Stavros Halkias, The Clippers Go To Jail, Mt Rushmore Duel, CFB Week 1 + Fyre Fest

Pardon My Take

The podcast episode dives into the NBA's severe punishment of the Los Angeles Clippers following the Kawhi Leonard 'fake tree' scandal, disc

Key takeaways

• The Clippers' punishment—five future first-round picks and a $30 million fine—is seen as disproportionately harsh on fans rather than owners.

Main topics

• NBA Clippers scandal and Adam Silver's punishment
• College Football Week 1 highlights

Notable quotes

"The biggest loser is not Steve Ballmer... it's Clippers fans. They get screwed in this."

Conclusion

The episode wraps with a mix of satire, reflection on accountability in

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Listen up here. My wife and I are always getting 10k steps a day, and what do I need? Bombas. Summer's here and we're living for all the outdoors, from runs in the park to beach days, backyard barbecues, even my walks every single day. Bombas makes your comfiest summer staples so you can make the most out of all your summer plans. Speaker 1 (0:25) They've got a whole line of pro-level, sports-specific socks for golf, yoga, the gym, and socks for every kind of runner. What I love about Bombas is not only do they keep my legs feeling fresh after a long flight when I go to Italy, even on my honeymoon, they also look amazing and come in vibrant summer colors. Then there's the best base layers you'll ever own. Bombas underwear and t-shirts, breathable, flexible, really soft. And for every item you purchase, an essential clothing item is donated to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchase equals one donated with over 200 million donations and counting. Head over to bombas.com slash audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash audio. Code audio at checkout. Speaker 1 (1:03) On today's part of my take, presented by DraftKings, we've got our good friend Stavi in the building, in studio, Stavros Halkias. He has a new special coming out on Tuesday, September 8th on Netflix. Please watch. Great to catch up with him, talk about everything that's going on, talk about how ridiculous this life is that we shared some funny moments of him just becoming a legitimate star, us writing a book. Just all of it. Very fun. We're going to talk about the Clippers being dead. We're going to do the duel. Mount Rushmore duel between Zach and Hank. College Football Week 1 is here. During Fyre Fest, which I'm sure you're going to want to listen to Fyre Fest because we might be talking some recap from the grudge match that happened on Wednesday. It's going to be a pretty contentious show, honestly. Yes. Speaker 1 (1:59) We're still grudging. So we put out the Mount Rushmore poll, so we'll recap Mount Rushmore season during Fyre Fest as well. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Body Armor. This episode is brought to you by Body Armor Flash IV. Flash IV is packed with electrolytes, delivering faster, longer-lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners, whether you're training, traveling, or just feeling the heat. Speaker 1 (2:24) or cheering on your team, or I'm going off script. If you're traveling, we've been traveling a bunch. You wake up the next day, feel a little like slow, feel a little dehydrated. Planes can dehydrate you. You get the body armor flash IV, you feel good. So go get a body armor flash IV today. Like I said, packed with electrolytes, delivering faster, longer lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners. That's body armor flash IV. Work hard and hydrate. hard with body armor, flash IV, grab it at a 7-Eleven today. Okay, let's go. Speaker 1 (3:25) Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, September 4th, and the Los Angeles Clippers are dead. Death penalty. Death penalty. Death penalty plus. Yes. The zombie Clippers. They have found that the responsibility for the Kawhi Leonard fake tree deal and numerous other fake advertising deals that were designed to circumvent the cap are the direct responsibility of Steve Ballmer. As well as Lawrence Frank. Yep. The entire Clippers are paying a severe punishment. They're taking away five first round picks. Yeah. So 2029, 2030, 31, 32, 33. And then also a fine of $30 million to Steve Ballmer. Steve Ballmer suspended for a year. Lawrence Frank is suspended for, I think, six months. Is that right? And then Kawhi has to pay $700,000 in restitution for improper benefits. And Uncle Dennis is now done. Speaker 1 (4:23) Yeah, sorry. Uncle Dennis, by the way, I mean, I guess his only job was to get Kawhi paid. Yeah. Consider it mission accomplished. Oh, I read some of those texts and email exchanges. Uncle Dennis, he was, when he was just like, I will burn this whole thing to the ground. We should all want to have an Uncle Dennis in our lives. Yeah. The big winner of this, though, Pablo Torre, friend of the program. He was right through and through. He started this entire thing. There were a lot of people who thought that he was wrong. He ended up being right all the way through. And it's crazy because the biggest loser is not Steve Ballmer and it's not Lawrence Frank and it's not Kawhi. I think the biggest loser is Clippers fans. They get screwed in this. Their owner and general manager do illegal things according to the NBA. And