Local Hour: We Made You, We Run You
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Cuervo. The tequila that invented tequila. Proximo. Cuervo.com. Please drink responsibly. Found a kid who swings a golf club like a dream. I'd like to try to qualify him for the U.S. Amateurs. Coming to Apple TV+. What's your name? I'm not into older guys, but I'm flattered. A new comedy series, Stick. I don't want to go on this trip. Your mouth's saying one thing, but those eyes are saying something else. From the home of Ted Lasso. Is he your shot at redemption? This is your moan again? Owen Wilson. This game takes and it takes. The game's finally giving me something.

Stick. You know Arnold Palmer? Iced tea. Lemonade. Mix it. I'm missing a nap for this. Streaming June 4th on Apple TV+. Billy, do you have any advice for me on the better place to start today that Stugatz is here and we have some New York radio sound to play for Stugatz in the audience now that some of the poisons from New York are trickling in? But we also have a feud between Pablo Torre and Bill Simmons. Ooh.

I mean, is this his thing now, Pablo, just feuding with people for attention? Jeez Louise. It's Nick Wright one minute. It's Bill Belichick's girlfriend another minute. It's Bill Simmons. I mean, I only got a minor in journalism. So I guess maybe to get the major, you miss the classes on making yourself the center of every story and debating with your subjects. He is going up, though. It's elevating, right? Now he's at Bill Simmons, like mogul of the industry. What's next? How much higher can he go? Us. Us.

But he's already feuded with me. Right, so that's kind of already done. But you can end that real quick. I could? All of it. All your feuds. No, the Pablo situation. You're the boss. What is Scott agreeing with? I don't know.

All the feuds. You have me ending all of Pablo's feuds? I'm just saying, if Pablo feuds with you, I mean, you're the boss. You sign the checks. You could say, you know what? This feud is over. I don't sign the checks. I'm not Foss at all. Who does? Is this electronic at this point? I don't have anything to do with the checks. Like, you guys keep blaming me for the checks, and I don't have, I'm not in charge of the money. Who do we blame for the checks then? Skipper. Skipper.

He's gone, though. He's still here. What do you do? What responsibility do you have? I do believe I can be found. What I'm doing right now, it's not the money. Oh, you cash him.

I do cash them. I do cash some of the checks. Yeah, so do you, though. I've cashed a few. So does everyone around here. Who is on the checks? Whose signature is actually on the checks? I get direct deposit. Yeah, me too. It's like a squiggly line for me. I can't see whose name it is. I still have you, Dan, for some reason, going to the ATM. Same. Depositing the check. I've got to get it in before 5 p.m.

That's how he likes to do it. I mean. With a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it. You know what's funny about this? This is what's funny about this. Just yesterday, because I knew it. No, listen to this. This is great. This was so Miami. I'm not kidding you when I tell you I walk into the bank, OK, through the rain. And why? It's a pretty harsh rain because I want cash.

I want more cash than the ATM will give me. In the rain? You need it that bad? It was just before 5 o'clock. You requested more cash than the ATM had? I requested more cash than the ATM gives per day. Oh, I see. You have a limit? Good for you. This seems nefarious. I shouldn't have limits. What do you mean it's nefarious? Are you a hitman? Yeah, what do you need all this cash for? I'm with you, though. Why is the bank limiting me? Hey, my money.

I don't like any limits on my cash, and I enjoy giving my cash to whomever I like without any paperwork involved with the giving of that cash. I prefer to have it in my hand old school Miami style.

And what just happened at the bank yesterday that was funny is that I run in. Why are you holding your hand in front of me when we're doing cash? You like to give out cash. We're only doing audio, though. We're not on video right now. You noticed he was waving. I was hoping you would take that picture for us. You were also waving at everyone like a prom queen because you don't know when we're on the air.

This was a very Miami thing though yesterday. So I run inside through the rain and the lightning strikes are so strong and crazy that people are gasping and running very quickly inside. The bank had been otherwise empty. Now there are a whole bunch of people running in. They give me my cash and

to take outside in a garbage bag! Wow. Power move. So that it won't get wet! Was it spilling over? How much cash was in a garbage bag so that it wouldn't get wet? This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stugatz Podcast. ♪

The headline is Bill Simmons trashes Pablo Torre over Bill Belichick, Jordan Hudson reporting. I will read some of these quotes for you guys in a second. Pablo Torre, it will be appearing on Bill Simmons's podcast here. The quote is,

Pablo Torre would have done a long podcast about Leo Farnsworth trying to practice with the team and then done a media tour about it afterwards, Simmons said, shocking his co-hosts. I've never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you're a journalist. What the bleep was that? Seriously.

