Jason Martin talks Cooper Flagg Media Coverage, Ace Bailey’s Entitlement, & MORE!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio. What's happening Chris
Plank's out. You heard Mike Harmon there at the end
of their program suggesting where Plank probably is still celebrating
the thunders championship. He's the local boy down there celebrating it.
He's getting it firsthand. I've been a Thunder fan for
I don't know, well over a decade at this point.

(00:23):
Pretty much as soon as they went to OKC, I
was a Thunder fan, loved the idea of a team
being there and really didn't have one to call my
own at that point in time, and I had to
settle for grabbing a T shirt off fanatics. So that's me.
I'm Jason martin In on the Chris Planks Show here
on this Saturday morning. You can find me at JMRT Radio.

(00:45):
We're broadcasting live from the Fox Sports Radio studios. We'll
be with you for the next three hours looking forward
to it, and we are going to talk about those
Oklahoma City Thunder at some point during this program as
we kind of put a final post mortem on the
season and on the finals, and of course that will
come with discussion and the what if scenarios that have

(01:08):
been played out about Tyrese Haliburton and the injuries and
what's happening with all of these Achilles injuries as of
late to the younger players. And there's a lot there
to say the least, But probably the biggest story of
the week once that trophy was put up was the
Cooper Flag sweep stakes known as the Draft. But I

(01:28):
guess the sweep stakes were over back during the lottery,
you know, where things were completely on the up and up,
and we all know that it couldn't have possibly been
somehow maneuvered, we'll say, to somehow have granted the Dallas
Mavericks with a one point eight percent chance to win

(01:53):
the lottery, the lottery win. So it was Cooper Flag Day,
and Cooper Flag is going to be at Maverick said
all the right things. We will talk about a lot
of that stuff, and I'm gonna, unfortunately have to take
someone to task that. I mean, he's a Hall of Famer,

(02:14):
but he's going to need to be better than he
was following or actually in the lead up to the draft,
because his peace came out during the lead up to
the Draft. That'll be in the next segment, that takedown.
But The thing about Flag is not about what he
can and can't do on a basketball floor. I'm sure
you've heard that plenty since he first started lacing him up,

(02:36):
or even beforehand at Duke. You kind of already knew
what he was kind of touted to be, and he
really didn't show anything last year that would indicate he
wasn't going to be that. Right, So I'm not going
to be the guy it's gonna stand behind his microphone
and tell you he's not going to live up the expectations.
What I am gonna do, however, is point to finger

(03:00):
right back at those who are going to be covering
him for the next decade plus and hopefully his health
is going to allow him to play for a long time,
and hopefully he's going to be everything that he's been
said to be, because that's gonna be great for sports.
It's gonna be great for the game. You're great for
him too, certainly, But selfishly, my interest is in him
being super entertaining for me to watch for a long time.

(03:23):
I always want to see the best collection of athletes
in every sport that we can possibly have, right, But
I noticed something that this is not new. I don't
think that I'm breaking new ground here. Okay, we're visiting
the Grand Canyon. We all know it's there, but it's
still kind of marvel. You can still marvel at it,

(03:44):
even though, like I remember hearing about it and thinking, Okay, yeah,
it's just a canyon, and then I actually went and
saw it. I was just like, wow, Okay, I get it,
Like this is awesome. I actually want to hang out
here for the afternoon and just look at this. But
when it comes to Cooper Flag, his story, and more importantly,

(04:05):
the way it has been framed, those that are framing
his story. We have seen this so many times before,
and I looked at it and it was just infuriating.
This week, Cooper Flag hasn't played a game in the
Summer League. By the way he's being advertised, his first
game is going to be a Summer League matchup against

(04:28):
Bronnie James is LA Lakers summer team whatever. That's the
way it was being framed on the network. You can
guess which network that it's going to be on. So
all right, cool story, Summer League Cooper Flag versus Bronnie
James will be there. But the way Cooper Flag is
being talked about bothers me again, nothing about what he

(04:53):
can and can't do on the floor. It is the
expectations that are being set for him, and some of
the commentary that I have heard during the course of
this week that it just it rings completely false. And
I don't know if these people know what they are
doing or if it's just become kind of like a
bodily function at this point that this is what's going

(05:15):
to happen. But in the i'd say twenty four hours
prior to the draft and certainly after the draft, I
saw a ton of takes and heard a ton of
takes across networks, across mediums radio, TV, Internet, actual print

(05:39):
if you live in those kind of cities that still
do that kind of thing, that suggested things that just
were preposterous based on history. Okay, Essentially the comment take
became Cooper Flag is going to come into the Dallas
Mavericks and they are going to compete for the Western

(06:01):
Conference this coming year. This year. I'm not talking about
two three years down the road. I'm saying it's win
now mode. And not only is it win now mode,
and not only is it is it, you know, win
in the short term, it's win this year. It's compete
for the West this year. I just got done hearing

(06:24):
about how the Oklahoma City thunder were going to be
a dynasty. I'm reading takes about how Anthony Edwards now
can't take the Tea Wolves to the finals this coming year.
That's a headline that I read in the last twenty
four hours. Anthony Edwards not gonna be able to take
Minnesota back to the conference finals, are not gonna be
able to take them to the NBA Finals, But the

(06:46):
MAVs are gonna get there in year one after the
craziness of this year, after the injury to Kyrie Irving
that's likely got him out until twenty twenty six. Him
Anthony Davis, Cooper Flag now and then you add the
role players in. And role players I know, sounds like
a dirty word. It's really not just the guys that

(07:09):
you wouldn't call stars at the very least your PJ.
Washington's and players like that, guys like that. All of
a sudden, these guys are now being talked about like
they're gonna get to the Western Conference finals. And I'm
thinking to myself, based on what so Cooper Cooper Flag
is ready to play right now. Okay, cool, Like that's

(07:30):
that's awesome, and I guess it could happen, But is
that really the expectation? Is that really? Does that really
need to be the number one take? Does that need
to be where we go immediately when this guy gets drafted?
Is that before the before the end of his first
year in the league. This guy's not even gonna not
just gonna be in the playoffs, He's gonna be in

(07:52):
the Western Conference finals. A West that is deep, a
West that has a ton of talent, a West has
a ton of veteran talent. You're telling me that Anthony Davis,
who struggles to stay healthy, Kyrie Irving, who is not
healthy now is going to be coming back off an injury,
and a rookie and Cooper Flag we need to be

(08:13):
talking about them competing for the West. I'm here to
tell you we don't. Even if they do compete for
the West, that cannot be the take on June twenty fifth,
as it was, And now we're sitting here on June
to twenty eighth, we're weeks away, a handful of weeks
away from summer league. We watched this guy play a
year at Duke. We watched what he could do, and

(08:35):
we were told what he's going to be able to do. Yes,
he can, he can leap out of the gym. He's
got super athleticism, he can handle the ball well, he's
got great ball like you. Every skill set that you want,
he's got. He can pass it. They're even talking about
playing him at point guard. That's what Jason Kidd was
talking about. Wants to make him uncomfortable. See what he
can do. Maybe he can do it. I'm not here

(08:56):
to say he can or can't. I'm here to say
that starting his career in the NBA, with that being
your initial take to me, exposes the grift that goes
into what we do for a living here in sports media.
At least you guys are out there listening, you know
what I'm talking about. Grift is a term that gets
used a lot now, and oftentimes it's misused or it's

(09:19):
applied in scenarios where it's just flat out wrong. Here,
I think it's completely right because grifting for content doesn't
require accuracy, and it doesn't even require integrity. It just
requires the ability to know what the extremes are and
to go there with a plum and that's exactly what

(09:40):
we are seeing here to suggest in a league where
it never happens this way, it never happens this way
Lebron James. It's not like it just happened right out
of the gate for him. In terms of them winning
big in Cleveland, there was a turnaround, but it was gradual.
Now most of the time, the team that wins the

(10:02):
lottery and has the chance to draft the Cooper Flag,
even though if you listen, there haven't been very many
of those guys throughout the history of the draft because
of how special he is. Usually that team is not
quite as loaded with stars at the very least as
Dallas is, which again just kind of makes you sort

(10:23):
of side eye the fact that they won this lottery
in the first place, and also question as to whether
or not that's the best way you should determine your draft. Now,
when you've got teams that seem to be openly tanking,
multiple teams that seem to be openly tanking to get
Cooper Flag to win the lottery, you have another problem there.
But I'm not sure. I don't know that it is remedied.

