's not that good. Too adorable.

Even if he was, nobody was saying this guy is going to be the best or a unanimous MVP or any of those things. No one thought that. They thought, he's a pretty good player.

All right, we've covered the last dance. We got Melo leaving Denver.

Pick aside, I mean.

No, what's next? Are we going to do the Chris Paul trade getting rejected? What do you think of that?

We're going to do college football right now. We're going to get to the Beatles biopic.

Let's do 2016 NBA Finals.

That goes.

What a blown lead.

Am I right? What a time.

How about Love is Blind? The cupcakes?

You guys remember the three-in-one cupcake?

Tell me about yesterday's college football news. What was interesting about it? Measurement system.

So not a measurement system. I don't know why you keep calling it that. I was confused. Yeah, it's really not related at all. Okay, thank you. What you mean by measurement system, that's how they decide teams. Still not even really related to that, too. They've basically just reformatted the entire playoff model. So now they have, obviously, they're expanding to 12 teams. Originally, they were going to have a 6-6 model. With the Pac-12 dying, they're not able to do that anymore. So they've decided that the model for next year is a 5-7, which means the five highest ranked conference champions automatically make it into the payoff. And then the seventh highest ranked teams after that will also make the payoff.

Makes perfect sense.

Why would that not be the way that you measure a champion? I don't understand why that's not a measurement system. I'm saying the way you determine a champion is decided now that we are going to have the playoffs. We've always wanted closer to-Measurement's the word. You're losing me all. But with no other context, you just said to the audience, We want to talk about college football changing their measurement system.

To me, that's how they measure it. It's an abstract. It's a very abstract definition, I think, Dan, and we're very literal in the shipping container.

I honestly thought you meant like BCS. They brought the BCS back.

We just love mistakes, honestly. Even if it's not a real mistake, we just want to pounce.

It's like you grief eat, we mistake eat. There's a lot to eat on this show. But this wasn't a mistake.

Semantics, Dano.

You guys were fine with how it is we determined a champion last year. No. No. What are you talking about? The system? I'm not saying- The measurements. I'm not saying that you support Michigan winning the entire thing, but the way that it was determined, you guys think is fair and equitable, even though there's cheating involved.

No, not at all. They put 13 people in a room who I don't know if they watch college football or not to decide who the four best teams are. This was a controversial final four, to say the least.

But Bama got in. Didn't we all think they should be in?

Bama I don't know, Jim. There's a lot of gray area there. We don't have to, Jim gray, we don't have to rehash the college football playoff debate.

Not with 2016 NBA Finals talk on that.

Exactly. Thank you. My opinion is that there's really no great way to measure the champion in college football. I don't think four teams is a great way. It's a fine way. I think most of the years we got a national champion that most people agree on. I think Michigan was probably the best team in the country this year. Asterix because they never had to play Georgia.

She's like a mean. I'm not hearing an opinion here. And they cheated a lot. I see your fence sitting right now.

My opinion is that there's no great way. So now we're going to try 12, see if that's great. We'll probably get some pretty good games in the middle rounds of the playoffs. I don't know if every game is going to be great. That was the biggest complaint about the 14 playoff is that not every game was great. We had a lot of dud semifinals. So now instead of doing six or eight, we're just jumping straight into 12.

Now, one One through twelve will be a much better game.

We won't have any duck anymore.

Eight and nine will play each other. It's seated. The fifth team will play the 12th team, the sixth team will play the 11th team. Marsmander style. Yeah. And then the top four teams get buys, and then they all play the Whatever. You understand how Bracket works.

Top 14, bye, bye, bye, and bye.

Bye, bye, bye, bye. No, fifth, bye. Because of the Pac-5.

The highest ranked teams outside of that for the first round get to host the first round of the playoffs at home, which I think is super, super cool. We could have a situation where you have a college full of playoff game taking place in South Bend, in Tuscaloosa. In Iowa. Maybe if we dream and we hope and we pray and we sacrifice to the gods, potentially. But the 12 teams is not what we wanted, but I think given the fact that that's just what we're stuck with because they completely ignored 6-8, as Jess said, this is a pretty good system. It makes up for the fact that the Pac-12 is not really a real conference anymore. It gives chance for a group of five schools to compete. I'm happy-ish with it.