So Pablo Torre was made indignant by this because he has 11 sources. My favorite part of the article, though, was Simmons also discussed the NFL and the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait on his podcast. It's a good movie. Warm baby. It was the rewatchables. It was supposed to be a movie pod. The weirdest part is why they were talking about Pablo, I guess.

It's a movie podcast. And why Pablo is going on Bill's podcast. What do we get out of this? Yeah, it seems like you're going to pick a fight with Bill Simmons. You get him on your podcast, so you get the clicks. Doesn't sound like Pablo's doing a lot of no these days. Well...

We can talk about heaven can wait, though, right? Warren Beatty, football player, right? Yeah. You guys have never seen it? Go ahead and just search YouTube there so you can see Warren Beatty as a quarterback. It's throwing motion. This was a movie star for The Times. And I want you to see just the general lack of arm strength and skill involved.

I've told you before that Adam McKay said that it took a full year to teach Danny McBride how to throw a baseball in eastbound and down. It took a year because he was so unathletic. I have seen very little funnier than John C. Reilly trying to catch a foul ball as a catcher in the movie Love of the Game. John C. Reilly cannot run and certainly cannot do whatever athleticism is required from going from the catcher's position to running backwards,

flipping off your mask. Popping up the mask? Oh! In terms of difficult things that people don't know how difficult they are, catching a foul ball as a catcher isn't the most difficult thing, but only because punt returning exists. Dan, did they take John C. Reilly to catcher school? They're like, all right, you've got to flip up the mask or your pop time.

What's your pop time? Can you imagine John C. Reilly having any athleticism? Tell me. I mean, there have to be. What is it? Is it DiCaprio? What was the basketball movie that DiCaprio did where he was very young? Basketball Diaries. Couldn't dribble a basketball. Basketball Diaries. Although I almost said London basketball.

You have seen any number. We could open it up to the audience. Give me the least athletic thing that you have seen in the movies from an actor. Charlie Sheen and Kevin Costner have been celebrated for at least having a high school baseball ability to move around in a way that doesn't look ridiculous. But no, no...

And Costner has done some stuff with golf where his swing doesn't look horrific. But most actors cannot recreate athleticism in a way that's realistic. Well, it's easy for Costner because at a base level, he looks like he could be a baseball player or a golfer. He does. So it's an easy role for him to fill. I think of him as shorter, though. Is he smaller? I don't think he's a short guy. But I got the one for you. And no one's going to beat me on this. Kevin Bacon, the air up there.

Him dribbling a basketball. Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf. Oh, that's a good one. That was believable. Kevin James was an MMA fighter in a movie. That's a great one. That's a great one. Kevin Costner, 6'1", by the way. Yeah, he's a tall guy. Air Bud. Sneaky tall. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Is Kevin Costner sneaky tall at 6'1"?

Let me get to what it is that I missed yesterday, and it's nice to see you, Stu Gatz, but you denied us yesterday the ability to really be a vibrant, forward-looking show. I wasn't on the schedule. Well, I think that you probably negotiated being out after bad Knicks losses. I thought that that was part of your negotiations. Someone told you? Somebody mentioned that there were some...

Addendums in your contract after Jets losses and Knicks losses. But thankfully, we have a number of New York gasbags at our disposal who was saying all sorts of things yesterday. And perhaps you will take us on a path how it is that it felt to see not just Indiana win, but Indiana then did. I mean, the thing that is the most fun in these three days for a fan base before you get to the finals, which is.

Indiana just trolled New York and its fans on social media for the last couple of days. The organization itself, Halliburton, all making fun of New York because winners get the last word. Yeah, Halliburton got Stiller with a good one because Stiller was like, oh, that duffel bag because he's flying back to New York. And Halliburton said, no, we're just trying to pack y'all up.

Which is pretty odd, but also it would have been cool if he said it before the game. Like, to wait until after the result? The Pacers themselves as an organization were making fun of Knicks fans. But let's just get some sound here. We've got Gio here, and Stugac, you know what this is. After that Knicks loss, WFAN is 20 shares all day because everyone is just screaming and yelling and blaming. Now.