(10:47):
I don't think that that's going to stop those guys
from continuing to improve their percentage and one point eight
percent to end up getting the right to Cooper Flag.
But now so because you still you had a decent
enough nucleus, now you at Cooper Flag, now the going
to compete for the West. And I would say decent enough.
I don't know about a decent enough. I didn't think
that haul for Luka Doncics was very good. Almost none
of us did, including most of the people that are

(11:09):
now trying to tell you that they're going to compete
for the West now that they have Cooper Flag. It
doesn't make any sense unless you understand what the opposite is.
If you understand why you would say that on June
twenty eighth, then you can begin to understand why I'm
using this term grift. Grift is just we're just gonna
milk this content for all it is worth. This is

(11:29):
going to be the take. This is going to be
the take right up until it's not. They're going to
compete for the West, right up until they're not competing
for the West, And then do you know what the
take is going to become? I mean, Cooper Flag looks
all right, but did we overhype this kid? Tell me,
I'm wrong. I've lived forty six years on the earth.
I did not come out of the womb hearing hot takes,

(11:50):
but I've spent much of my life hearing them, or
even just hearing these opinions that are very clearly astroturfed,
that are designed for a purpose, And that purpose is
not to inform you. It is to inflame your emotions.
It is to draw out of you some kind of
an ire that attracts you to a radio dial for

(12:11):
an extra couple of minutes to say right now that
the MAVs can compete for the West based on absolutely
no evidence, really nothing whatsoever, and just the fact that
in year one, Kyrie coming off the injury and Anthony
Davis well as always coming off an injury, and a

(12:35):
rookie who's going to be learning, still learning the NBA game,
and he's finally going to run into a league where
he's not just going to dominate everybody on the floor.
I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen like that. He is
going to have to learn. And he is the one
that's saying that. He sounds he sounds much smarter, much
more nuanced, much more grounded than the people that are

(12:56):
talking about him for the most part. But the only
reason that you would lay that kind of an expectation
on him is because you know, even if that turns
out to be completely wrong, man, you are in because
you can immediately then say, man, we were all in
on this sky. I heard all these people talking about
how they were going to win the West and da
da da da dah, and look at them right now,

(13:18):
they're the eleventh seed or whatever. This is dumb folks like,
why do we have to do this? Why do people
in sports media have to do this? And look, I'm
not suggesting that I've never done it before. I'm suggesting that, hopefully,
now that I'm a little bit longer in the tooth
when it comes to this job, I can spot this

(13:38):
and try to avoid it. It might not make me
the most money, but at the very least you're gonna
know when you listen to me that I'm telling you
what I think. And what I think is I think
Cooper Flag's probably going to be pretty good. But I'm
certainly not going to try and put something on him

(14:01):
that's just unfair because when when you set the expectation
that high, and you set it in year one, you
are asking for him not to be able to live
up to it. If he does, great because then you
can patch yourself on the back and say you were
right all along. But if you were wrong, then you
have the built in take of man I believed in him.

(14:22):
It's not like I'm a hater, but I got to
say he's kind of been a bit of a disappointment.
He's only averaging sixteen or you know, whatever it is, whatever,
whatever the rationale for it will be, you immediately have
the other extreme. This is the problem with what we do,
and this is the problem with the culture that has

(14:43):
been established on the debate programs of the day. And
I'm not actually including all of them. There are some
of them that do have very intelligent, thoughtful discussions where
you do hear that middle of the road take that
doesn't make the money but actually sounds legitimate and honest, because,
and I've said this for a long long time in

(15:04):
my career, the truth is almost always in the middle.
The crazies might be the loudest on both sides, but
the truth is somewhere in the middle. It almost always
is in most contentious debates. The truth is somewhere in
the middle, and both the guys on the extremes on
either side, on either pole are wrong to some significant degree,

(15:28):
and it's smarter to kind of sit back and watch
it play out. We live in a knee jerk, reactive culture,
so we have to have this initial take. We're gonna
talk more about Cooper flag on the other side of
this break, because the most amazing thing that I read
about Cooper Flagg came from a guy that I just
I gotta say, he needs to be better than this,
a dude that's a Hall of Fame journalist, hall of

(15:50):
Fame writer. I read this paragraph. I hadn't. I don't
know how many people saw this or if it just
kind of went by the wayside, but it caught my eyero.
I just thought, Hm, why on earth would that have
been necessary? So I'm gonna continue this line of inquiry
and this kind of questioning. I'm giving the Dwayne Johnson

(16:12):
eyebrow to the sports media that suggests that now the
MAVs need to be considered as a contender in the
West because they drafted a rookie that's likely to be very,
very good, but they're saying, to be right out of
the gate, he's going to be great. Can we at
least wait and watch that for a second and enable
him to go out there and show us what he

(16:32):
can do, as opposed to placing expectations on him that
are almost impossible to fulfill based on history. Even with
the greatest players we've ever seen in the league, it
took time. We're gonna be in the conference finals in
year one. We know what you are doing. It's a grift.
It's a grift, and it's time for everybody in media

(16:55):
to be better than this. But one guy in particular
had to know that this paragraph that he wrote about
Cooper Flagg prior to the NBA Draft, that one should
have remained, And if he had an editor, hopefully there
was somebody that said, you sure you want to put
this one out here, David. So we'll talk about that,

(17:16):
gentleman when we come back here live from the Fox
Sports Radio studios. My name is Jason Martin for the
great Chris Plank. We'll be right back here on Fox
Sports Radio. Hi, this is Jay.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
I'm the producer of the Paula and Tony Fusco Show.
Usually in these promos they asked you to listen to
the show. I'm here to ask you please don't listen
to the show. The hosts are two absolute morons who
have the dumbest takes on sports imaginable.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Don't listen to the show so it can get camp.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Get him.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Ignore that fool.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Listen to the Paul Tony Fusco Show on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
He's still moving.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports
Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR
to listen live.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Welcome back Fox Sports Radio. Beginning your Saturday or very
tail end of your Friday. It's probably bleeding in if
you're still with us. In some parts, you're not sure
if it is Friday or Saturday. Me being in Nashville, Tennessee,
where I do the show from, my name is Jason
Martin for Chris Plank, it's well in Saturday, buying a
whole hour and twenty six minutes. But we're about three

(18:29):
days into the Cooper flag is now officially in the
NBA discussion. Now the NBA Draft is over. I don't
know if you knew that. I don't even know if
you knew it took place, because I don't think anybody watched,
and if you did watch, I don't know that that
was a good thing for the network to televise it.
We'll talk about that a little bit later on in
the program, but I said before the break that the
grift is on as it relates to Cooper Flag. And

(18:51):
that's a term that sometimes will make you roll your
eyes because it is used so often, it's misapplied, or
it's just kind of disingenuously a lied. The word grift
is sometimes used when somebody says something that I disagree with,
so now I'm going to call them a grifter, because
that's sort of derogatory. I'm suggesting grift in terms of

(19:14):
content farming, essentially that there are certain things that are said,
or there are certain narratives that are kind of beat
into the ground because they are constant content generators. And
usually these are the extreme of the extreme positions design
so that you remember these positions were taken. But at

(19:36):
the same time, we live in a culture where we
don't take these things. We don't hold anybody to account
for positions that they've had. So that enabled you to
if you're smart or if you just don't care. You
can then just go into the air and say almost
anything because it's not going to come back and bite
you anymore. I don't know when that shift happened, but
it definitely happened. There was a time for it. To

(20:00):
analogy here. But if you know me at all throughout
the time that I've been with Fox Sports Radio, then
you know that I worked in pro wrestling for a
long time. Planks a big, big wrestling fan from back
in the day too, so he'll appreciate this being brought
up in his time slot. There is a shift now
in pro wrestling. Okay, there was a time, you know,

(20:22):
when I was growing up in the in the Carolina's
in Southern Virginia, where the wins and losses really really mattered,
right Like there were dudes that you just knew, Yeah,
he's probably not going to be able to beat the
champion because he's lost on television eighty five percent of
the time, and you obviously wouldn't know the percentage, but
just generally he was a loser. He lost every big

(20:44):
match he was in. He's certainly not going to take
the US title off Lex Luger. He's certainly not going
to beat this team right here, all they do is lose.
They're certainly not going to beat only in Ron, They're
certainly not going to beat Demolition for the titles here,
and as you got older, you realize that they're or
certain events where title changes we're just never going to
take place. And then there were some where you paid