what is the punishment? Your team is now going to be in hell and suck. Speaker 1 (5:18) for an extended period of time, that sucks for Clippers fans. It feels like the punishment should have been, Steve Ballmer, you have to sell the Clippers, or something like that. Not, hey, Clippers fans, guess what? You have no future for the next five years. I think the punishment should have been that Steve Ballmer has to go out there and actually plant 50 million trees. That would have been nice, too. Maybe for every million trees he plants, then he gets, I don't know, a million dollars off of his fine. What about Steve Ballmer has to just get super high? Speaker 1 (5:45) Yeah, that'd be cool. Smoke a bunch of trees. I mean, can you imagine how much he'd sweat? Oh, my God. If he just got like anxiety level high. A live cam of every single NBA game in the 2026-27 season. Steve Ballmer has to be like gravity bong level high. And we have just a picture and a picture of Steve Ballmer freaking out in the corner. That would be a fair punishment. And maybe he has to watch Steve Ballmer videos while he's super high. Where he's screaming developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Speaker 1 (6:15) probably trip you out even more if you were high. Now, I do think... Do you agree, though, with my take that the losers are the Clippers fans? I think the Clippers fans are the biggest losers. I think Ballmer also a pretty big loser in the end of this. Also, ESPN kind of a big loser because they put out a report last week saying that the NBA had concluded its investigation and not found any wrongdoing. And so just expect everything to kind of be brushed under the rug. They did have multiple sources in that article. Speaker 1 (6:43) I think what happened, the NBA did a very good job with the investigation, and the NBA did not let the Clippers think that they were in any trouble until the final report came out after the fact. So they probably did. I don't know if you watch any interrogation videos on YouTube, Big Cat. Yeah. I watch a lot of them. They probably did the read technique on them, which is you tell them you minimize the crime they committed. You're like, listen, every team in the league is doing the same thing. So we're actually not after you. We're after. Speaker 1 (7:12) all the other teams so if you say it was like what 30 million dollars from aspiration that's small potatoes we don't really care about that tell us what else you did so we know what else to look for yeah the clippers were like this is awesome sounds like we're not in trouble and then adam silver leaves room he's like i nailed him yeah i nailed those fuckers i nailed them so um yeah you're right on that like the espn is definitely a loser in this because their report was just flat out wrong and that was also the period of time when everyone was dunking on pablo Speaker 1 (7:40) and being like, hey, you were wrong. This was nothing. Turns out it was a lot of things. I think it was the Clippers telling Pablo, yeah, we're not in any trouble. And then the actual NBA would not comment on it until after that article came out and they said, we disagree with everything that was in this report. Yeah, the other losers in this, Steve Ballmer is a loser in the fact that he went on national television with Ramona Shelburne a year ago and like, Speaker 1 (8:09) denied everything to a level that was somewhat convincing. Like, hey, you know what? Maybe he's the owner. He doesn't know exactly what's going on. He's not meddling. And then the evidence came out and was like, no, no, no. He knows exactly what's going on. And he was meddling. And so he looks like an absolute idiot for that. So many same with Mark Cuban. Look, we've had Mark Cuban on the show. I like Mark Cuban, but he went like scorcher to defend his billionaire brother. Brotherhood. Yeah. The brotherhood of billionaires. Yeah. He looks stupid. I have a winner for you that has nothing to do with the NBA. You ready for it? Mm-hmm. Deshaun Watson. Go on. Speaker 1 (8:48) Kawhi Leonard is now the worst acquisition of all time in sports. Ten first-round picks? Ten first-round. So this is what the Clippers used to get Kawhi Leonard now, given that he's cost them five future picks. The Clippers used the 2021 first-round pick, the 2022 first-round pick, 23 first-round pick, 24 first-round pick swap. Yeah, two 23 picks, by the way. 24 first-round pick, 25. pick swap, 26 pick 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. Those are all, uh, part of this punishment. SGA? Ever heard of them? And then $30 million fine and suspensions for everyone involved. All for Kawhi Leonard to win zero rings. 