Twitter seemed to be saying that Notre Dame was a benefactor of this new system. Is that true? Is this good for Notre Dame?

I think that this is probably what Notre Dame wanted. In fact, I can probably say, yes, this is what Notre Dame wanted. I think a lot of A lot of people saw that Notre Dame would not be eligible for the buy if they were a top four team in the playoff and thought that would be a bad thing for Notre Dame. But I think this gives them... Notre Dame is not going to be eligible to win a conference because they're not in a conference. The trade-off is, okay, if you're a top four team in the country, you'll never get a buy. But if you're 5 through 12, you have a path to the payoff that you didn't have before, and you don't play during conference Championship weekend ever, no matter what. So, yeah, You have to play four games in a row in the playoffs, but you're already taking that week off. I think it's actually... I could see an argument that it's worse for a conference championship losing team because you have now lost your conference championship game. You have to play that 13th game, and you don't get a buy in the payoff.

So now you have played all of the games. The stakes, I think, are a little higher for the conference championship because you really, really want that buy, especially if you have to play that game and you don't get seated in the five slot because the five gets the 12, and the twelve possibly is a G5 conference champion. So maybe if they're not great that year, that's an easy-ish game. Still a playoff game, but you get home field, like Lucy said. So I see an argument that way. It's a little bit... That might be trickier.

Okay, but it doesn't feel like you took a definitive takey side. And all that matters here- I don't like 12 teams.

I've said that for years.

More games with more stakes is not something that anyone's going to have a problem with who loves sports. If I'm just giving them more stakes on these games, more, more is a great solution to everything in football. Just more.

James Franklin might have a problem with it. He doesn't like the big game. It's not going to work out well for him.

I do think, though, Dan, because people said that when they went to a 14 playoff. Yeah, people complained when the games sucked. The games had stakes, and Alabama still blew out Michigan State, and Clemson still blew out Ohio State. There were still blowouts, and people were like, We don't want this game with stakes because it's bad. So, yeah, people are still going to complain no matter what.

Complain, complain, complain. And then they watched all the games, and the games were great, and Michigan cheated its way to a championship, and it's not disputed somehow because of how they measure the games with stakes.

Dan, I have an update from the No Bull Tour. Hungary Jack, Embroiled Legal Battle with Burger King.

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Don Lebetard.

Look out, look out now. Just Jack White doing Elvis and Dewey Cox. Stugatz. She hits it out of the park. Harry Carey is who that is?

It's Will Farrell doing Harry Carey.

And Elvis occasionally. Look out now.

This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugats.

I want to ask all of you this question as children who have grown up with what modern day sports coverage has been and has seen the proliferation of everything in social media that makes things spread or grow or not. Okay? I don't trust any ratings being dispersed by anybody at this point. But all-star viewership for the game that we were all complaining about, evidently was up 14%, and they're saying 20% with unique viewers. Their doing account of the All-Star Game got into the reach of 12 million people. The thing that I wanted to ask the group as it relates to sports coverage, in line with Chris Cody's general theory that Zion Williamson tearing his Nike shoe isn't ultimately bad for Nike because all publicity is good publicity. When I say to you, the college football arguing that happens is content every year because we don't like the system. Then I say to you, not bad for the sport. Then I tell you, everyone complaining with hysterics about the All-Star Game being shitty, not actually bad for the sport. Not in the short term when it comes to garnering the thing that matters today, which how do I get your attention?

I get your attention because people are pissed off about something, and having them pissed off is better than having them be indifferent or not watch at all or not care at all. When I ask you about college football and the All-Star game in basketball, when the coverage is loud and negative, is it that bad? Because Michigan won the Championship, and Jim Harbaugh got a great job because of it. For all the complaining we did about how they made the choice, Michigan's the champion.