(21:04):
money to see them, where there was a much greater chance,
but even then it would be few and far between.
The shift has come as sort of the jig is
up when it comes to realism, Like they don't even
try to fake it anymore. They don't even use it
like it's an art form to try and make it
seem realistic anymore. WWE literally has a show that's premiering

(21:28):
this summer on Netflix where they're taking you into the
writer's room for the actual discussions that are going on
as behind closed doors for the first time, how these
things are done. And of course it's going to be
one hundred percent scripted. Anybody thinks that they're just going
to open up cameras live is insane, But you're still
gonna get kind of a glimpse into the process, at

(21:49):
least the process that they want to show you. But
The shift is that now the winds and losses don't matter.
The lines have been blurred, even the good and the
bad called faces and heels that it doesn't matter anymore.
The fans are sort of in the know, so at
any point they can have anybody win almost anything. You
don't have to protect nearly as many people as you

(22:11):
used to. Yes, there is the risk of defining down
certain people in the fans' eyes, but you can always
fix that on one given night by just letting somebody
win a championship, by letting somebody win a title. So
the wins and losses don't matter anymore, So you can
almost book whatever you want. You can do whatever you want,
because you can always repair it. I kind of look
at the same thing the sports media. The wins and
losses don't matter anymore. It doesn't matter what you say,

(22:33):
it doesn't matter how it landish it is. Yeah, it
might get a click, but our cycle moves so fast
that twenty four hours later, almost everybody's forgotten it. Local
radio might be about the only place where that kind
of thing can still exist, that kind of nuance can
still exist. But because of that, you have had the
rise of the most extreme positions on both sides about
every athlete. You can guarantee if it's a big time story,

(22:54):
you're gonna have one person taking one side and one
person taking the exact opposite side when you flip the
channel on in the morning, especially on television. So the
Cooper Flag thing, the narrative is if you have missed it,
I don't know how you have. If you're paying attention
to sports regularly. The narrative is that now the Dallas
Mavericks should compete for the West in year one now

(23:18):
that they have Cooper Flag. And I'm just kind of
looking at that and I'm saying, I see what you're doing,
and I also see what you're gonna say when that
doesn't come to come true, because that's not how the
NBA has almost ever worked. And you're basing that on
the health of all these guys. You're either going to
say he didn't have the help to do it, and
that's if you're trying to kind of keep your take
alive a little bit longer, and you're going to potentially

(23:40):
point to injuries that may or may not happen. But
certainly Kyrie coming back as late as he's going to
from his injury, probably into twenty twenty six, maybe even
near the All Star breaker afterwards. You're going to have
that storyline if you want, But you also have the
other one. And this is the content for him one.
This is the one where you can really make the money.
This is the one where you can get that extra
eating's point. This one is the one where you say, hmm,

(24:05):
did people overhype Cooper Flag? And that's the one I hate.
I hate the one that says the thing now and
then is going to say did people overhype? Maybe Lee,
they'll even say did we overhype? Because again, it doesn't
matter if you include yourself in that, because then you've
been betrayed. I was wrong about him. I thought the
best of him. It's a grift, man, It's an absolute grift.

(24:28):
It's not because I disagree, because I'm not even saying
I'm not giving you too much of an opinion on
what I think Cooper Flag is going to do in
the NBA, because I don't think it's right. I don't
think that it is right for me to do so.
Yet I can tell you what the impressions are of
those that have played with him, played around him, dealt
with him on circuits even before Duke. Everything is very,
very positive. I just want to go watch him play first.

(24:51):
I want to see him in the NBA. I want
to see his growth process. I want to see all
of those things. And I got another thought about something
else that the media is reporting on related to Cooper
fa lagged later in the show. That will blow your mind,
especially based on how this media works. But instead of
wanted to take somebody to task, Hall of Famer, okay,

(25:13):
in terms of what he's done as a journalist and
how well he has written throughout his career, and I've
always enjoyed him on TV as well, David Aldridge is
near the top of that list, right, Like, I mean,
he's done it all. You hear his name and you're, oh, yeah,
I know, David aldrigs and T and T coverage forever.
I think he's in a basketball Hall of Fame. If
he's not, he's probably likely to be many awards. All
of that. I've had my problems with some of the

(25:35):
things he's written in the past, but I was absolutely
baffled by this. So he wrote a draft compendium prior
to the draft and it sort of feeds into I
think it's Sam Vesani at the Athletic his like big
time draft preview thing that comes out similar to Dame
Brugler puts out the Beasts before the NFL Draft, and
some of the writers they have some guys that kind

(25:55):
of help prime that and get you ready for that. Well,
Aldridge wrote a long piece and kind of went into
detail on many of these prospects before the draft, which
I appreciated, first of all, because we do also live
in an era where many of these players are foreign
born and we just haven't gotten a chance to see
much of them at all. And so just to go
through all this and tell us you know who is
in the mix and what is some of the scuttle

(26:17):
but about him is a positive. It's a thing that's good.
But I've got to read this to you, and I'm
going to read both paragraphs, and I want to ask
you a question before I start reading this. Why did
this second paragraph need to be written? And do you
cringe when you hear it? All? Right here?

Speaker 3 (26:39):
It is?

Speaker 1 (26:39):
This is from David Aldridge's Pets at the Athletic quote.
Absolutely no one involved with basketball at any level begrudges
flag this moment. His moment in the spotlight. The sentiment
is universal, as it's been since the moment he burst
onto the scene as a teenager out of Newport, Maine
a few years ago. Cooper Flag is the man. He

(27:00):
doesn't duck anyone. He'll play anyone, anytime, anywhere, and his
team will usually win. End of paragraph one. From this
point forward, you tell me why this needed to be written.
The fact that he's white matters not in the least
to real ballers, as it didn't matter when Larry Bird

(27:22):
came into the national consciousness at Indiana State in the
late seventies, where John Stockton in the eighties or Steve
Nash in the nineties. White kids and black kids or
Latino or Asian kids need people to emulate. And by
the way, a lot of those black and Latino and
Asian kids will emulate Flag too. If you can play.

(27:43):
No one who loves the orange leather cares about your
skin color. End quote. You're gonna have to tell me
feel free to eight seven seven nine inet six six
three sixty nine. If you want to tell me personally
eight seven seven ninet nine on Fox, You're gonna have
to tell me that paragraph was necessary. You're gonna have
to tell me why that was a thing that needed

(28:03):
to be written about Cooper, Flag or anybody else. I'm
gonna read it to you one more time and then
we'll go quickly into why this just I was sitting arena.
It just took me out of the thing. I was
just like, wait, what quote. The fact that he's white
matters not in the least to real ballers, as it
didn't matter when Larry Bird came into the national consciousness
at Indiana State in the late seventies, or John Stockton

(28:25):
in the eighties or Steve Nash in the nineties. White
kids and black kids are Latino or Asian kids need
people to emulate. And by the way, a lot of
those black and Latino and Asian kids will emulate Flag
to exclamation point if you can play. No one who
loves the orange leather cares about your skin color. David,
I think you love the orange, and I think you
care about his skin color. I gotta say, man, because

(28:49):
the way this reads is it doesn't even matter that
he's white. He's actually good. I want you to reverse
the races, reverse and put any classification that you want
into into that other than white, and put that in there,
and would that ever be written, Like, why would that

(29:10):
need to be written? The first paragraph where you're talking
about nobody involved in basketball Begrudge's flag. It's been universal
sentiment since he's been a teenager. He's the man. He
doesn't dunk anyone. He'll play anyone, anytime, anywhere, and his
team will usually win. Dude, that's a good write up. Man,

(29:32):
stop right there, you've got the dub. There is no
reason whatsoever to write that second paragraph except to say, now,
I know he's white, I understand that he's white, but
he's not like most white guys. He can actually play.
Real ballers think he can play. What dude, David Alders,

(29:56):
we got to be better than this, homie, Like, we've
got to be better than this, my man, this is
bottom of the sea level stuff. I don't know that
you thought that through didn't know. Maybe there are no
editors thet like, I don't know. I can't believe that
that that actually made it into the piece. Why would
you need to say that? What benefit do you get

(30:22):
from that? Except well, I know that you watch him
and you think he's white, so he can't play. But
I'm here to tell you he could play. Yikes. I
do think we got a couple of calls. Let's go
to North Dakota if he's still there and chat with
Brandon this morning on The Chris Blank Show with Jason Martin. Brandon,
how are you I doing?

Speaker 5 (30:38):
Brandon?