It's a weird thing because Amin is correct when he says this was a good Knicks team. Exceeded expectations, I would say. Exceeded the average expectations has to be considered a positive season given that it's the best season in a quarter century for the Knicks franchise. The Knicks franchise does not win playoff series. Does not win playoff games. That is a recent phenomenon. And so...

I'm sure New York radio hosts will be totally reasonable about this. Let's hear from Gio immediately after the single greatest Knicks season this century. Talking about Carl Anthony Towns. And they went and they traded for him, and he's making $50 million a year, and at the core, he's a loser.

That is their biggest problem. The guy is a loser. He's a losing player. He complains. He is soft. He shows you flashes where he's the best player on the court. Not enough. He doesn't play enough defense. He bitches and moans. He is, up until this point in his career, a loser.

I mean, that one, that's hard to argue with. It is. It's well done by Gio. You have to stay on the front end before you call a guy a loser that he's making $50 million per year. Okay, this is not fair commentary to call Carl Anthony Towns a loser. I don't know how both of you are like, that's fair. Well, he didn't win. What has he won? He's probably won more games in his career than he's lost.

Those Minnesota years were really bad. Some lean years, man. Some lean years. College and pro? You believe this is a player that has lost more than he has won? Wait, now we're extending it to college? He only played one year of college. High school, too, Dan. He was probably undefeated in high school. You're right. Elementary. I mean, he was crazy. I would just argue there's little gymnastics being done there. That is just like he's – you can't argue with that. He's lost.

You can argue with calling a human being a loser who's top 1% of the top 1% in a very competitive field at making money. You can argue with that, yes. You can't. It's not an... Gio did not close down the argument with a truth we can all agree with by saying the factual statement, Carl Anthony Towns is a loser. Uh-oh. Record for a career, 317 and 328. Oh.

Loser! What did you call a loser the other day? You called that college year gets him over the top because they were more than 11 games over .500 at Kentucky. They were more than 11 games over .500 at Kentucky. That's why I concluded the college years. He's over .500. Heady play. Thank you. Also, greatest shooting big man I've ever seen. Oh.

You know, Mike Conley lost more home games in his first week in the NBA than he did his entire life before that, including high school, AAU, college, everything. He lost something like four games at home. And lost five games in a week? Yeah, with the Grizzlies when he was a rookie. Damn it, they were 38-1.

That was a good team. It's a good team. They win a natty? No, that was a one. Loser. Loser, yeah. Speaking of losers, the Rockies beat the Marlins yesterday to be the last team to get to ten wins. How? Terrible. Speaking of losers, the Rockies had, in their last 31 games on the road, won three of them.

Not how, more like who was there to see it. There was nobody there. It was a rainy day. You were mentioning it. There was people gasping in banks of the lightning. Gasping at this picture. Garbage bags full of money. This is during the national anthem. There was a good four or five minutes before first pitch. This is a misleading photo. How many people jumping in? There were 5,000 people there. The concession stands look packed.

That's a thing. Is this park good concession stands? Yeah, probably checking out the bobblehead museum. That's a thing. Did anyone get the alligator hot dog? Y'all done that? What? They got an alligator hot dog. At Marlins Park? Yeah. Really? The gator dog. Gator dog. I'll try it. Yeah.

Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Would you like to eat a hot dog made out of alligator at Levitard Show? I know people say alligator tastes like chicken. Put that on the poll as well. That's just a thing that you say, though, to get people to eat it. Hey, it tastes like chicken. It doesn't taste like chicken. If it tastes like chicken, I'd eat it. It does kind of taste like chicken. It's like a mix between chicken and calamari is where Gator lives. It tastes like a chicken that's been swimming.

That's the best way I could put it. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Does gator taste like a chicken that's been swimming? When you say that, though, when you say that it's a...

a mix that includes calamari, all of a sudden you're making the texture gamey in a way that even if it tastes like chicken, I am going to be reminded I'm eating alligator and now my thoughts are getting in the way of my taste. - Why would your thoughts get in the way? I might wanna be present with my thoughts. When I eat alligator, the first thing I do before I take the first bite, I was like, yeah, you thought you were top of the food chain. Guess again. And then I take that big bite and I wanna savor every, like this guy thinks he's the apex predator. Guess what, buddy?

Little bit higher than you. There's an apex over the apex. It's called man. But when you think of the animal you're eating, it ruins the experience a bit, right? When I think of a turkey and I'm eating a turkey sandwich, I think of the poor turkey and it ruins my experience. I think of turkeys are very aggressive, asshole type birds. I'm like, oh, you thought you were just a big bully on the block? Guess what? Now you're my sandwich. What's the animal you feel the most guilty about eating? None.