Yeah, I don't think there has been that much negative coverage of college football and the playoff. People argue about it, but I think that's baked into the sport and pretty much has been for over 100 years. Everyone's going to fight about who the real national Championship is. And it was Michigan. They are going to have a billion players drafted in the NFL this year. Jim Harbaugh is now one of the highest paid NFL coaches, rightfully so. He did a great job coaching. Are people going to remember the Connor Stalions thing? Yeah, they are. And Michigan caved when the Big Ten called them on it, and he took a suspension. So There's a little bit of gray area there in terms of how you remember them as a national championship. But they won the games. They're the national champions. I think that I don't see many arguments that a 12-team playoff is bad for the sport of college football. I think the opposite. There's going to be more games, like you said. I think my concern with it has always been that it's probably pretty bad for the players because we remember in the NFL when they added the 17th game and the players union did not want it.

And once you take the toothpaste out of the tube, you're not putting it back in. You're never going to get rid of college football playoff games now that we have a system with 12 games. And now you're making players who do not have any control over their salaries that they don't get paid, over how many games they play in a season, over any of these things that, at least you could say, NFL players bargain for, although we know that the contracts are not fair. There is not a power balance in the NFL, despite the fact that there is a union. Now you have college football players, many of which are not going to get paid for their performances or for what they do in college football. Now you have to win and play even more games to win something in college football. And I think that that's something that really sucks about the sport.

No, that sucks for sure. I think when it comes to just arguing about how the champion is decided in college football, this is a sport that has 133 teams that have vastly different resources. This is the most unequal sport, I think, out there. Obviously, there's going to be some controversy and debate with how do you decide the best team out of 133 teams when you're playing 12 to 14 games a season. Obviously, Obviously, the 12-team playoff is going to dissipate that argument a bit. But I think something that we're going to come to find is we already see in this four-team playoff, there's usually a pretty big difference between the first best team in the country and the fourth best team in the country. That's going to widen the gap when you're going one from twelve because it's such a top-heavy sport. It's the games that you're trying to avoid in the, We don't want to see a blowout. That's still going to continue to happen.

Didn't Dan ask about All-Star ratings? I did.

However- You're talking NBA so much today, Dan. They miss college football, and I don't blame them for missing college football. Just like you missed football yesterday, you're perpetually someone who has sad eyes as soon as football ends. But I want to go back to what Lucy and Jess said, because to me, it's at the core of the ethical conundrum with this sport. If I'm arguing on the front end, there's never a complaint you're going to hear from anybody who's a football fan about more games except for that one, if you want to be human about things, which is they're throwing more bodies into the mob. But now it's all professional football.

It's not, though. Nil doesn't equal professional.

But it's paid. It doesn't have unions. It doesn't have the same protections or power. They're not employees. Right, but they're getting paid professional money. It's not the money. Espn just gave $7.8 billion for these games, and the players don't get any of that money. The fact that they get money for it, though, makes it ostensibly professional. Does it not? Isn't that the definition of an athlete gets paid for play?

Not Every single athlete gets paid for... Actually, none of them get paid for play, technically. But no, because like Lucy said, there's 133 teams, and you can probably make the case that most players on the top teams are getting something. Not every player on every team is getting something, and they're all playing in the same system. They're all eligible.

You don't think that college football players are now professional when George's quarterback is starting with a Lambo?

I think you're making a distinction that I don't necessarily agree with.

I think he had a Lambo anyway. Oh, now they've got Lamboes. Now they're getting cars. Oh, come on, man. Come on, Polyana.

I'm just saying they're professional. Why does that make me Polyana?

No, because they're being paid- Because I think people say that as It's a disingenuous way to...

I'm not saying that this is what you're doing, but I think people will say, everyone's getting paid now. What's the issue? We don't need to do anything more.

But you know I care about the injustice on the bodies. I just assume that once you make it about money, That's what the money's for. That's what the trade is. It becomes a more brazen, overt commercial transaction. I can argue on behalf of their humanity all I want, but once the consumer wants more games, we're going trample the bodies.

