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🏈 Giants’ bygones. New York Giants stars Jaxson Dart and Abdul Carter each offered public statements after their online dispute over Dart’s embrace of President Donald Trump at a recent rally. An emotional Dart called his relationships with teammates “special” but declined to elaborate on his politics or on whether he thought he had made a mistake by introducing Trump at the rally.

⚾ MLB local TV shakeup. In the league’s first CBA proposal ahead of likely tough talks with the players’ union, local media revenue would be folded into “central revenue,” split evenly among the 30 teams and with players. Such a change would also end local blackouts for nationally aired games.

🎙️ Miami mess. The never-ending feud between Dan Le Batard and longtime cohost Jon “Stugotz” Weiner is hitting a boiling point, with the latter offering a fiery rebuttal on his radio show Friday, revealing details of his contract talks with parent company Meadowlark Media and stating he is “close to giving up” and ending his relationship with the show he launched in South Florida more than 20 years ago.

🏀 Clark ghosts media. After a blowout home loss to the expansion Portland Fire on Saturday, Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark skipped out on media obligations. The rare move for Clark comes after a recent “warning” from the WNBA over injury reporting for Clark, and as there is increasing scrutiny on the league’s handling of its biggest star, both on and off the court.

You can understand why Dan Le Batard and longtime cohost Jon “Stugotz” Weiner are having a hard time letting go.

The eponymous radio show they brought from an AM station in South Florida to ESPN's national airwaves is unlike anything the industry had ever seen, and nobody has replicated it since.

Fueled by a whipsmart satirical energy that ragged on the stodgy personalities and stale format of old-timey radio, The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz is maybe as close to art as sports radio has ever gotten. The show foresaw so much about the direction of media, with an intense commitment to played-up kayfabe between its characters, engagement with an audience it built across the country, and gimmicks as original as anything David Letterman or Howard Stern ever dreamt up.

At the center, a generational wordsmith of a sports columnist and a sly, witty jester to balance him out.

It would be hard to list imitators because trying to copy DLS would be foolish. But for a time, much of ESPN’s lineup was infused with the spirit of the show, largely because many of the network’s hosts and commentators passed through Miami and DLS.

Today, even as Le Batard and Stugotz seemingly try for one last meeting to salvage their professional relationship, the show's legacy is being laid to rest. The outcome of the longest breakup in sports media history is almost secondary at this point to how the show will be remembered. Others have taken over the writing of that story.

Of course, there are the many top-tier hosts from the Le Batard universe, some of whom have since left the Worldwide Leader. That includes Mina Kimes, Katie Nolan, Sarah Spain, Bomani Jones, Domonique Foxworth, and Pablo Torre, the recent Pulitzer winner who launched his show with Le Batard’s help nearly three years ago.

Beyond this group are a few who came and went from the Meadowlark Media iteration of the show, including Charlotte Wilder, Jessica Smetana, and Lucy Rohden.

But the legacy of the show goes beyond the people connected to it by association or employment history. Listen to enough sports-adjacent content these days, and you are bound to hear references to DLS, either in its current awkward Cold War form or its heyday. Truly, it had a case at its peak as your favorite sports host’s favorite sports show.

When Pat McAfee tosses to the “Toxic Table,” there’s a clear parallel to Le Batard’s “shipping container” of producers who became on-air characters. A show like Pardon My Take probably doesn’t happen without Stugotz’s boundary-pushing act. I even see traces of the off-subject, confrontational DLS interview style in a series like Caleb Pressley’s Sundae Conversations. The variety show style of DLS, which included a weekly interview with a local zoo employee and frequent audience-contributed songs, was clearly inspired by late-night television and foreshadowed many of today's top YouTube shows.

DLS came in along a continuum; it did not even include these concepts. In fact, Le Batard openly admits he swiped several from Dan Patrick’s radio show. However, Le Batard brought them to the fore on the big stage of ESPN and a hit podcast, which came at the perfect time to influence a generation of people who would go on to host YouTube content, podcasts, and livestreams.

I wrote nearly two years ago that DLS had lost its way and morphed into something less inventive and sharp. The show that changed media is probably never coming back.

But even if Le Batard and Stugotz never appear on air together again, their legacy is in the fabric of the industry. It continues to ripple out across multiple generations; even some of its beneficiaries may not realize what paved the way for them to be as performative, personal, and creative as they are on air.