I mean, it's kind of evolution. Lamb for me. Lamb. Are you kidding me? That was delicious. Lamb is, this is what I think about when I eat lamb. It's like, oh, you thought your mommy was going to protect you and everything. Guess again. Gotcha. We found a picture of later in the game if you want to see it. That is not accurate. Wait a second. I told you guys. The flag is still up too. That's good, Billy. I appreciate you doing that photoshopping and just changing fake news. Not fake.

Nice Japanese flag. It's clearly the world baseball classic. It's pretty cool. It's nice they did that last night. Visual joke there to exclude the audio audience. You're always producing in a way that is inclusive for everybody. YouTube. It's the wave of the future. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show, please. Does something being gamey

ruin eating for you. Yes. Because I don't want gamey and chewy with my protein. I love the game.

Gotta love the game, man. For the love of the game. Love of the game. So we had Geo's opinion given on Carl Anthony Towns. Chris Cody said it's inarguable and a fact. Carl Anthony Towns is a loser. No more words need to be expressed on this subject. The subject is closed. No one's allowed to disagree with the assessment.

that the greatest shooting big man there's ever been and someone paid at the top 1% of the top 1% of a pretty competitive field is simply a loser. No other submissions on opinions will be allowed by Chris Cody who says that...

The entire committee has closed, gone home. It's over. Karl-Anthony Towns is a loser, and it's forevermore, you're saying, right? This is not even— Zagaki. Until he wins, I mean. Right. For this season. Come on. For this season, until the next season starts, loser. Okay, but he won more than all the teams but—

in the sport. He won more, but still a loser. According to Thibs, did you guys see what he did in his press conference? We made the final three because their series was still going. I love that. He's just like, we made the final three. You know what? Good point by Thibs. I did math poorly there. They were one of the final three teams. By schedule. Their season was a game longer than Minnesota's. They are the bronze medalists on playing games.

Bronze medalist, either the second loser or just a loser. But we can agree the bronze medalist is a loser. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Is the bronze medalist a winner or a loser? Clearly ahead of Minnesota. Well, depending on how the finals play out, they may, I'll look into it, they may have played more games than one of the teams in the finals based on how quickly the series goes. So they could be a silver medalist in terms of games played this season.

No. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Go ahead, Stugat, ask the poll question. Did the Knicks finish in third? Ha ha ha ha ha!

Let's play the sound here of Sal being more Sal than Gio is. He is talking about Tyrese Halliburton, and he is contorting himself in order to give New York the credit for Halliburton being relevant. New York put you on the map. You don't run bleep.

We put you on the map, whether it's Wally Zerbiak saying he's overrated, whether it's his performance against the Knicks a year ago, whether it's the Knicks choking one in game one, allowing him to again be the villain with the choke sign. Without New York, nobody gives a crap about you, Tyrese Halliburton. You don't run squat.

Here's what you better hope you run. You better hope you don't run into a buzzsaw in the thunder in the finals. Because beating the Knicks is not the trophy that you should be trying to get here. You've done that now a couple of times. So stop with the I run New York stuff. Stop with your girlfriend on social media. Go New York, go New York, go home. Enough. Without New York, you're nothing. We made you.

We run you! Oh, 20 shares. He's right, by the way. I get it. You know, Tony, you played basketball growing up, right? I did. You played pretty high level high school. You played in college.

But as you go older and you got to play against people, you know, NBA players, right? You start to see, oh my God, like there's such a gap. There's levels. There's levels to this. I heard that, Dan. I know a lot of people in my group chat were like laughing and some people were angry or whatever. And I was like...

Man, that guy's good at this radio thing, huh? Wow. I don't think that's good at this radio thing. What? Because I don't think that after the New York Knicks have lost, that way, this is a sentence that could come out of your mouth. We made you.

We won you! That's the dismount though, Dan. What a dismount. Musical. You know, you always talk about this thing being like music. That's music right there. He had to go to break there and be like, I sound ridiculous. No. No way. Are you kidding me? He's like, got him. They applauded like NASA when they got the guys back from Apollo 13. We made you. Yeah. We won you. The producer in the back saluted him.

The Knicks presently lead the NBA in games played this season because they had longer series in each round than the two teams that made the finals. However, their lead is only two games. So they will finish, even if it's a sweep, two games shorter than the longest. That's too bad. Yeah, but it's close. Stugatz, finally. Yeah. Way too late.