Speaker 6 (30:39):
Is Mark nartz coota first time coon into this show?

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Normally I mont Ben Mallard m journalism in North in
North America.

Speaker 6 (30:49):
Probably the world is dead.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
It is awful.

Speaker 7 (30:52):
It is clickbait.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
It is all garbage.

Speaker 6 (30:55):
Who cares what skin color anybody is? If you can,
I'll play any.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Sport, play it. Who cares what your skin color is?
Quit reporting on it.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
That ship is excuse my language.

Speaker 7 (31:08):
That crap is garbagemen you ca.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
I don't know what he said there. I think we
lost him ember, But listen, that's that's the reason why
I'm mentioning this like there was no reason to even
talk about it. He says, don't report on it, so
we didn't have to report on it. We have eyes,
like we know he's white, Like we get it. There's
a lot of a lot of guys with light skin
in a league that can play. Hey man, there's a

(31:37):
lot of a lot of guys with white skin like
me that can't at all, and so we're on microphones
talking about it. We get that there's also like guys
with dark skin that can play and some guys with
dark skin that can't. This is called reality. Us writing
a paragraph in our draft preview article to suggest that, now,

(32:00):
I know you're coming into this kind of skeptical because
of the color of his skin and he's white, but
I'm just here to tell you, yeah, he's white, but
he's not like most white dudes. And my reaction to
that is man, cool story, bro, Please don't ever think
that you need to include that into an article. Again,
one more at least before the break, Let's go to
Tyler in Connecticut this morning here on the Chris Plank

(32:21):
Show with Jason Martin. Tyler, what's up, hey, Chris, Thanks
for shiving my call.

Speaker 5 (32:27):
You're actually right though it was one hundred percent cringe.
But honestly, the white aspect from Cooper Flag hasn't really
been talked about as much as maybe he even should
be because the last number one white Americans players drafted
number one in the NBA was in nineteen seventy seven.

(32:47):
That's forty eight years ago, and Benson so it's kind
of a big deal, but it was a cringe thing
from David Aldridge, No doubt.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Appreciate that, Tyler. Yeah, brother, that's good input. Yeah, I
mean yeah, I mean yeah. I get it. It's a factor,
and I get that it's a little bit of anomaly.
We still got to be better than that. So see
if we can sneak one more in before the break.
Hugh is on the five Freeway. He's with us here
on Fox Sports Radio. Hugh, good morning.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
Sure, Hey, yeah, I'll make it brief. My take is
that it sounds like that second paragraph is sneaking to.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
His people as this he's already to get bemoaned by
his people for writing about a white guy.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
And praising him.

Speaker 6 (33:31):
So and so he's he's dating himself too, because it
seems a little out of touch and it doesn't need
to be sad. It sounds like something that might have
been said like when Bird and Magic were playing, and
that just doesn't really that's not a narrative so much anymore.
So it's out of context. It didn't make me cringe

(33:51):
because we hear so much garbage anyway.

Speaker 7 (33:54):
These days that nothing is like, you know, so out
there anymore. But I would say, I agree with you.

Speaker 6 (34:01):
It didn't need to be written, and he was just
he was like.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Protecting his own butt with his own people by writing
that second paragraph.

Speaker 6 (34:07):
That's what I think.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Appreciate it, And those last two calls might be right on.
I mean really, it's just like he's like, is he
speaking to a certain community and he's saying, hey, man,
now I'm here to tell you, hey, hey, he's he's
a real one. Like pointed this, I know you might
pick him last if you didn't know better. I'm just
here to tell you I'm putting the spotlight on him.
He's going to be legit. I wish that we were

(34:31):
better than that, I really do. I appreciate the input there, though.
When we come back, who does this guy think he
is or who do his representatives think he is? That
he approached this draft process the way that he did,
tell you who he is and what happened next. I'm
Jason Martin in for the great Chris Plank. Here. I'm
Fox Sports Radio Little Santa Monica bringing us back here.

(34:55):
Ever clear, if you do nineties, you're probably getting to right.
If you're doing music for me, be sure to check
out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. You'll be doing
it right for yourself. A ton of great videos many
of our Fox Sports Radio shows. Search Fox Sports Radio
on YouTube. You'll see a whole bunch of video highlights
from our shows. Be sure to subscribe. See you always
have instant access to our Fox Sports Radio videos on YouTube.

(35:18):
Just another way we are here for you. A couple
more people wanted to chime in on the phone lines.
Let's jump to Charleston. We'll talk to Jerome first. Jerome,
good morning. You're on a Chris Plank show with Jason Martin.

Speaker 7 (35:30):
I know who you are. I've been pissed off with
you for a whole year, okay, and I just want
you to know that because when o'tani got injured in
the playoff right yere, because they're an awkward slide. He
made it the second base, you came on your little
radio show and said, well, Dave Robins caused that. That's
a lie. People get hurt in this sport all the time, Okay,

(35:53):
all the time. People get hurt. Dave Robins didn't call
that that was just an awkward slide in an accident,
and you said he caused him to get injured, and
you never apologize, and I've been pissed off for a
whole year at that because I know it's not true.
Dam Roberts would never literally try to get any of
this players injured. I don't think no manager would do that. Okay,

(36:17):
I just want you to know that from then on,
you have no credibility to me. All Right, you're just
with your to Why don't you go pick up garbage somewhere.
Maybe you'd be better at that than be in a
talk to hoo because you're allowed.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Appreciate it, Jerome, I don't even recall that. I recall well,
I don't know. I mean I probably did say it.
Like listen, I set off at the beginning that I
was not excusing myself from the idea that people are
not held to account for the things that they say.
So appreciate Jerome bringing that to my attention. I would

(36:54):
not have suggested Dave Roberts caused it. But I also
would think, man, Jerome, dude, you held on too that
for a year. Brother, call up and say that the
next week, or find me some other way get that
off your chest faster than that. Hope you were not
carrying that for a whole year, man, But I'm glad
you were able to get it off your chest. Nonetheless,
good to Bryce. He's in Texas. He's up next here

(37:15):
on the Chris Plank Show with Jason Martin. And for Chris, Bryce,
what's up.

Speaker 6 (37:19):
I'll be a little nicer, Okay. My only question to
you is do you think the article is written because
of everything that's going on in the WNBA right now?
Since the Caitlyn Clark race factor is playing such a
huge effect in the WNBA. Was he trying to pull
that over to the NBA, to the viewership, or to

(37:41):
spark a new conversation. That's the only reason I can
think of why you would write a paragraph like that
in an article.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, Bryce, I mean I think it's an interesting point.
I think it's impossible not to at least think of
Caitlyn Clark a little bit because of sort of where
we find ourselves in the discourse at this point. I
don't know that I would say that he was trying
to do any I don't think that his motives were
to inflame anything, and actually that might be worse. I

(38:11):
think he was literally just he thought he was speaking.
I think he was at the the a couple of
callers have mentioned they thought he might be speaking to
a certain community that might be sort of side eye
and Cooper Flagg, and like, yeah, I don't know if
he's that good. Either way, it doesn't matter because it
reveals something. It's just like, you don't need to say
that he's white. We all know that. But the reason

(38:32):
you wrote the paragraph was to say, yeah, he's white,
but everybody says he's legit to me that that is
where we're I kind of sort of what like, again,
we were told how good he was already, and we
watched what he did at Duke, and we've heard a

(38:53):
lot of people inside NBA circles talking about how good
he is and how he seems to be mature beyond
his years and all of these other things. I don't
think that it's important then to say, yeah, he's white,
But it doesn't matter what color you are, if you
can handle the orange or whatever he said, the orange leather.
I think it was was how that piece was, how

(39:14):
that piece, that paragraph finished. And again, it wasn't just
a piece on Cooper flag. This was a piece about
various draft prospects where Cooper Flagg was in the headline.
Of course, because he's a number one player, and he's
the first guy that's talked about, and there's a lot
said about him here in this article, but that paragraph
is just like, man, I do not know what we
are doing here. I do not know why somebody like
David Aldridge didn't realize that might not have been the

(39:37):
best play. We didn't even get to the eighth Bailey
take because we took a few more of your phone calls,
which is cool. It's always good to talk to America.
When we come back, we're gonna put a kind of
final bow on the NBA season, and I'm still gonna
ask the same question, can we be consistent in our
rational thought about these teams, including Oklahoma City and Indiana.
So we'll come back talk more NBA after this. Don't listen, no,

(40:02):
what's happening? Welcome in our number two Chris Planks show.
I'm Jason Martin and for Chris with you for the
next couple hours. You usually hear me at the end
of your Saturday into your Sunday with Aaron Torres, and
you will hear me there again tonight. But we'll go
ahead and book in your day with Jason Martin, which
got to make Jerome happy. Jerome called in the last

(40:23):
segment he had held onto a grudge for a year
about a show. Hey, Tawny, Dave Roberts take, I made
I guess about a year ago at some point. I
vaguely remember something to that effect. But man, I wish
he had told me sooner. But I also said people
were not held to account in media for their takes,
and Jerome was like, well, let me tell you something.