They're not getting paid to play football, though. This is not the system that we have. The lip tremble, I think, is a little too much. The tear- What are you doing?

It's a great visual joke. I was not aware that he could cry on cue. Chris Cody has- The tear looks fake. Does it look fake? It doesn't look fake. It looks to me like he has summoned a couple of tears. It was a great close It is a visual joke while we were talking, so it has lost entirely- It wasn't visual.

He's been moaning for 12 minutes.

The audio audience is going to have a different feel of what this is. Hey, yo.

Oh, my God, the audio audience.

It's visually great. It's visually exceptional. So forgive me, Jess. I want to come back here because I'm not making a semantics argument on this. You are right. There are distinctions between collectively bargained things, union care, health benefits, and being employees. But the way they have changed the grift and the injustice in college football is they've got $7.8 billion of television money. It's not even just ESPN's games. They can sell those games to others, but none of that money for that product, none of it is going to the players. It goes some to the schools, and then the schools spend it in resources. But you are right that these are not employees that are cared for in any way by the system, the institution, or the way that it's governed. But it still feels like once you start paying the top, the best schools all have athletes that are making a good amount of money. The top end of this sport, when the playoff games are being played, the top five schools, those are going to feel like professional players who are out there.

I think it's important to note that a lot of these athletes that are making a ton of money, like Kaitlyn Clarke at Iowa is making a crap ton of money, but But a good chunk of that, if not most of it, is all coming from brand deals, which isn't going to her playing. I think that college football, you have such giant rosters. The Florida State Georgia game, you think that Florida State quarterback is getting a ton of money? Like, he was a third string, fourth string guy. These players aren't making money directly from their school either. It depends state by state, where they're not professional athletes. They're just getting sponsored.

Yeah, but I think the other The other side of the argument is, are they getting sponsored for being famous, and they're famous because they play? The Florida State third string quarterback is a great example. He's not famous, hence he's not getting paid. The O-linemen, they're not getting paid, even though some of them might be top 10 picks or whatever. The famous glittery guys are the ones who get paid, and that's where it ties into marketing more than it does performance.

Yeah, but Caleb Williams is getting paid from a brand, whether he's at Oklahoma or USA. I think the thing to note is it's not coming directly from the universities. That's actually not even entirely true anymore, just because it's such a state-by-state basis that it's just like you can't just come out and say that they're all professional athletes.

Let me ask the two of you, though. Morally conscious human beings, you do say it sucks that they have to play more games, but you will not care one iota less about the college football season or results because that immorality exists at the middle of it, right? Your morality will be sabotaged by how much you care about the results.

Yup.

Yeah, I'm a fan of the sport as much as I think it's a tremendous clusterfeel.

Amin's got another update from Australia and the sponsoring of this no bull tour of Luke Longley, Horace Grant, and Scottie Pippen.

Yeah, so let's start by throwing those logos up on the screen so everyone could see.

He's so right about this.

Burger King and the Hungary Jacks, guys, same font.

They have no relationship, no business. It's not like how McDonald's has its rebranded version.

Fazolis or whatever. Yes. No, they were imbroiled, as I said at the end of the last segment, they were imbroiled in a legal debate. I like that. They use that. Thank you.

I mean, that's the same.

They broiled the hamburger. They should have an imbroiler.

Well, guys, I have an update. The legal battle has been settled and it's done. That fast? Yeah.

When did that happen?

In the '90s.

Oh.

Thank you, Mike Fuentes, for telling me that they were suing each other and not mentioning that that happened in the '90s.

Where was he yesterday during that kid rock conversation?

What were the results, though? Surely, Hungary Jacks lost that lawsuit and had to pay a lot of money. Those are identical emblems.

Quite the opposite, Dan. Burger King ended up paying Hungary Jacks a lot of money. You know why? Because they bought them. That's right. That's how they settled things. Big boy style, America, USA.