After the parade float has left, leaving only litter behind, can you please give us your exclusive New York Knicks thoughts as someone who just experienced the best Knicks season in 25 years, raising the expectations to a place where, of course, New York fans, and we knew this was going to end this way, if the Knicks season was going to end,

It wasn't going to end with Brunson being blamed for anything. If the Knicks season was going to end and it was going to be a product of failing to meet expectations, the place where you're going to put the most expectations is on the big guy that is bigger than everyone else and has one block in the entire series. And now you read all the reports. Surely, Amin, you've read these reports as well.

that all of the Knicks were frustrated all season about Carl Anthony Towns doesn't know how to play defense, doesn't know when to do what, doesn't know his assignments, and all of that unraveled toward the end of the season when the wheels fell off because all of the Knicks were exhausted because they were only playing six players. So it was incredible reporting by Fred Katz and by James Edwards III for The Athletic

A lot of people were like, oh, so they just had this ready to go. I said, yes, this is how journalism works. We have the autopsy written. As soon as a team is entering elimination phase, you got to have it ready to go because that's the number one time people want to read about what went wrong that season. And so in it, they're talking about a lot of things. It's not just about towns. It covers almost everything. Everyone's got a little blame in there. Probably Brunson's the only one who goes off unscathed.

But with regards to towns, it's that attention to detail. Now you've got to remember, they're coming from a year ago, they were the exact opposite. They were scrappy offensively, but defensively they were elite. This year, they were an elite offensive team, but the defense kind of waned. And you remember on the show, I was telling you guys,

I'm not confident in this defense. It's good enough for the 82 game season where nobody cares and we're Milwaukee tonight, tomorrow we're in Cleveland, the night after that Chicago. But when you get to the playoffs and people are game planning and they're attacking weaknesses, there were just too many and one of them was Carl Anthony Towns

either non-desire or non-ability to execute defensive schematics, right? And that's exactly what we saw Indiana attack. If you think about game six, that run in the fourth quarter where they started blowing wide open, what was it? It was

Tyrese Halliburton, high pick and roll. Cat is sagging in the paint. And Tyrese is like, okay, I'm just going to go and hit this floater that I'm excellent at. And he hit it again and again and again. Those floaters, though, God almighty, they're just killers. Backbreakers. Those floaters. He hit three straight floaters, and each of them was like, that's got to bounce off the rim. Like, that shouldn't go in clean.

It's a terrible job by those players for holding on to that, that Carl Anthony Towns was not willing to play defense, that he's soft until after the Knicks loss. Say it while the season's going on. Well, I think they may have actually said it to the reporters and the reporters just held it. Well, then a terrible job by those reporters. I mean, what are we doing? Well, but Amin's telling you that it's standard operating procedure, that everyone's got their autopsy for the things that went wrong when you start blaming people. Allow me to be the one to criticize Jalen Brunson.

OK, because he's our best player. He's the guy. He's the reason. Because Dallas didn't think he was very good. The Knicks thought he was going to be good. Not this good. But he's turned out to be great. He got them to the Eastern Conference semifinals a year ago. Eastern Conference finals this year. We also conveniently forget that Jason Tatum got hurt in the series against the Knicks for Boston. But Jalen Brunson is the leader of that team.

He is the leader. Jalen Brunson, how about you work on your defense? Because when they see the leader, because he's a defensive liability for that team, when the rest of the team sees the guy who's the leader, who's never going to be criticized, working hard to improve his defensive game, the rest of them will fall in line. This is on Jalen Brunson. You can

blame Carl Anthony Towns all you want. Jalen Brunson is their best player. If he wins, he gets all the credit. And when they lose, he deserves at least a portion of the blame.

Let me ask you this, Amin, because I remember the most common criticism of Shaquille O'Neal was some form of work on your free throws. And all I would see Shaquille O'Neal doing was working on his free throws. It's not that he didn't care about his free throws. It's that he wasn't good at it. When Stugatz demands Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson be better at defense, I don't think they can be. I don't think they know how to be. I don't think that they have the footwork and speed and quick

and size, both of them, to be what they have to be on defense. I think they're limited there and no amount of will will make them better at defense. Do I have it wrong? So, first of all, for Shaq, you're absolutely right. Obviously, I was with him for a year and a half in Phoenix and he shot something like 80-85% in the practice court. And it's not just that he made them, his form looked different.