(40:44):
You're gonna be held to account. I like it. I
like it. It's good, wakes you up. It's like kind
of catching that adrenaline rusher, getting me up a effhron shot,
or getting the smelling salts. We're ready to roll. NBA
is done for the year Finals. In Game seven, hey, man, look,
the first half was really entertaining. Second half, the Pacers

(41:07):
finally just didn't have enough left. Okay. I'm a Thunder fan,
and I gotta say coming out of the game, I
came away with so much respect for Indiana, and it
was growing throughout the postseason, as it was for a
lot of us. I think. But that's a good team,
so well, coach team, It's a team that plays together,
plays hard, and you just hated that they weren't at

(41:29):
full strength at the end, and you hated even more
that Tyres Haliburton gave all that he had and when
he went down with that injury and then now he's
probably gonna miss the entire next season. And of course
he said afterwards, I wouldn't change a thing, I would
play again, And of course I agree, right like the
idea of not doing the thing, of not attempting to

(41:52):
go out there, you don't know if you were going
to have a worse situation or not. That was the
worst case scenario, especially considering he had hit three threes
and really seem to be on his game. He definitely
was not going to be passive. But it cost it
maybe a year, and it certainly for the long term
for Indiana, it sets them back quite a bit because

(42:13):
they should have been right there in the mix again
next year. Now they're gonna have to figure out some contracts,
like a lot of teams are. But it was the
worst case scenario. But I'm not gonna be grudge anybody
that chooses to play in that situation when they make
the choice, if they're forced into it, if it's against
their will, and they do think that it's probably not
the safest, not the smartest thing to do. Then maybe

(42:35):
we can have a different discussion. But this has happened
through the years. You do get hurt in sports, especially
what Drum said in Last Hour, he's right me. Injuries
do happen in sports when you were doing the thing
that you were paid to do. Sometimes it goes wrong,
and it's very easy then to kind of look back
and say, well, he shouldn't have played like Matt corral
played in that Bowl game for Ole Miss a handful

(42:55):
of years ago, had that leg injury, and he was
never the same, really right NFL career never even kind
of got off the ground. I don't know what it
was going to be anyway, but it's certainly changed things
for him. And that has happened throughout time and will
continue to happen throughout time. And you can only protect
people so much. You can't keep them in glass. You

(43:15):
can't draft a guy and then not actually play him
because you're worried about his injury, because why'd you even
draft him? Then just draft somebody you're not worried about
their injuries nearly as much. That was always my argument
about Steven Strasburg. It was my argument even about Zion
Williamson at the beginning of his career, it's just don't
baby them. Go ahead and let him play. You drafted

(43:37):
them to play. Now, don't be dumb about it, like
don't make rash decisions or be unhealthy or push too much.
But there's got to be a better balance than We've
got to put this guy in bubble wrap for his
first couple of years after we draft him. And it's
not even about the investment that you made in him.
It's about eventually he's going to have to go out

(43:58):
there and get his knocks. The best thing is, like,
what is it? Patrick Mahomes always says that one of
the reasons why he likes to play some in the
preseason is that he loves to just get hit once.
He doesn't feel right until he gets hit once. The
anticipation of it's like, might gonna be all right? Just
just drop me once, like knock me out once. I

(44:18):
stand back up a ready to play for the season.
So Tyrese Haliburton playing in Game seven and saying he
wouldn't have been able to live in himself if he
had not, he would have regretted it for his entire life.
I can completely understand that had he been able to play,
would they have beaten the Thunder. I have no idea,
neither do you, neither does anybody else. But we can

(44:39):
say that you come out of that with a lot
of respect for both those teams, but definitely a ton
of respect for Indiana and the way that they go
about it and what they've done. But the Thunder win
their first championship. SGA wins your finals MVP wasn't like
a It wasn't a great finals performance for the Thunder
over for all in terms of their offensive game, and

(45:04):
they just didn't look quite as dominant, right. They didn't
look like the team that had won nearly seventy games
in the regular season and was the one seed, like
they had to earn that thing. And I think if
you watched the Pacers during the playoffs, especially in that
Knick series, that shouldn't have caught you completely by surprise
because they were going to show up and make it hard,

(45:25):
and they did. But I've kind of been on one
note so far during this show, kind of went after
the media a good bit in hour one about how
they are framing Cooper flag before he plays a minute
of NBA basketball. Now I want to go after a
different take. This is another one that I heard in
the lead up to the NBA Finals, and then I

(45:46):
heard something strikingly different after the NBA Finals, and I
think it's a complete example of what I let off
the show with the take before the finals was. And
I'm quoting this. I'm not gonna give you the source.
I can't even remember now, but I saw it in
multiple places, So this is not isolated. That this was
a generational mismatch between the Thunder and the Pacers, and

(46:08):
that the Thunder were just going to walk all over
the Pacers. This might be a sweep. Maybe it's going
to be a gentleman sweep. All of this. I'm a
huge Oklahoma City Thunder fan. I think I even said five, right,
but in my head I was thinking maybe six. But
I was trying to be a little bit confident about it.
But either way, I wasn't right either. It still went

(46:29):
seven and it almost went the other way. But I
never believed the generational mismatch thing. I thought that made
no sense at all, especially considering that the guys that
were playing for Oklahoma City had virtually no experience whatsoever.
In the NBA Finals. They're super young. There's a lot
of pressure on them, just like there's pressure on the
Indiana Pacers. So I think all bets were we're going

(46:50):
to be off like talent, notwithstanding individual performances, all of that.
This thing could get wonky in a hurry, and I
think it did. And it turned out to be a
pretty compelling series from game to game. But that take
then as soon as they win the finals, as soon
as they win the championship on Sunday night, Monday was

(47:12):
the cavalcade. The avalanche if you will. Of you know,
Oklahoma City is not a great champion. Oklahoma City would
be I don't know, eighth out of the last ten
NBA champions. Hey, man, don't worry about a dynasty. Dynasties
are hard. Just go enjoy your parade. All these other
kinds of stuff stuff set them. This network is set

(47:34):
on all networks. And I'm thinking to myself, one I'm thinking,
I don't know why we need to say that, because
I didn't hear a bunch of Oklahoma City th under
players saying this is one of ten or one of eight.
We're gonna go win eight championships. Nobody was talking about
dynasty except the media. Oklahoma City knows that nothing is guaranteed.
They won a championship and it was probably harder than

(47:56):
they assumed it was going to be going into the finals.
But this is the exact same thing I was talking
about with Cooper Flag. We go from generational mismatch. This
Thunder team is an absolute juggernaut too or really not
that good. These are the extremes. This is precisely what
I was decrying in the first hour. This is not
the way we need to do this job. The truth

(48:20):
resides between those two positions. The truth is in the
middle of those two positions. It was not a generational mismatch.
That was embarrassing to suggest. And then after the fact, No,
the Thunder are really good. You can intimate that. You
can make that claim and you can make it true
without going any further. You can just say they're good

(48:43):
without going forward to be like, man, the Pacers don't
even deserve to be in the finals with them. That's preposterous.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
And in a.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Universe where you're held to account for that sort of thing,
maybe it doesn't get said. But that's not We have
conditioned and our audiences across the media landscape. And this
goes for everything, sports, politics, whatever you want to say,
there's probably a good version of this, a good helping
of this, a big time Thanksgiving Smorgesborg or this. We

(49:15):
have conditioned our audience not to really think too hard
about what we say for too long. We just need
to have something to say that day. We need to
have something newsworthy to say that day, and in a
lot of cases, we need something that is crafted specifically

(49:35):
that we can say that then other people on our
own network can then talk about for the rest of
that day. We can generate content out of our own
content for other shows so that they can have content,
so that our network is revolving around itself, like a
snake eating its own tail or something like that. This

(49:57):
ecosystem is weird, strange that is done this way. But
I was left thinking afterwards, it's just like, why are
we dog bowling on the thunder on Monday and Tuesday
after we were basically bowing to them before the finals started?
What changed? You watched them games and now they're not
as good but you thought they were. But it wasn't

(50:18):
even talked about like that. It wasn't even talked about, Like,
you know, they didn't play as well as I thought
they were going to play in this finals. They really didn't.
They left the door open for the Pacers. And it's
possible if Tyrese Haliburton hadn't gone down with this injury,
maybe this would have gone a different way and we'd
be having a different conversation today. But the Thunder did
win a championship. They were the best team in the
league during the regular season. You can give them their

(50:41):
flowers and you could actually leave them there if you
made the original take just a little bit, a little
bit less peaky, right, Like it doesn't have to be
on the top of Mount Everest. Let's let's bring it
down to at least like the Blue Ridge Mountains or
something of the Alleghany Mountains, latch And Mountain, something like that,
like a just a bit right. You don't have to

(51:05):
give them the whole bouquet. You can just give them
a dozen roses. It's the extremes that drive what we do.
But it's one of the reasons why what we do
is not really about us being right, and it's also
not about us informing the audience, not out about us
actually telling you what we think. It's just about it.