47 games played. Average 47 games played in his seven seasons with the LA Clippers. Yeah. And I think what was the farthest they went? Did they go to a conference title in the bubble? They went to the Western Conference Finals. In the bubble? So that is the worst. Speaker 1 (9:53) player acquisition of all time given everything that you lay it out. What could be worse? Ten first-round picks. It's a decade of first-round picks plus a two-time MVP plus... Your owner gets suspended for a year. Yeah. And Kawhi just gets to go back to the most protected, like the place where he is the biggest, has the most fans because he won a championship there. Yeah. Kawhi's statement that he put out today was all time. It was essentially like... Speaker 1 (10:22) I personally failed because my family did some stuff that I was not aware of. And I love my family. Thank you, Kawhi Leonard. Yeah. Like $700,000. That's what it was, right? $700,000. That's nothing to Kawhi Leonard considering how much he's gotten paid. That's like half a tree. Yeah, that'll be fine. I'd like to see him and Balmer actually team up and plant some of these fucking trees. It would be nice. You can't just... That, to me, is the worst part is... How many years did they take off the future of the entire planet? Yeah. By not planting those trees. Shout out, by the way, Uncle Dennis, all-time fall guy. Because Kawhi is going to get traded. Because now, I don't know if the trade is actually completed because they're waiting for this. But now the Clippers, there's no reason for them not to do this trade because they could get first-round picks. Speaker 1 (11:09) From the Raptors. Yes. Yeah. I also saw someone threw out there. I don't think so. Adam Silver. It's funny that he's flexed his muscles a couple times, and two of the most notable times have just been the Clippers expense because it was Donald Sterling having to sell. Someone online threw out the idea. I can't find. I'm going to try to find it. I think I might have the same one. Is it related to the cup? Yeah. Henry the Blasian. Henry the Blasian said that if the NBA was smart, they would put these five picks up for the winner of the NBA Cup, which would be fantastic. And you'd also add in the element of the Clippers potentially being able to win back their own pick. Yep. Why not? Why not? NBA, do it. Yeah, it is a real death penalty for the Clippers. And it's not just because they're taking away their first round picks, which might be, you know, maybe top 10. Speaker 1 (12:05) Maybe outside the top 10. Not sure things. Yeah. But it's also that they don't have any picks to trade with. Yeah. So it's going to be almost impossible for them to acquire players via trade. No, they're in hell. It's going to be impossible to convince players to go there as a free agent. It is, yeah, just as bad as death penalty. In fact, I was saying this might be too harsh of a penalty just because how else are the Clippers going to be able to get good players? Speaker 1 (12:33) Besides circumventing the cap even harder. Yeah. This might actually just convince them. They have to be even more bad. We got to keep doing this, except we just got to not get caught. They might be pushing another sneaky winner. And this might be dumb. I mean, you said Deshaun Watson. That kind of convinced me he's a winner in this. Yeah. Because when you think of like worst player acquisition, Deshaun was the name. And now it's going to be quiet. Maybe just maybe the Major League Baseball Players Association. Because. Speaker 1 (12:59) Maybe Rob Manfred is watching this and he's like, wait, so if I put a salary cap in, that means I'm going to have to investigate teams and do a lot of legwork and legal interviews with people to make sure that teams aren't certain. I'm going to have to enforce this rule. Or the opposite. He could do. He could be like, hey, players, we're going to put a salary cap in, but also just get an Uncle Dennis. And ask about a tree deal. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, hey, we're having a salary cap. Wink, wink. Yeah. We won't. Don't ask. Don't tell. Right. Like steroids. Yeah. Yeah. I'll look the other way. You guys get your cap owners. And if you want to hook a guy up with a fake car dealership, that's between you and the Lord. I was listening. Wendy was talking about it on. I believe it was on. Oh, it was SVP. And he did mention that. So this is. Speaker 1 (13:52) Not unprecedented. This happened with the Timberwolves, and I believe it was Joe Smith, and they got a bunch of picks taken away. They actually ended up going to the conference finals like a year after, but they already had Kevin Garnett, which that's not apples to apples. But Wendy basically said that if the Clippers, the precedent that the Timberwolves set, they got a shitload of picks taken away. Speaker 1 (14:16) Then they started cooperating and the NBA started showing leniency and gave him a couple of picks back. The Clippers still have that possibility. Now, will they do that? Because Steve Ballmer released this statement and the Clippers released a statement being like, we completely disagree with all of this. And essentially like this is false and we're going to fight it. If they start to play ball, they might get some of their picks back, which you got to like, if you're the Clippers, you got to do that. Play ball. Speaker 1 (14:43) Yeah, I guess. Get two of your picks back. But the thing is, if you're Balmer, you can outspend Adam Silver. You've got unlimited money. Yeah. So if you want to play the lawyer game, he's one guy. If he wants to go through with that, he can probably make life a living hell for Adam Silver. Yeah. In hopes that he can kind of force his way back into a lesser penalty. So I'm looking at it right now. When the Joe Smith thing happened, because it was like a deal where he signed a bunch of one-year deals. Speaker 1 (15:10) They guaranteed that he would get a big deal at the end so they could keep his bird rights. They took away the 