The controversy over Caitlin Clark’s late scratch last week, which resulted in a warning from the WNBA, is just the latest example of how coverage of Clark and the Indiana Fever can start with a kernel of intrigue and blow up into a culture war or full-blown conspiracy.

The Ringer’s Seerat Sohi joined our live talk show, The Play-By-Play, to discuss “The Caitlin Clark Machine” and what could make WNBA discourse healthier.

Watch the episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

“I just don’t think that you should compete in a world championship fight in a non-controlled environment.” - Joe Rogan, arguing the UFC’s upcoming White House showcase will be a health risk for fighters.

“No one talks basketball anymore. But no one knows basketball anymore because the sh*t is just moving too fast, huh?” - Draymond Green, going to bat for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after the MVP’s supposed flopping became the story of the NBA’s conference finals.

“What I look at (with) competitive balance is the success of Milwaukee and Cleveland and Tampa Bay almost year after year. Their ability to compete in the regular season.” - MLB insider Ken Rosenthal, arguing that baseball is healthy so long as there is parity in the regular season, as a lockout looms over a salary cap intended to level the playing field in the postseason.

“I’d rather prioritize knowing these ladies and being with their journey than anything else. And that’s the choice that we will constantly be making.” - ESPN’s Chiney Ogwumike, opening up on how she sees the balance between giving analysis to the audience and maintaining relationships as a former WNBA player.

“What I believe is we’re taking the game to the level that it’s played at in talking about those split-second decisions.” - NBC’s Jason Benetti, hyping up the network’s new “Inside the Pitch” feature, which breaks down the batter vs. pitcher duels using the umpire camera.

They say the medium is the message, and Draymond Green effectively made the same point this week while defending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander against the rampant flopping allegations that plagued the reigning NBA MVP throughout the playoffs.

“We’re talking about these things because sports media f*cking sucks,” Green said on his podcast. “No one talks basketball anymore. But no one knows basketball anymore because the sh*t is just moving too fast, huh? Everything is moving too fast, and so we want to pinpoint the thing that we can slow down.

“Shai’s falling. Shai’s at the free-throw line. Everybody’s complaining about Shai getting too many foul calls.”

Podcast producer Harry Krinsky made a similar point in a video on X this week, noting that even from an aspect ratio standpoint, a slow-mo video of Gilgeous-Alexander flopping is far more ideal for the vertical video era than a horizontal clip of, say, beautiful NBA ball movement.

However, the other side of Green’s point is far more relevant when looking ahead at the future of NBA content and conversation. I believe Green is right that it is no coincidence that the biggest talking point about this year’s postseason centered on something that was slowed way down. And I believe Green is right that the modern NBA game is moving way too damn fast to keep up with.

Basketball, by nature, has fewer stopping points than bat-and-ball sports, American football, or even combat sports. The end-to-end flow is part of what makes the sport feel artistic and requires its athletes to cut it on both offense and defense. But as basketball players have grown bigger and more versatile, best represented by the 7-foot-5 alien about to host the NBA Finals, and analytics have shone a spotlight on the value of playing fast, three-point shots, interior shots, and winning the possession battle, the game has grown even more chaotic and nimble in the past handful of years.

Here is where another trademark Green-ism comes in. The Warriors star coined the term “16-game player” many years ago to signify the stark difference between regular-season and playoff basketball in the NBA. The disparity has arguably grown even stronger since Green laid it out.

All of these factors together mean that playoff basketball is so spontaneous, so punishing, and so spread out that it can be hard to focus on the tactical shifts and contributions from players that add up to a great performance. It doesn’t take a savant to understand that Victor Wembanyama scared Oklahoma City away from entering the paint. Still, the finer points are far harder to observe than, say, a dominant blocking performance from a left tackle who starts and stops his job every 15 seconds for one series at a time.

Plenty of other factors get in the way of productive NBA commentary in 2026, some of which have already been listed here. Ideally, the regular season and playoffs would not feel like different versions of the sport. Tanking and injuries are real problems, and the season should be shortened.

And yes, an on-court product that rewards athleticism and team play is probably better in the long term for the league. But it is less recognizable for the average fan who plays at their local gym or playground, and even for diehards who have watched for years.

Starting around the time of Boston’s 2024 championship, the winning recipe in the NBA became interchangeable giants who all could dribble, pass, shoot, and defend. Teams all play lightning fast and fly around on defense. It is genuinely hard to keep up with.

There may not be anything the NBA can or should do about it, but Green’s smack talk toward the media in this case goes deeper than a typical athlete lashing out.