(51:28):
I don't think it's going to catch anybody particularly off guard.
And you know, whatever, whatever you consume this for, maybe
this is fine. But it's presented and the reason why
it's done the way that it's done is simply because
we know it's going to get a rise out of
you one way or the other. It's going to interest you.

(51:49):
The take is meant to interest you, not to actually
inform you or give you much like deep discussion about
a topic that's boring, like that's that's c span, right,
that's long form reporting in articles that no one reads
based on the metrics if you like, like those long articles.

(52:10):
And I used to be a purveyor of this back
when I was writing pop culture stuff. I wrote too long,
pretty consistently. A lot of people just don't read it,
especially if it's electronic. I find it a lot harder
to read word for word on any electronic device as
opposed to a newspaper, a magazine, an actual book, things

(52:30):
like that. I have gotten in the practice of skimming
anything on a screen, and it's not because what's written
on the screen is not as good as what's in print.
There's just something about the mentality where I can't slow
myself down because the speed of the screen is so
fast all the time, and I'm getting so much information
shot into my veins from every direction that I am

(52:51):
basically a walking adderall pill where I'm carrying like an
adderall pill every time I have my phone, there's a
reason your heart rate rising. It seems like, I don't
know if this is universal, but it is to me.
I'm like just kind of going through and checking the
websites I usually do, and trying to read articles and
all this kind of stuff just online, especially on like

(53:11):
a phone or something like that, for some reason, my
heart ray rises. I just think the pacing is completely different.
But we are not here providing a service. We are
here providing a show. That's what I was left with
after the NBA Finals, because the way that the finals

(53:34):
were framed before they began was a show, and the
way that the finals were talked about after they ended
was a show. And it was nothing more and nothing less.
So I think it was just time to have that
conversation here tonight with a couple of these issues that
are popping up. The Cooper flag story and the way
that now all of a sudden, their favorites to compete

(53:57):
to win the West this year, which I think is
just it's a ridiculous thing to assert. And again, because
no one's going to care that it was said in
June at the end of the season. You can get
away with saying it now because you can sing a
completely different tune in May and even act like you
didn't even say it back in August or September. Most
people won't ever call you on it or even remember

(54:18):
it because they've had a phone in their hands and
they've had seventeen trillion pieces of information pass through. Nothing
lasts anymore, almost nothing except the biggest of the big scandals,
and even a lot of those fall through the cracks.
There's more coverage, but there's also more stories and more
things to cover, and more people now that you can

(54:40):
cover because you can cover your own family and everybody
in it because they all have a social media account,
they're all over the place, so we're not providing the
same kind of thing. There's a reason why baseball announcers
on the radio I always felt like we're at the
top of their craft, and it's because they were true storytellers.
You're Dick Emburg's, You're Vin Scully's. Guys like that through
the year that between pitches had to tell you their stories,

(55:03):
and they had to have anecdotes, and they had to
be able to look into a crowd and see something
and be able to tell you over the radio because
you weren't able to see it on your screen. That
storytelling mechanism is gone. It's just gone, and in its
place is whatever this is. I got to say, I

(55:23):
missed the storytelling and I never even really got to
do it in this industry because I came in at
a time when we were already well down the path
any other direction. But I wish we could be a
little bit more consistent just in being rational about some stuff.
You can still have if you're passionate about something, by
all means, just don't generate fake passion to be more extreme,

(55:47):
either on the pro or the con side. And then
if it does, if you do go passionately about something
that goes against you, just say, man, I flat out
got that thing wrong. People will remember that You'll actually
be You'll actually come to be known that way if
you can keep your job long enough, and that becomes
your issue when we come back, there was no Caitlyn

(56:07):
Clark on the floor. Hasn't been for a couple games.
There's not going to be, at least probably for one more,
seems like. But there's a lot of pressure on it
right now, and a pretty hotly highly anticipated matchup in
the WNBA then had to kind of take a back seat,
and the other star in that game, the other player
of note in that game, had a if you can

(56:28):
believe this nuanced, kind of awesome take about Caitlin Clark.
We'll talk about that when we come back on the
Chris Blank Show. I'm Jason Martin and for Chris here
on Fox Sports Radio. Hi, this is Jay.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
I'm the producer of the Paul and Toni Fusco Show.
Usually in these promos they ask you to listen to
the show. I'm here to ask you please don't listen
have the dumbest takes on sports imaginable. Don't listen to
the show so it can get camps.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
That's cool.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Listen to the twenty Foodsco Show on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
He's still moving.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I said, nineties is usually right when I'm hosting and
I get Natalie and Bruglia. It's funny as I wonder
if this was I wonder if we can stump him
with this, not with this. No, you have to try harder, deep,
go further into the bag to get me to that.
I'm Jason Martin for Chris Plank. Here Chris Plank Show,
Fox Sports Radio. I usually hosted Aaron Torres on Saturday nights.
I'll be doing that well on Saturday Night, which will

(57:41):
be tonight, So tune into that right here on many
of these same Fox Sports Radio stations. So Caitlin Clark
has been out. She missed the game against the Dallas Wings,
which is important because it was Page Beckers. So you
would have the Page Beckers versus Kaitlyn Clark matchup that
we also got between Iowa and Yukon last year. And
of course Kaitlyn Clark gets talked about just a little

(58:04):
bit in sports right like we hear this a bit
these days. The Kaitlyn Clark topic is there all the time. Well,
she's in the midst of a big time shooting slump.
She's like one of twenty three from three in her
last couple games, coming back off like missing five from
the quad injury. So she's been in a bit of
a slump. And I actually I read an article with

(58:26):
a bunch of various like slump experts in various disciplines
of life that we're trying to explain this. It's like,
it's been like two three bad games after an injury.
Can we relax just a little bit, Like everybody goes
through this, right and especially I mean, shooting in basketball
is not an easy thing to do, and you're coming
back in she's got a groin injury now, which is

(58:48):
why she was back out and missed the game. That's
probably not going to help your three point shooting either.
But I think it's more important to hear what Paige Becker's,
who would have been her opponent the number one picking
this past draft, what she had to say, because it's
always about what other people have to say about Kaitlin Clark.
That becomes interesting, and a lot of it is negative,
but not from page Becker's at all as a matter

(59:09):
of fact. So here's what she said on Thursday after
a Dallas practice. She was talking about, like just what
Caitlyn Clark has gone through, the pressure that she has faced,
She said, quote she handles it with grace. The pressure
that she's put on every single night to perform at
the level that she does. It's inhumane, really to expect

(59:30):
people to be perfect and to not have off games
or off nights. If she doesn't go eight for ten
from three, people are questioning things. It's unfair to have
to deal with that. I'm sure she has a great
team around her and great people to help her, and
I know she's a great person at dealing with it
and just tuning out the noise and just continuing to
be there for herself and for her team. The expectations
it's tough when you listen to it, so I'm sure

(59:51):
she has a great way of tuning it out. And
she talked about how she's even learning from Caitlyn Clark.
She said, you know, you got to be able to
give yourself great That's what she has talked about, and
you have to know you're not perfect. There's gonna be
ups and downs. It's gonna be good games, it's gonna
be bad games. But as long as you keep it forward,
keep pushing, keep learning, keep growing from game to game,
that's all you can ask for, man, amen, first of all.