Really? Usa. Usa. Usa. You understand?

Don't money at it. America, Jack.

Don Levatard. Off-handed to me and Chris before we started playing, he's like, It seems like that Tony guy gets triggered pretty easily. I laughed the hardest out loud I've ever laughed in my life.

Stugatz.

He got triggered pretty easily. That guy. I'm triggered.

That's so ridiculous. It's the most incredible thing. I'm really easily triggered.

No, it's crazy. You know what I've realized? People love putting their athletic insecurities on me. Don't project that shit on me.

You suck.

Not my problem. Chris Cody leaves a game early. Oh, let's support Chris Cody.

Whatever the fuck Billy does, let's support that.

Mike Ryan, let's go to Buffalo. All of us go to Buffalo.

Give me a point. That was the bullshit. Tony, you totally proved that you weren't at all unhinged.

Thank you. This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugat.

I mean, as you approach old head status, and you've seen a number of things over the last couple of years, not necessarily on oddball, but around here, but also on oddball because Charlotte is, at least theoretically, mathematically younger than you are.

I think she's younger than me in every sense. Well, spiritually, in some way, she can be older. No, not even spiritually.

Okay, fair enough. What are you talking about? Oddball is every day. I've She made fun of Charlotte for some of her old woman sensibilities, regardless.

She dressed up as Groucho Márcia.

Are you having a spiritually old off with Charlotte?

Yeah, absolutely. I win every time.

The larger point that I was trying to make is that you are somebody who cares deeply about basketball. You have seen yourself age out in some places generationally where you don't connect with the 20-year-old player necessarily. What just happened at the All-Star Game was reacted to very viscerally by people who care about basketball and people who care about that game as mattering back from when Bird and Magic and Michael cared about it. They expect these players to carry on that legacy respectfully. I'm asking you without being an emotional old head and as a practical businessman, the damage is what when the NBA is releasing, Hey, our ratings were good?

There's a couple of things going on. Number one, You don't have to go back to Bird and Magic in Jordan. Just today, I watched film from 2013 All-Star Game, which was basically a decade ago, of Kobe defending LeBron. I'm not just talking about getting a hand up. I'm talking about switching, about picking them up full-court. This happened. We had this in these kids' lifetime. They grew up watching All-Star games that were competitive at some point. Maybe not the whole game, but at some point were competitive defensively. I don't know if you know this, Dan, do you know how many personal fouls happened on Sunday?

Weren't there two free throws shot by one team?

There were three fouls. That means if you took every foul of every player in that game and give them just to one guy, he wouldn't even be in foul trouble in the first half of a game. There were three block shots, maybe two or three block shots. It's not a game. It is literally just people watching other people dribble up and take a shot, and then, Okay, now it's my turn.

But I'm asking about the real damage.

The real damage is this, Dan. You know what upfronts are? Do I have to explain what upfronts are to the audience?

It's sales for television projects, what's coming up. The advertisers can know what's coming up. Right.

What they do is they have the talent for these different programs. For instance, Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg will show up and let everyone know all the great new things that are going to happen this season as a result of this. And so you should sponsor us, put more money in us. All Star Weekend is a bit like that. It's like upfronts. You're telling sponsors, and in this case, we're also telling broadcasters, Hey, this is a crown jewel. When Turner pays money for their TV package, it's not like an even amount of money for all the games. There's a certain premium for having playoff games, including one of the conference finals. There's a certain premium for having opening night. There's a certain premium for having MLK Day games for Turner. And there's a huge premium for the All-Star Weekend to have exclusivity on that, that only the celebrity game goes to ESPN. So when we're sitting here on the cusp of another rights deal, which will give us a lot of money, which will fuel the BRI, which fuels the salary cap, which fuels what the maximum salaries are. A very real chain reaction of, if this thing turns into a shit weekend every year, the money we get for it goes down, which means the money that goes to the cap goes down, which means the maximum salaries go down, which means you cost yourself money because you were too cool to get a hand up.