So his whatever anxiety he felt at the free throw line was so crippling that it changed his form. It made him look like he was just kind of shot putting it. When he's on the practice court, he's shooting jump shots. He's pulling up off the dribble. He's mimicking other players. It was pretty intense to watch to see someone go from so confident to just something completely different in game scenario. But to answer your question, I disagree. I do think so for Brunson, there is a physical element. He's small. So

There's only so much he can do. He was one of the league leaders, I believe, in charges taken, so that's good. He's good in that sense. But I think he can do more if he's doing less offensively, because that's the other part of it. He has to carry so much of the offensive burden. What we did was praise how great he was in fourth quarters in the clutch time. That energy comes from somewhere, and he's borrowing from a defense reservoir probably, right?

As far as Towns goes, I don't see anything physically preventing him from being a good defensive player. It's literally just mental focus, right? What we're talking about is, like, for instance, those Halliburton floaters. You know what he wants to do. You've got to go up and greet him up there. You've got to meet him at the screen level. And you can't sag. You can't play that drop coverage. You know this. You know what the defensive game plan is.

This is just a guy who either is forgetful or doesn't care, one of the two. Man, I just— I forgot to play defense. I have a hard time— It's hard to say he doesn't care. I have a hard time believing that the problems with Carl Anthony Towns aren't—

matchup problems when they bring when they bring to him matchups meant to exploit the fact that he's very big and He is graceful enough offensively for that size But can be slow-footed on defense and it's only good on defense when he's got to go bear next to him or a Mitchell Robinson because I mean it's crazy to say that someone that size had one block

in the Indiana series and had one block the last time that they were in the Western Conference finals. - At the core, he's a loser. - Dan, I'm gonna tell you what it is, right?

Tom Thibodeau, his staff, they're under no illusions of what he is capable of doing and not capable of doing. So they designed the defensive schemes to take that into account. It's not like, hey, you got to switch on to Halbert and guard him like you're Evan Mobley. They know he's not that. They know he can't do that. But they do have schemes that they want to do. Now, this is what coaches always say. We're going to draw up the scheme. You do it this way.

If it does not work, that's our bad. If you execute the way we told you to do it and we still get beat, we're still getting scored on, that's our bad, right? We got to go back to the drawing board and figure out something else. But if you'd never do the scheme that we told you to do, how can we ever know? And it sounds like from the reporting, he wasn't doing the scheme. Okay, but let's do it this way, okay? Because you can make the arguments that this is a person that is mentally deficient on defense. They will have more information than us on that.

I can say resolutely and flatly, can I not? Carl Anthony Towns is not a good rim protector. Yes or no? You agree with that or you disagree? Carl Anthony Towns is not a rim protector. I agree. He wasn't this season, no. Yes or no? He's a good rim protector. Yes or no? Not this season, no. He said no.

Boom.

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All right, y'all. The Super Bowl is in the rearview mirror. The draft has come and gone. So now what? Now it's time to get the crew together. You keep the fandom energy going. It doesn't stop when the Super Bowl's gone. We gather. Exactly. And look, just because the pads are off doesn't mean game day stops. Around here, we do game days, even in the offseason. And what better way to do that than with a cold drink?

and your people around. You've heard it all season long. Football is not a solo thing. This is not a me thing. This is not an I thing. This is a we thing. There is no I in fandom, baby. So grab your crew, grab some Smirnoff, and get into that off-season groove. Summer workouts, training camp rumors, fantasy football prep,

It's all coming, folks. And listen, if you're going to sip something while plotting your team's comeback, Smirnoff's got you. It's the perfect vodka for crafting cocktails that are easy and tasty for anyone 21 and up. Smirnoff isn't just a vodka. It's the number one vodka in the world and the official partner of the NFL. Grab a bottle of Smirnoff at your local retailer and head to Smirnoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for you.

for game day. Please drink responsibly. Smirnoff number 21 vodka distilled from grain. 40% alcohol by volume. The Smirnoff Company. New York, New York. Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age. Don Levitard. I'm just here to say one thing. The Knicks are f***ing back. Stugatz. Tavis Halliburton? Six points? Fraud. Everybody was like, yo, he's better than Jalen Brunson. He's better than the Knicks. Should've drafted him. Fraud. This is the Don Levitard Show with the Stugatz.