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, 0-4, and 0-5 first-round picks. The Timberwolves played ball. The NBA gave them back the 0-3 and 0-5. So it ended up being a three-pick punishment, not a five. If you're a Clippers fan, plead with Steve Ballmer to actually do something here to maybe get some of these picks back. Yeah. I mean, if Ballmer was smart, he would just ask. He's in L.A., so he should just ask his daughter's boyfriend to pay Kawhi all this money behind the scenes. That way, everything's nice and legal. Yes. That would have been a smarter move on his part. Yeah. The statement from Kawhi is pretty funny. We've got a new, I think, lead leaguer in the realm of Rick Pitino's I Apologize for Trusting the Wrong People. Yep. Speaker 1 (15:59) I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle. Love that. That's such a good apology. So good. I love it, Kawhi. It's my fault for letting other people speak on my behalf. Yeah. My bad. Yeah, no, his statement was basically, did I do that? Yeah. Whoops. Sorry. My bad. My bad. Yeah, Uncle Dennis, you know Uncle Dennis. Everyone's got a crazy uncle. That's what he should have said. Yeah. Hey. Listen, I apologize, but also, isn't it the most relatable thing ever to have kind of a crazy uncle? Thanksgiving is going to be real awkward this year. Yeah, what is it? I mean, Uncle Dennis has to. Speaker 1 (16:34) He has to have a nice envelope waiting for him, right? He's in the Uncle Hall. He's already made it. Yeah, I know. But he's banned from talking to teams and stuff. He is in the Uncle Hall of Fame. Does Kawhi need now to win another title with the Raptors to save his legacy? Does Kawhi have a legacy? Is it this? Yeah, I mean, it's winning a two-time finals MVP? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think Kawhi cares. Speaker 1 (17:04) I think he's like, I've done everything. I've accomplished everything. Kawhi might be one of those guys. When players say that they don't read anything, hear anything, I believe if Kawhi said that. He doesn't even know what the internet is. He might not know that this is even that big of a deal. I would imagine Kawhi just sits at his house and stares at a wall, and then they're like, all right, Kawhi, time to go to practice. He's like, all right. He just plugs in. The screensaver pops on. Now, do you think that this could have all been avoided? Speaker 1 (17:32) If Kawhi had just showed up for a few photo shoots. Oh, they just planted a couple of trees. Yeah. Like if he planted three trees and let a professional photographer take a picture of him, maybe even takes like a three day trip to Brazil at some point, plants three trees, gets on a plane, flies back. I think the Clippers still get old. You get a little bit of a, yeah, a little, a little saving grace. It also, like I said, that Balmer interview he did a year ago. I think the worst part about that for him is going on ESPN and talking to Ramona Shelburne and saying, I got scammed too. I got scammed by these guys. What do you want me to do? Which we now know is just not true. Ballmer's a victim in this. Maybe the biggest victim. Please save one of your tears for the billionaires. We need you to. Speaker 1 (18:22) On behalf of the L.A. Clippers, we vehemently reject the NBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than the facts and evidence. How come they only investigated all the bad stuff we did? How come they didn't investigate all the real contracts that we've signed? Yeah. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process. Zach, is that just Steve Ballmer sitting in his office being like, review it? Speaker 1 (18:50) Yeah, yeah. Just over and over? Go to the tape. Zach, what would you just say that's got the boys cracking up? Gotta hit that mic, Zach. Oh, we're just trying to put ourselves in their shoes. Like, these are kind of good problems to have. Memes, what do you actually say? What do you mean? Who? You only get fined $700,000? Yeah. That's not bad. Oh, yeah, Kawhi's fine. That's a little something. Kawhi's fine. They're in a great spot. Memes, you gotta say this. You're about to cry back there. Memes. Help us out, memes. I'll tell you after. What? No, you gotta tell us now. So I'm a little sore from softball last night. I was like, I think I need a massage. Zach was like, don't go to the place down the... Terrible massage. That's all it was. What happened? It's just a dog shit massage. My back still hurts. Oh, okay. Did they jack you off? She was like, you want to do that? I was like, nah. Speaker 1 (19:39) Like I went in for legitimate massage and she just like, like she like played around for a little bit. It was like, all right, jerk time. And I was like, no, I want, I need relief, like muscle relief here. My look, my L1, L2 vertebrae are in pain. The only guy ever to go into a rub and tug and be like, no, I actually just wanted the Swedish massage. The photos looked like it was an up and up spot. I get there and it was straight to jerk. I was like, come on, man. Zach, what were you wearing? What were you wearing? Did you look hot? Speaker 1 (20:07) Is it your fault for looking hot that she wanted to jack you up? With those eyes? No, I was just wearing standard gear, nothing too crazy. I'm wondering if she saw like Barstool Sports stuff. All in as I walked in with pain. She's