It's ridiculous. Again, I'm not asking for loose balls and flagrant fouls. I'm just asking for amount of competitive desire that occurred with players that were playing in that game.

Do you believe the ratings or not?

First of all, I don't believe any ratings, as you said earlier, especially now, because they're taking and twisting any which way of people logging and streaming, whatever, as that counts as someone watching. On top of that, even if I were to take it as at least comparable to last year's ratings in terms of the methodology, I would say the return from East to West would bring that about. People are like, Okay, they're going back to normal. The commissioner spent a whole week telling everyone, Hey, it's going to be better this year. It's going to be better this year. Dan, you saw the look on his face. You heard his voice.

He looked crestfallen.

Dog, that's not someone saying, Hey, we did good here today.

Well, because it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to come out all week and say, This year they try, and you've never heard such complaints about not trying. The optics, this is the part, though. I really don't think it's about the game. I think it's about how bad these optics are. If you're going to hate the athlete for making a lot of money, it feels disrespectful to you that the greatest of the stars can't do us the courtesy of showing joy about what they do for a living because joy is at the center of why you pay to consume it.

Dan, there's a couple of things. One of them is we're doing a thing here. I don't know if you guys know this. We're selling this thing.

In partnership.

We are all actively selling this thing.

All of us, right? We're all at the upfront. It's all you stars who are making all this money. But I understand after 15 years of LeBron James and player empowerment, how those guys say, No, man, I don't need to share this with you. I'm a We are now, and I don't need to care about the next generation.

Funny enough, there was a graph that came out that showed the viewership in the millions from 2012 or '11 down to what we are now. Obviously, it went from 10 million all the way down to four something that we've seen now. I mean, in your opinion, is it the players take the identity of the top dog in the league where Kobe was like, I'm going to buckle down and play defense? And LeBron has been like, I don't really care about this. I don't care about the Dunkonsets. I don't care about the All-Star game. And people have followed suit with that?

I would say, so this is what I would say, obviously, very few guys are going out there Kobe-style. That's another level. But LeBron has been one of the better ones to me. Now, Sunday night, a minute's restriction. He's 100 years old. We allow him. We give him that grace. Giannis plays hard. Devon Booker plays hard, I think. Damian Lillard plays hard. But at the end of the day, you got guys that clearly don't give a damn. I'm going to name names. Luca Donchis and Anthony Edwards clearly did not care. They told you. They had the interviewers told you afterwards, I'm not going to do this. And so this is the part where part of it comes on the league and the players association to impress upon them. Guys, this is a thing. I'm not saying, go get hurt. But also, no one has ever gotten hurt in the history of the All-Star Game other than Kobe getting his nose bloody.

Do you guys think that... I believe that that was Adam Silver's most embarrassing public moment.

I've never seen him feel that negative. Dan, forget What about embarrassing? I've never seen Adam Silver not be a beacon of positivity, even when he was kicking Donald Sterning out the lead.

No, but you say, Forget embarrassment. What I saw on the leader and Commissioner of the League was he was rendered publicly useless by his employees. I thought he was embarrassed to be out in front of people after that game on behalf of the league that he sold.

On behalf of the message that he was putting out all weekend long is what it was. The The other part of this, though, Dan, that people don't talk about, and I think this is a very actionable place. I'm going to put some of this on the coaches.

You see, Luca- I thought Doc coached a hell of a game. Good offense, good system.

That was a very astute observation by you.

I appreciate that. They wanted almost a blowout. It was his best coach game of the year, I thought.

You clearly watch a lot of basketball. I really appreciate that about you. Very knowledgeful. It's a good question. Good question.

It does make you feel good when you say that because it's like, Oh, I know ball.

I honestly forgot he was doing a bit. I was like, Wow, look at me. That was great.