The Panthers not trying to capture Lord Stanley's Cup starting tomorrow. Why are we talking about Cat and his rim-protecting ability? Jeez Louise. He is, up until this point in his career, a loser. I have in front of me, there is only one player in the entire league to win a game in the conference finals last year and win multiple conference finals games this year. His name is Carl Anthony Towns. Huh. It's the only player in the sport. Hmm. Loser.

A loser. How many Larry O'Briens does he have, though? Zero. I don't believe that rim protecting of Carl Anthony Towns is something that he's deficient at because he doesn't care about being good at it. A loser. Do you understand how insulting it is to say that of somebody? Do you understand how little it regards what athletes have to do when someone's not good at something and you say, well, they don't care enough to be great at it? Dan.

I'm not using a blanket statement here because he wasn't good at it. It's so factual he doesn't care. I'm telling you, based on the reporting, his own teammates felt like he didn't care. And that's different, right? That's a very different thing. We're not doing sports talk radio just calling him, oh, he doesn't care, whatever.

We're going off of very good reporting from very good reporters who are tapped into that team. And when we read that and we know that, like this is how they feel about him internally, that's where the launching point for all of this is. He's a loser. Dan, what do you do with the fact when a guy has all the physical traits, all the physical ability to be a good defender at the rim, and yet he's not? What do you do with that? What do you do with Shaq B?

good at free throws in practice and then he gets in front of the game and he's not good at free throws. Like, Carl Anthony Towns has never been regarded by anybody as a good defensive player and it just is wildly, it's wildly insulting to assume that that's so simply because someone doesn't care enough about being a professional. Loser.

Dan, I made them on the count. He didn't. Yes, I did. There was a Detroit series where he didn't make any of the ones that needed to count. There was a Detroit series where I did.

You forgot about that one. Could the answer be that he's just slow? Loser. And that's the reason why he's a bad defender. He's just really slow and plotting. That's the thing. If you work on your agility, your quickness, maybe you can be a better defender. Loser. The interesting thing about you saying slow is that his teammates are saying it's mentally slow. Loser.

The teammates aren't even saying that it's physically slow. It's that he doesn't understand what his assignments are

On defense, how many times in that series, Stugatz, were you frustrated because the seventh pass that Indiana was making at the end of the shot clock was the one that was wide open in the corner for the most efficient shot? Wide open because they were taking it right before the shot clock because he wasn't doing whatever he had to do on some sort of rotation. Loser.

I was frustrated the same amount at Carl Anthony Towns as I was at Jalen Brunson for playing. I will tell you that I think this is what's happening here, Amin, and I think it's what's also happening with his teammates. They're just doing this physically. Jalen's trying hard because look how small he is. Of course. Look at how good Carl Anthony Towns is. I mean, optics factor into it. Yeah, but it's...

perception is not reality. Reality is reality. Like, okay, optics factor into it. They lost and therefore you call him a loser. I generally am not willing to say that somebody at the top of their profession doesn't care about their profession. But Dan, when you have a guy of that size with those physical traits with, with,

ridiculous ability he does for a guy who was that tall in the last three seasons. He's .6 blocks per game. You have to start questioning some things. I'm saying that he's not good at blocked shots. That's cement footage. He was, though.

But also, Dan, like, not caring comes in many different forms. Not caring could be like, man, I don't care. Like, that's, I think, how you're taking it. But there's another form where it's like, hey, I really need you to lock in. All right, cool. Walk out there. And he forgot what we're doing. Like, that's a level of not caring. It's not a dismissive not caring. It's not like he doesn't feel remorse for it. But...

It's still a level of you didn't care enough to execute. I would argue at this point, if you're having trouble with the playbook...

It might not be caring. It might be some sort of mental deficiencies that make for difficulty with what the playbook is. And perhaps that is also insulting, but I'm simply— Yeah, would you rather be told you don't care or you're dumb? I mean— I'd rather be told I don't care. If I'm dumb but I do care and I'm trying, then, you know, there's that. There is that with you. Yeah.

I mean, your thoughts here on which one's more insulting, because I do believe we can just have the assessment. It's allowed. He's not good at this. Loser.

I would definitely not want anyone to question my mental ability to do anything. I would rather you think that I'm just lazy or I don't care or I'm dismissive a million times before I have anyone call me a dumbass out there. Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Which would bother you more, people thinking you're lazy or people thinking you're dumb? I get both, so...

Turns out Shaq won four NBA titles. Not a loser. Not a loser. Not a loser. Doesn't matter about his free throws. Three straight, I think. Four times. Made him win the count. You said that Carl Anthony Towns is a loser. I skated in with the math and from my math friends of he's slightly over 500 since his college career. What do you imagine the Knicks record is over the last 25 years? Is Carl Anthony Towns the loser or is the organization the loser? Yeah.