like, oh, you're from that office. I know it. Yeah. Walked in with pain, laugh with pain, boys. Oh, no. No, Zach. All right. So, yeah. So the Clippers are screwed. It's a perfect ending to that, Zach. Yeah. Clippers are hosed. Now, I do think that this kind of stuff happens in every sport. Yeah. I think. Well. Speaker 1 (20:35) There's a lot of caps. If you're an NBA team and you do any of this, you got to stop right now because it's pretty clear that they're going to. Like, that's the one thing that the Clippers. I'm sure Pablo is getting hit up by a lot of people. And then the Clippers are going to hit up. Yeah. Like, I bet you there's a backdoor. Clippers are trying to hit up Pablo being like, what about these guys? Yeah. Burn it all to the ground. Yeah. If you take away Clippers are basically at the point now where they're hoping that every team gets their next five years. First round pick's taken away, then there's just no draft. So their next first round pick is in what? It's not just five years from now. No, because it starts in 2029, so it's 2034. Hank still won't be in the Invitational. 2034 is their next first round pick. And that person right now is 11 years old. Yeah. That would be drafted. Speaker 1 (21:28) They have to nail that pick, though. They got to nail it now. Start scouting every middle school. Get it going now. Now, do you think that it happens maybe in that same city in the NBA? What do you mean? Oh, the Lakers? Yeah, well, maybe that team or maybe another team that's in Los Angeles. I don't know. But if there's a star player that you want to get and you have a massive mega blockbuster movie. that's trying to be produced in that town with that player as the star with a lot of money moving in and out of the studios. That's interesting. Do you think that that would be worth looking into? That's interesting. It wouldn't be hard to take away the bubble championship. It's half a ring. Well, I think you probably have to punish wherever that player is playing right now. Speaker 1 (22:17) Yeah, I would say we'd probably need more than punishment. That would be good. All right, let's talk some other sports stories. Before we do that, DraftKings, the wait is over. Football's here, and so is DraftKings. The DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in on the excitement. And this September, DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. That's right. Every game day, all month long, DraftKings customers can get a football profit boost. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE. Spend just $5 and get $200 in total rewards within 21 days. Includes all... That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Speaker 1 (23:26) Click the claims every seven days for 21 days. One single use boost per customer per day. Expires at the end of the final select game when offered. Valid for select football transactions on the platform for which it's been issued. Terms at DKNG.co slash offer. Limited time offer. Nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. Fairies by state. Limited time offer. Okay, next stories are twofer. We got some driver's license taken away. Tony Romo, six months. Tiger Woods, five years. Don't touch my drivers. Oh, yeah. And the good, good CEO got canned. So, but. Speaker 1 (24:03) Tiger Woods, I mean, that's the only place he feels normal. So he's basically in jail. Really, again, much like Steve Ballmer, Tiger Woods is the real victim of this. Yeah. That he's not going to have any place that he can go and feel like a regular human being anymore. So I guess thoughts and prayers to him. Good. Good for the rest of the world. Good for literally everyone else that's on the road. Yeah. Also, if you're Tiger or Tony, like, I guess. Speaker 1 (24:25) The fact that it happened on the same days, they're both going to maybe be competing for a future Uber commercial, which would go crazy. If it was like Uber pool and Tony Romo's picking up Tiger Woods. Oh, you're saying that they can drive. No, they can get. No, no. Hi, I'm Tony Romo. Uber pool. And I'm driving for Lyft. No, Uber pool. No, he's in the backseat. And there's like, Tiger's like, oh, shit. I hope I don't get paired with a random weirdo. Yeah. Can't don't have a driver's license. Opens the door. Boom. Tony roll. I don't know. Tiger. Yeah. Uber, Uber pool. You never know. You never know. But yeah, that was, I feel like we're, it's tiger. These things happen in threes. Yeah. Who else is getting their license taken away? Hmm. Speaker 1 (25:11) Anyone? Why are we looking around? Anyone? Is someone in the show? There's got to be a baseball manager that's working on a couple of DUIs. We haven't heard from Tony La Russa in a while. That's true, yeah. Yeah, he's out there somewhere. Do you guys have anything to... Do you care at all about the Browns assistant GM wearing a sweatshirt that said, Los Angeles made me do it in her press conference, which seems pretty... It seems very Browns. Yeah, I don't think that there's anything really... deep to make of it but besides the fact that this was a really dumb thing to do and why it's like it shows bad judgment i think but but ultimately do i think it impacts the job that she's a probably not but um it's the browns like the browns can make a story out of a sweatshirt it's it's it's impossible you'd say no way