(01:00:14):
But also how refreshing to get that, especially from that league,
about that player. But that's actually good advice for us,
all right there. Yes, they're gonna be good days and
they're gonna be bad days. And as long as we
are not defined by how good or how bad our
day is, man, hopefully our foundation is in something stronger

(01:00:34):
than that. But it is good to see an acknowledgment
of what Caitlin Clark is actually going through by one
of her peers in that league that doesn't play on
the same team with her. So yeah, you have people
on the Fever that have defended Caitlyn Clark here and there,
but generally almost every almost everything else that you've heard

(01:00:55):
throughout the league has either been negative or it's been
like some kind of or something like that. This is
maybe the most genuine comment that I have seen from
another player up here, a competitor, a fellow competitor about
Kaitlyn Clark that just rings completely true because and this
is what's kind of amazing about it. Right, If I
had not told you it was Paige Beckers, you would

(01:01:16):
have had no idea because she didn't make it about her.
She just kind of said, man, what Kaitlyn goes through
is nuts. Yes, she's got she's in a bit of
a funk for a couple of games here, but I mean,
everybody has bad nights and everybody has good nights too.
You got to give yourself some grace. That's pretty wise

(01:01:37):
for a rookie in the WNBA, don't you think? Like
I liked Page Beckers at Yukon. I enjoyed just kind
of I enjoyed kind of how she seemed to go
about her business super competitive, but also seemed to be
pretty down to earth and just seemed to be a
solid young lady, solid young woman. And then I read

(01:01:58):
that and I'm just like, and there might be hope
out there's at least somebody in the WNBA with a brain, Right,
there's somebody in the WNBA with a brain. When it
comes to we don't have to just completely dog her
out every time we get the opportunity to talk. And
I don't even think Page is looking at it in
terms of well man the league needs her, so I'd
better say nice things about her. Maybe that's it, but

(01:02:19):
it just seems like no Page is a rookie, and
Page is treating this like this pressure that she's under.
I'm a number one pick, but I'm certainly not under
the same level of pressure she is. But at the
same time, I can learn from this, and they may
have had a friendly relationship to some degree prior to this,
and there may even be some comments from other players

(01:02:39):
in that league that I've missed, But we know what
gets covered, and we know how it's been talked about,
and we know generally what has been said and what's
gone down, all the flagrant fouls and all of this,
and that's become kind of the entire story. So I
wanted to at least give a couple of minutes to
the other side of that, which is there's at least
somebody out there who really didn't have any reason to

(01:02:59):
be this kind of polite, nice, accommodating, and actually just
kind of illustrative of what you should be. You don't
always have to take the low road every single time
it is offered to you. Even when you see it,
you can still decide not to do that it's always
going to be there to go that direction, but you

(01:03:21):
don't have to do it, and so I'm glad that
somebody out there did not. So we'll see what happens
when Caitlyn comes back. She may have missed her last game.
I'm not sure. Going into Friday. I'm not sure that
they were positive she wasn't gonna play, but she didn't
end up playing last night against Becker's and the Wings,
which I mean that would have been a nice matchup,

(01:03:42):
even though I still don't know from like game to game,
who is directly paying attention to what's happening. I mean,
for me, I just don't watch. I don't have the
time to watch everything that's going on, especially these days.
But the WNBA's just not something we generally talk about.
But usually you're at least paying attention to some box

(01:04:02):
scores for certain players and Caitlin Clark if nothing else,
you're at least watching that you're keeping some kind of
an idea in your head of what's going on, but
it maybe isn't top of mind. Similarly, another thing that's
not top of mind is what's happening right now at
the end of June in various scenarios around the NFL.

(01:04:26):
We're still month and a half. I don't know if
my math is right there, but somewhere in that two
months away from the start of the season, there are
some stories. Aaron Rodgers say it might be his last year.
We'll get to that later on in the show. But
t J. Huschmanzada, who we know pretty well round here,

(01:04:47):
was talking about the Browns. He was talking about the
Browns quarterback competition, and he has said through somebody in
the organization. He didn't name him, which I wouldn't expect
him to. We had heard some we had heard and
we had read that Shoudhear Sanders seemed to be kind
of shining over the other guys there. It's certainly above

(01:05:09):
Dylan Gabriel and Kenny Pickett, and that he was really
starting to deal. And then of course we've had those
stories in the last few weeks the opposite way as
it relates to shouldhear Sanders with the couple of speeding
tickets and the way that that was handled and all
of that. So, I mean, he's always gonna have a
I think he's always gonna have a bigger microscope now,

(01:05:31):
especially because of the way the draft played out, but
even the draft process and the way things were talked
about in the lead up to the draft, this was
gonna be we were gonna have a pretty close eye
on what was going on. But what Huschmann Zada has
said is that at least from somebody in that organization,
it is a two man race to QB one, and

(01:05:53):
he is saying that it's Dylan Gabriel and Kenny Pickett.
He said that on the I guess it was Shannon
Sharks podcast, but he said it on I said it
on Nightcap and he said, it really isn't even fair.
It's coming down to Kenny Pickett or Dylan Gabriel. It's
not a current player on the roster, he said. So
it's somebody in the organization, he says, but he's suggesting that,
you know, it's one of those two guys that's gonna
be QB one. It's not gonna be flock. Oh, it's

(01:06:14):
not gonna be Kenny, it's not gonna be Shadoor. And
that most of the reporting as of late, just in
the last few weeks indicate Shudor is definitely not gonna
be the starter. Week one. Look, I don't know. I'm
on record saying I think he starts a game before
the end of the year. Even if this is true,
even if what TJ is saying is one thousand percent true,
I do not see a universe where Schudoor doesn't start

(01:06:36):
at least one game this year. I could be wrong.
I could definitely be wrong. I'm not there and I
haven't gotten to watch any of these practices, just like
looking at how looking at that quarterback room, and by
the way, I didn't even mention Deshaun Watson right there.
I have no idea where he fits into this whatsoever.

(01:06:57):
I kind of think his fit in the NFL is
treacherous at best at this stage. But this is the
kind of thing that you're gonna hear at the end
of June. And because it's a source that's not a
current player, it's just like, what's the motive behind it?
I don't mean for TJ, I mean for the source.
Let's say a source did tell him this. Does this

(01:07:20):
source have a reason to say it in the way
that he does. Was there a purpose behind this or
is this just legitimate? TJ has a relationship with this guy,
and so this guy kind of gave him a little
bit of insider info. Then he said, hey, man, I
think it's gonna be this. You never know, because there's
plenty of time for everything to change. But it's not
necessarily what I was expecting, because if Dylan Gabriel is

(01:07:42):
one of the guys that's shining, and one of the
guys that has the potential would be QB one, that
would be the least likely scenario to me. Yes, he
was drafted before Shador, but it seemed like the minute,
the minute Shadur was drafted, Dylan Gabriel became the biggest
loser in the NFL draft because you drafted a behind
him that was almost universally seen as being in front

(01:08:03):
of him by a pretty wide margin. So oh, okay, well,
they finally just pulled the trigger on the door, even
with some of the red flags, with the interviews and
some of the things that made teams leary to draft him.
So now Dylan Gabriel is just a man without a country,
like there's no role for him anymore. What exactly is

(01:08:23):
he supposed to do? But this would indicate that Dylan
Gabriel was showing up doing his job and impressing people,
which I mean that would be the least likely thing
to the most improbable result of this would be doing
Gabriel as QB one week one. I still don't think
that's what's going to happen, by the way, but if
it does, then that's going to speak to some pretty

(01:08:46):
hard work that Dylan Gabriel has put in in that building,
not just on the field, but just relationally with the
coaching staff, with other players. He's going to have to
have gotten a lot of people on his side, because
there's no reason to think that's what would have happened.
Like it just seems like, yeah, we're gonna draft Shaduur.
I mean we drafted Dylan, but it was like fourth
round we are. I mean, his prospects for the pros.