See how easy it is? Oh, my God. I love this guy. You see how easy it is for him. But then the reality is if I'm Chris Fitch, and I don't want to put him on jumpstart, but I'm just going to use his name because he was coaching the West. I see Luca doing what he's doing, I was like, Luca, sit down. Book, get in there. You get to watch your rival go out there and play. Luca, I don't give a damn how many votes you got. You're getting seven minutes tonight. If coaches start playing the guys who take it seriously and benching the guys, one or two things are going to happen. Either these guys are going to be like, Well, damn, I got to take it seriously, too, so I can get back in this game, or you're going to say, I don't want to be an All-Star, and in which case, take your ass home.

Take your ass home.

The most shocking part of the whole night was learning who Chris Finch was.

I was like, Who does he coach, Chris?

Minnesota. I learned that the other night.

But before that- We talked about it on Radio Row.

You didn't know Jonathan Kaminga?

I know.

Wow. He'll get to it.

We did a whole bit about this show.

He'll get to it in the playoffs. Chris will get to it in the payoff.

It just started this week, basketball.

By the way, the other thing that's going to save this is a glimmer of a hope. I saw it on Friday night during the skills competition of all places, where Victor Wemenyama and Paula Banchero and Anthony Edwards were a team of all number one overall picks, competing in skills competition. And Wembe Yamma was like, All right, guys, let's do this. Let's go. And he goes through it, and then he's trying. And then Anthony Edwards comes out and shoots left-handed. Wembe was like, What the F are you doing? That's the only thing that's going to change it. It has to happen from within on some level, which is-The big dogs. The big dogs come in and they care. And Victor Wembe Yamma, we're all excited for him, but I think that's the most excited I've ever been because I saw he cared and he was disgusted by that. And until you got more guys who are okay with being vocal, he's a rookie now, he can't be vocal. In a couple of years, when he's one of the best players, he can be vocal and say, Hey, stop doing that in the same way that Kobe did.

This feels like a lot of faux outrage. Outside of Bob Ryan and David Altrich.

No, Amina is bothered. Who is actually upset about this? Amina is mad. Steven A is mad about it.

Chris, did you hear anyone, name one person that you know said, That game was really good.

No, but I'm also watching it, and I take it for what it is. It's an exhibition game.

No, your opinion is null, though, because you don't actually care very much. You just got done saying, I'll pay attention as soon as football's over.

Also, Chris- But a lot of people are like me.

It's not that big. It's an exhibition game. What do you guys want from these dudes?

Chris, you say that, and I tell you 10 years ago, we got competitiveness, we got guys trying, and we got better ratings.

Let someone twist an ankle. You guys are going to totally flip on this. We got better ratings. We got better ratings. Let Wembenyama go down playing hard in an All-Star game, and everyone's going to flip their script on this.

Name a guy who got hurt at an All-Star game, and then that caused him games for the rest of the year. Even one game.

I don't have an answer for your question.

Kobe Bryant broke his nose.

Wade. I remember that.

That's the closest. Let's look at how they're broadcasting the game because they have the all cast now. Which side did you watch?

Did you watch regular broadcast?

Got to go Barkley there.

I went Barkley, Draymond, and Taylor West.

How do you not go Barkley and Draymond? I felt so bad for Reggie Miller.

The line of the night, Draymond said, This is like an old-school Minnesota game for Carl Anthony Town. That was great. He's got 50, and they're down by 20.

Put it on the poll, please. Which one did you watch at Lebitard's show, the regular broadcast or Draymond and Charles? Because Draymon and Charles is cheating a little bit.

I do feel like this This is how the NBA wins. They have their All-Star game, make it not matter, make everyone argue about it because they don't have a game for four more days. This is how they win. We're driving NBA conversation during the break. Chris Cody, you might be on to something.

I don't think it's bad.

How do you make money off of it?

You turn it into a party for the younger generation. You turn it into something that is different from what it's been.

The Saturday Night event was a huge success, too, with Sabrina and Steph.

You can't tell me Indianapolis did not love having that in their city.

You can't tell me it's not a jewel. Do you know why, Jess, it was a great success? Because it was two star players actually trying. Oh, my God! What? Trying? What effort? What madness is this? Well, then why do you need a game?

Let's just do that for three days.