could a could a sweatshirt be a headline Speaker 1 (26:02) But the Browns can do it. The Browns did it. They can find a way. Actually, they've done it multiple times. Remember John Dorsey? Yeah, that's true. They made lots of stories out of that sweatshirt. His sweatshirt was nice. This sweatshirt looks like it's been hanging up in a moth closet for the last six years. It looks like Bill Belichick's sweatshirt. Yeah. Yeah. While you have the computer up, can we just click on today's news, the top story, just to see right there? Okay. Speaker 1 (26:26) Sidney Sweeney stuns in Venice fashion. Oh, I'm a bit of a fashionista. We're fashionistas. Yeah, this is our fashion portion of the podcast. Can you zoom in on the strap, where the straps connect to the main dress there, that area? Okay. Sidney Sweeney. Is Sidney Sweeney leads the league in most times pulled up on this computer? I would say so. Mid-show? Yeah. Not even close? That's a really good dress. That's a really nice dress. You could tell the design, the tailoring. The design. Do you tailor a dress or is that a suit? Speaker 1 (26:55) We're a fashion show. Yeah, you can tailor it. Yeah, we're a fashion show, first and foremost. That is just a really good dress. It's a good dress. I like the cut. Yeah, it's a good dress. One of the better cuts. I like the material, too. I'd say that's the second best dress I've seen her wear. What game are you guys most excited for this weekend? Do you have one? I mean, LSU Clemson. I think that's the Tigers, the Death Valleys. I think that... the shit talking behind the scenes that's going on in front of the scenes that's gone on this week where we've had like Dabo Swinney turning into vintage Steve Spurrier talking shit about Lane Kiffin directly during press conferences. What was his quote? He said they need to, no pun intended, stay in their lane. Yeah. That's some good shit talk. If you pre, no pun intended, then it is intended. Yep. Speaker 1 (27:46) So, yeah, Dabo's been going after him. LSU's been, like, tied up in court this week. So, yeah, that's a – I mean, it's been a crazy, crazy couple days trying to figure out who's going to be able to play even this weekend. I'm excited for Louisville-Ole Miss. I think everyone should tune in to Louisville-Ole Miss on Sunday night. That's the game we should all watch. Okay. Yeah. I mean – The only ranked matchup. Yeah. All weekend. It's at a football. It's at an NFL stadium too, right? Yep. That's awesome. If you want to watch two teams, college football teams playing in an NFL stadium on Sunday night, it's Louisville Ole Miss. Top 10 team. That's the one. Would you disagree? Playoff team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the Apple Cup. And one projected playoff team per one of our college football experts. Yes. Yes. Speaker 1 (28:36) That's the one. I'm just so excited. I'm going to watch. It's not a great week one. We talked about it on Wednesday, but I don't care. It's just going to have, there's going to be football on our TV all day Saturday. And it's going to be awesome. Memes, you got to be, you're ready to go. You're not, are you going outside on Saturday? No. Well, as soon as I leave here till Monday, I'll be on my couch. You're inside. I'm just inside. It'll be pretty good. I just got a new 70 inch TV. Speaker 1 (29:01) Oh, barely fits on my TV stand, but I am fired up. And if you're not watching football, you're going to be playing college football video games. Yeah, that'll be on another TV. Got it. Will you be doing both at the same time? Probably. I love that. Neems is really living the best life. He really is. Yeah. You are. The idea that you can just be like, all right, see you guys. See you Monday. I'm not going to leave my house. I'm going to watch all the football. Speaker 1 (29:29) Yeah, no, it's the best. I've thought about it. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone. Anyone? No. It's so good. I just make memes. What about Scooter Braun? Yeah, all right. Him. You're a world champion, too. I'm a world champion. You're a world champion. And a softball champion. And a New York Times bestselling author. Yeah, got a lot going for me. Yeah. Summer memes. Summer memes. All right, any other stories before we do our Mount Rushmore duel? Dejan Love, the only follow-up I had was, now I understand why he was wearing the cap the whole time. Oh, yeah. His forehead is very large. It looks like Mars Attacks. He's got a big forehead. Yeah. There's some other stuff coming out. The brands are now onto the case. And I think these are all real things. I don't think that they're viral advertisements. But Cameo said that Dejan Love hit them up. Speaker 1 (30:21) To see if maybe they'd want him. I think that one might have been fake, but it would be funny if he did hit him. And then I saw that there was a DM between him and David Busters asking if he could have an entire David Busters location because he, as an NFL player, was coming in with a couple of his friends. Love that. With the understanding that that's what NFL players do. It's like, hey, I play football professionally, so I'm going to need your entire restaurant. It was close at all. Oh, we just pulled up. CJ Stroud will not be signing extension with the Texans before the season begins. Houston offered Stroud a contract exceeding 50 million