Do you think the Knicks have won more than they've lost the last 25 years? The funny thing about this entire conversation, he's six wins away from being the savior. Ridiculous. I understand why we call athletes losers. In no walk of life or occupation does the way that that man is measured matter.

end up with any other person of comparable skills being called a loser. Knicks are 869 and 1139 between June 3rd, 2000 and June 3rd, 2025. They run Halliburton. Losers. New York runs Halliburton from watching the next round. Watch. New York is running Tyrese Halliburton.

Sal is right about that, though, right? Loser. We don't talk about Halliburton when he's playing the Bucs. We don't talk about Halliburton except when he plays the Knicks every year in the playoffs. We made Halliburton. I have said before that New York, when it comes to the math of things, is always time-squaring everyone's importance, including the failed realtor that's now president of the United States. Because when you're a fraud there, you can be a fraud anywhere. We made you!

We run you such a great dismount It's a what play it again. We made you we run you It's it's it's that it's that rhythm. Yeah, it does have song in it. It does have the the Quintessential New York arrogance that you want. It just doesn't allow for the fact that your season is over. We made you

We run you! Their season being over is what made them it. Yeah. Did he have like two seconds left on the clock? And he's like, we run you! And then he's like, shit, I got two more seconds, so I gotta say something else. It just felt forced. Quick on his feet, though. You dismounted, and then you did something else. We made you! Oh, shit, two seconds left. We run you! We've all been there, though. It's so good, though, in how empty it is. We made you!

We run you! Before two, they lost. After he's eliminated you. We made you! We run you! The Pacers are one of the great underdogs to ever make the finals. The Pacers would be, if they won the championship, the single most surprising team to ever win the championship in that sport. Ever. No, not ever. 75 Warriors. Ooh.

Who was on that team? I've had that one. He's had that take before. Al Adels. Best player? You could say in the last 50 years, though. Nate Thurman. Rick Barry. Your arch nemesis. I mean, Nate the Great. What were the 75 Warriors in terms of record? What were they as an underdog before the season? And what were they as a seed? I think the answer to all those things are going to confirm what I'm saying, which is because this was a team that was designed to fail.

They wanted to tank that season because they were trying to move the team. And Al Adels was given control, and they said, hey, man, go wherever you want. And he actually went out and loaded the roster with black players, which was at the time unheard of. 48-34 in their season in 74-75. Rick Barry, 30 points a game. Rick Barry was killing. He was a baller. Six assists. And the Pacers won how many this year? 50? Yep. Yep.

I don't know if I can say that it is more surprising to have a black team that we weren't expecting to be black win the championship. Led by a white guy. Yeah.

Yeah, but you just said something about the 75 Warriors that suggested that when they were white, nobody expected anything from them. And then they became a black team led by Rick Barry and then they won the championship. No, what I said was, what I said was, the team was designed to fail because they were trying to move the team. And so they told Al Adels, get whoever you want. And so you got a bunch of black players and they're like, yeah, whatever, knock yourself out.

And that's the idea was this was this is going according to plan. This was a team that was planning to tank the season. So before you asked me, what were there before the season, what before the finals, all that stuff? Though throughout the whole way, everyone was like, this team is going to fail. Even as they got to the finals or playing the bullets and everyone said, OK, that was a nice little Cinderella run. You guys did. But you're going to get your ass beat now. And what they end up doing, Tony. Sweet. They swept them.

howdy folks it's mike ryan now if you've been listening to the show a lot lately you've heard so much playoff talk playoff hoops down here in south florida we're especially enamored with playoff hockey it's not just limited to the playoffs motorsports tennis golf it's truly one of the best times

in the sporting calendar. And with the weather outside warming up, it's just perfect to hop in a pool, maybe grill up some food, but most certainly crack open some Miller Lights. I just described a pretty perfect day, didn't I? And it culminates with Miller time. There's something about a perfect grilling day. The sun's out, friends show up, and that first sip of Miller Light just hits different. I've been stocking up the cooler with it for years. This year, Miller Light turns 50.

That is five decades of cookouts, laughs, and ice-cold moments that never miss. And if you've listened to the show for its 20-year existence, you know this to be true. Miller Lite. Great taste. 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com slash Dan to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Cheers to 50 years of Miller time. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

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