annually, but he's betting on himself to hopefully reach near 60 million. I feel like that's not enough of a difference to bet on yourself. That's quite a bet that he's making. That's like 50 and 60. Would you bet? Speaker 1 (31:08) If I gave you $50 million, Big Cat, would you be willing to put it on the line and say, I'm going to bet that C.J. Stroud gets a bigger contract than he's already been offered at the end of the season? No. I don't think I'd be willing to make that bet. I wouldn't make that bet. I would not make that bet. Good for him for getting offered that much money. That's cool. Yeah. Summer C.J. Stroud. Florio had a report. This is why I love Florio. This is why he's the best. A report that Kyler Murray has... Speaker 1 (31:38) been arriving at Vikings facility on time every day. Yeah. But then he further went on to explain that he's been arriving exactly on time, not a moment sooner. And he's been the first one to leave. Yeah. So he's been just clocking and clocking out. Not even 15 minutes. That's progress. If I'm yeah. Kyler Murray, I guess he'd like him to stay like be the first in and last out. Yeah. But I mean, I feel like every team has three different guys that are first in and last out. Yeah. At the same time. Speaker 1 (32:07) Kyler knows exactly who he is. The 2012 Patriots where they had Tom Brady, Amendola, Welker, and Julian Edelman and Danny Woodhead. No one left. Like they probably carpooled because they could all be first in and last out together. Speaking of that, did you see the King State Kings for Ernie Adams? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was from Ryan Paganetti, who's awesome. His Twitter account. Everyone should go follow it. We got to have him on. But yeah, he did a deep dive. Why don't you explain it, Hank? Because it is quite something. It's like from 2002 to 2019, the Patriots, when opposing teams were kicking a field goal, like looking at the video board, they would put up a feed of the game mirrored, basically. So reversed. So if the flags, if you're the kicker and you're looking at the flags on the top of the field goal post, they were going right. Speaker 1 (32:59) directly behind that was a video of the same flags going left and also the same so you'd see four uprights yeah now this is actually exactly what i tried to tell brandon that oklahoma was it or nebraska no illinois what they should do yeah and then brandon interrupted me very rudely and said why the hell are we talking about jumbotron yeah the only i did say the only jumbo i care about jumbo shrimp deep fried very welcome like i like this great idea Speaker 1 (33:27) Maybe he could have heard it first and pardon my take if Brandon shut his fat mouth. And it's not, so this was not illegal. This was just doing everything they can. Like, I think someone crunched the stats and it was like a 5% change in kicking accuracy, which guess what? If you get a 5% change, that could swing a game. Good boost. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Did you feel pride when you saw that? Yeah. I mean, that's Belichick at his best. What you love to see, those are the good old days. That's Belichick at his absolute best. I'm sure they'll be back, Annie. Yeah. Aren't you in the good old days? Speaker 1 (34:00) The Belichick Ernie Adams were. But now it's new. Good new days. We're in the good new days. Good new days. Good new days. Yes. All right. Let's get to the Mount Rushmore duel. Should we do it? Yeah. All right. Let's do it. Okay. It is time for our Mount Rushmore duel. It's brought to you by Reese's. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. We love Reese's. They got the Reese's peanut butter cups. The ones with the Oreos. Incredible. Peanut butter and jelly. Marshmallow. Reese's Sticks. Reese's Animal Crackers. Just everything. Anything you're looking for. Reese's is the one-one pick in all Mount Rushmore drafts. It is the goat candy. We love Reese's. Something for everyone. It is the New York Knicks of candies. That's what Reese's does. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Go get Reese's wherever you shop. Speaker 1 (34:58) We love Reese's. And so we should have just done a Reese's draft because you could literally do it, and it would be the easiest draft ever. You could pick everything. They have every type of candy. All right, Zach's talking a lot in there. I think he's nervous. We are ready for the duel. It is Mount Rushmore duel time. It is Zach versus Hank. Hank versus Zach. Loser gets skunked by a real skunk is one of the punishments we had discussed. Speaker 1 (35:28) We've discussed a lot. We have discussed that. Yeah, it was that. We discussed becoming Dejan Love. Yeah. For a different team. Maybe making a hip-hop country album. Yeah, there's a lot on the table. But we're going to do, so how the duel is going to work, they do not know what the Mount Rushmore topics are. It's all off the top of the head. How much time are we going to give you guys? How much time do you think you need? 30, 60 seconds? I would like Memes' mic on. Okay, memes mic on. Okay, why? Just in case. Oh, you think there might be some shenanigans? You never know. Oh, that's totally fair. I actually agree with that 100%. 60 seconds each. Is that not enough? 90 seconds. Yeah, I think 90 seconds to two minutes might be good. All right, well, we tried to pick topics that you can think about stuff off the top of your head. And so there's going to be three polls. We'll put them out. Speaker 1 (36:24) What, consecutive every half hour or something? And then it's just best of three. I think that's what we did last year. Right, Memes? We're doing some of the show in the morning. By the time we record the rest of the show in the afternoon, it should be done. What? The polls should be out. Didn't we do the polls? We did the polls in real time. Yeah, we did the polls in real time last year. Oh, really? Yeah. Is that what we're doing? Yeah, that's what we did. Okay. I kind of like that, yeah. Okay. So we'll find out. So when you get to Fyre Fest, you'll find out. Yeah. Speaker 1 (36:50) I don't remember us doing that. Oh, yeah. It was like instant. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Instant pulse. So I'll just do it one every half hour? Yeah. And then we'll find out. Okay. Okay. All right. You guys ready for your first Mount Rushmore? Yes, sir. All right. Who's going first? I think Zach. Zach is going first? I went first. Okay. We would like to hear. You have 90 seconds. We would like to hear the Mount Rushmore of guys' names. Speaker 1 (37:18) My mic is on. Mic is on. 90 seconds to discuss between us guys. Guys' names. Mount Rushmore. It's going to be really hard not to just verbalize my names that I'm thinking about right now. But we wanted to start, we wanted to ease them into something that like these guys know guys. Yeah. Right? They know guys' names. If there's one thing they know, it's dudes' names. It's also very subjective, open-ended Mount Rushmore that could be very funny because it's like, who's to say? A lot of names out there. A lot of names to go through. Speaker 1 (37:47) Just think of any names. Hank is doodling. He's got a heart next to a couple of them. How many names have... Oh, he's writing Hank and then other guys' last names on his paper. Okay. Signature. Zach, how is Zach doing? By the way, what are we going to do for our... Smart move by Hank taking the headphones off. The mic is still on. Yeah, but we're monitoring. All right. memes pft and i but we should discuss real quick while we let the timer go down uh what what is the second one we want to do is the one that we were thinking of i think it's wltwo yeah and then the third should it be the one we were talking about or should it be the one that i just i think it's the one that we're talking about okay that one i want to hear yeah yeah okay all right perfect i want to hear where they go with it Speaker 1 (38:37) Okay. Agreed. A couple more seconds. We should use Zach's alarm clock as the timer. You got 10 seconds. 10 seconds. 10 seconds. Zach has just started writing. Oh, no. Speaker 1 (39:01) Time. I mean, I guess you can keep writing. It's just you have to make a pick when your pick's up. Yep. Okay. Mount Rushmore of guys' names. Zach, you're up first. We talking first and last? No. What? It's guys' names. It's guys' names. Yeah. All right. I got you. First pick for me is going to be Devontae. Okay. Speaker 1 (39:28) All right. Good pick. Okay. Okay. Tank. I'm going to go with Guy. Oh, okay. And Jalen. Oh, good pick. All right. These are good picks. I'm going to go with Muhammad. Okay. Yeah. Probably the most popular name, I think. So many guys named Muhammad. Per capita, it's maybe the number one. You're going with more guys named that way. Not just. Okay. You're going for the amount of people. On that specific pick, I like the volume pick. Okay. I think Hank was doing that maybe with Jalen, too. Yeah. Jalen's not a bad pick. All right. You have another one? Speaker 1 (40:21) Zach. Oh, next pick. I'm going to go with Drew. I love this about Rushmore. It's so silly. Drew's a good pick, I guess. Just Drew. Not Andrew. Just Drew. Yeah, just Drew. Yeah. Andrew if he's in trouble by his mom or something, but Drew. Drew. What was your thought process behind Drew? Cool name. Okay. All right. Good pick. This is tickling me a lot. Okay. Hank. Hank also looks so deathly serious. It's like you just got to say a guy's name. He's worried. Yeah. I just don't know how to. Yeah. So you have so far Jalen and Guy. Guy. We're going to go William. Okay. William. You want it written as William? Will. You want Will? Yeah. Okay. Speaker 1 (41:12) I actually like that change a lot. I think that was a very smart change for the graphic. And Tiger. Go Bill. Oh, Tiger. Oh, Tiger. Okay. Kind of a nickname. But yeah. Good pick. It's too late. It's off the piece. Okay. I like Will. Will's great value in the third round. Will's great. Actually, usually Will's that I know are undrafted. I'm going to go with Richard. Richard. Strong. Yep. All right, what else did you guys have on that list? I thought we were going to maybe get some more traditional, like a... Eric, Zach, Max, Caleb, Drake. I wanted to do Drake, but that's why I didn't want to give myself away, but I think Tiger probably did anyway. Dan, Dave, John, Jack, Mark, Lil Wayne. Jack is a big miss in my mind. Jack is a strong guy's name. I didn't realize that Jack is a nickname for John. Yeah. Lil Wayne, Ross, Scotty, Tiger, Marcus. Speaker 1 (42:12) Marcus. Okay. I've heard names of everyone in this room except Shane and Connor. Can we get clarification on a couple spellings? Yeah, sure.