(01:09:08):
He's a little small da da da da dah all
this and who knows, right, like, maybe he ends up
being one of the greatest players to ever live. We
have no idea. But the fact that they then drafted
Shadeur a couple of rounds later, well, he's the one
that's gonna have the interest level. No one's even gonna
care about Dylan Gabriel. He's gonna be the one standing
in his locker that no one's talking to while everyone
is mobbing Shadoor Sanders, we're talking about or talking to

(01:09:31):
Flacco because Flacco's the vet in the room, or maybe
Sean I don't know, but nobody's gonna be interested in
dying Gabriel at all. He's just kinda gonna be on
the roster unless he's the one that gets cut because
they're probably not going into the season with that many
quarterbacks on the roster. And now you're hearing that, so
that I mean, honestly, that's uplifting. Like I hated that

(01:09:54):
for Dylan Gabriel. You wouldn't want that for anybody, right,
Like anybody that's going into that lead, you want them
to because you have to put yourself in their shoes.
I would that would just be very difficult for me
to take, especially if I had already been told, yeah,
you know you're you're what you can do, and your
size and your skill set not really a great fit

(01:10:17):
to be a starter. Maybe a career backup. Maybe you
can make a Chase Daniel career out of yourself or
something like that, but it's probably not in the cards
for you to be playing in the Super Bowl. Son
or anything like that. Of course you can tell that
to brock Party, but doing Gabriel just answering a call.
I mean, he said the right things when he had

(01:10:39):
the opportunity to. But this is kind of shocking to
me now. I have not talked to T J. Husminzada
one on one to kind of just hear it from
the source directly and be able to ask any kind
of follow up questions or talk it through. This is
another one of those things that you can say that
either the organization could deny it or nothing gets said,

(01:11:02):
because again, nobody's gonna remember that it was said. Next week.
You guys will listen to Chris Blank Show next week
we're right here on this exact same station you're listening
to me on right now, and you won't even remember
this topic was said. That's how short our attention spans
are now, and our memory is getting worse and worse
because technology is making it so we don't have to
remember anything. I joke all the time. My prime example is,

(01:11:25):
please don't ask me to actually like give you directions
to find where I am. I don't know. My GPS
has made me dumb as a doornail, has made me
absolutely just inept. I was never great with directions compared
to some, but I knew how to read map and
everything else like most people my age did when we

(01:11:46):
first got our driver's licenses. Also got lost like most
people my age did when they got their driver's licenses.
But now I can't even find I can find like
three things. I know how to get home from most places.
I know how to get to church, which is also
my oldest daughter's preschool, and I kind of feel like

(01:12:06):
I could almost find my wife's office outside of that,
and like a couple of stores, I think I can
find Costco. That's about it. So that's our attention span. Now,
our memories and our attention spans are going by the
wayside because we can just ask AI, and then AI,

(01:12:29):
of course can tell us whatever it's programmed to tell us,
which is kind of frightening. When we come back out
of this break, Roger says he's pretty sure this is it.
He says that to Pat McAfee earlier this week. I
think he's right. I think this is gonna be it.
I also think it's gonna be a word that rhymes
with it that we won't say on the radio. We'll

(01:12:49):
talk about that more when we come back. My name
is Jason Martin. I'm in for Chris Plank here on
Fox Sports Radio. You can stream this show all of
our Fox Sports Radio shows live twenty four seven in
the new and improved iHeart Radio app. Search Fox Sports Radio.
In the app you can stream us live. New feature
in the app, select Fox Sports Radio as a preset.
That's like the presets on a radio dial where maybe

(01:13:11):
you would have hurt incubus back in the day. So
be sure preset Fox Sports Radio in the iHeart Radio app.
It will always pop up at the top of your screen.
iHeart Radio app getting better by the update. Also, every
weekend best pregame show tune in Fox Sports Radio is Countdown,
presented by BETMGM every Saturday Sunday morning nine am to

(01:13:32):
noon Eastern six to nine Pacific. They'll count you down
to all the biggest games. Tune in to Countdown that's
presented by BETMGM every Saturday and Sunday morning. Right here
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio App. I am
Jason Martin and Nashville, Tennessee, where I do the show
in for Chris Plank here this evening. I'm usually with
Aaron Torres. You can hear me tonight with Aaron to
finish off your Saturday, like we do every week here

(01:13:53):
on many of these same Fox Sports radio stations. Aaron
Rodgers told Pat mcphe earlier this week that he thinks
this is going to be his last season in the NFL.
Not what steeries like that. That's why I signed a
one year deal. I think this is it, you know what.
A lot of times when Aaron Rodgers talks, you think, yeah,
you know. I don't know whether or not I can

(01:14:15):
believe this. I don't know if it's true. I don't
know if he's actually married. I don't know if he
was at a darkness or retreat. I don't know if
he created some kind of straw man at burning Man
this year. I'm not sure if he was on ayahuasca.
You know a lot of stuff about Aaron Rodgers. It's
sort of up in the air. It's like, I don't
know what's true and what's not. I actually think this

(01:14:36):
one's a million percent true. I don't think there's even
a debate that he thinks this is going to be
his last year. I also think that this is going
to be his last year. Maybe whether he even wants
it to or not, but I do think he's probably done.
But maybe more importantly than all of this is that
I think it's going to be a last year that

(01:14:57):
is going to on a whimper. I am on record
probably my number one NFL take entering this coming season
is that this is going to be the year that
Mike Tomlin's over five hundred streak comes to an end.

(01:15:18):
The Steelers are going to finish with like seven wins.
When you are putting your weight in the Aaron Rodgers
basket in twenty twenty five, what are you expecting to
find out of that? When is the last time that

(01:15:41):
Aaron Rodgers played more than one game in a row
that was consistent. It's been about three years now. He
had the injury the year, the first year with the Jets,
second year, last year. I mean, he had maybe one
game to think about and that was about it at
a Thursday night game that was pretty decent. I think

(01:16:01):
that was against the Patriots. It's been a minute since
he was truly relevant in the NFL when it comes
to what he was doing on the field. In a
positive sense. He's always relevant because he's Aaron Rodgers, and
he's going to make himself relevant, which is why when
you hear the other thing that he said, which is
probably going to be pretty quiet, and you're not gonna
hear much from me at all once I'm done in

(01:16:21):
the NFL. I'll believe that when I see it, because
a lot of people think they don't like the attention
until it's gone, and then all of a sudden they
start cropping back up in ways that you never would
have seen. Maybe he is. Maybe we will never hear
from him again, And if that's what's going to make
him the happiest, then that's exactly what I hope that
he goes and does. Just I hope the marriage is

(01:16:44):
legit and it's the right woman, and you know, you
can have a post playing career that dwarfs your playing
career when it comes to what's actually important in life.
But I don't think he's gonna be very good at
football this year, and that's what we're here to talk about.
I don't think there's nothing that indicates that the Steelers

(01:17:06):
are going to be particularly good this year. George Pickens
not there. They moved on from Najee Harris, which I mean,
I'm not really saying that's a negative. It's just it
is what it is. Tomlin is gonna do what Tomlin does.
And then you've got Aaron Rodgers, and I don't know

(01:17:27):
the situation right like you look at it. He may
have had more talent offensively around him in New York
than he does in Pittsburgh. And they were supposedly gonna
have a pretty good defense in New York, and I
do think they've got one in Pittsburgh. But you know,
you got guys on that team that are older, and
you also have guys on a team that have been

(01:17:47):
injured a lot in the last few years, even your
best player, I would say, at that rate. And you're
in a division that has Cincinnati, who will see if
they step back up to the play. But you got Baltimore,
who's gonna be one of the teams many think will
make it to a Super Bowl this year. Cleveland, we
already spent some time this hour talking about their situation.

(01:18:08):
I don't I don't know, because their quarterback thing being
the way that it is and just all of that,
I don't know how you can really predict what they're
going to be. But I got the Steelers at best
third in that division at best. I think the Ravens
are probably clearly going to win it because there's still
too many holes in Cincinnati on the defensive side of

(01:18:30):
the football. Antio lines still not very good. But Pittsburgh
is just so. We saw what they did with Russell
Wilson and Justin Fields last year, okay, and I think
that went better than most thought that it would. And
I actually thought Russell Wilson played pretty good. Do you

(01:18:50):
really think that Aaron Rodgers is going to do more
with less than Russell Wilson did a year ago? Do
I think Aaron Rodgers is better than Russell Wilson. Yes,
Now at this point, I don't know like they maybe
they're about to say I still think Aaron Rodgers a
little bit better, But I mean from baseline standpoint, he
was much better. Right like, overall as a player in

(01:19:11):
their primes, they were both very very good, but Aaron
Rodgers was clearly the better player. But it didn't really matter.
I just look at it and I say, I think
that Russell Wilson's gonna be the one that ends up
with the most victories in a Steelers uniform over Aaron
Rodgers because I think they overperformed last year and I
think they're gonna win about seven games this year. Cooper Flag.

(01:19:32):
We let off the show with Cooper Flag. We shall
get back to after the break. Also, Nico Harrison, come
on man, hey, nobody buying what you're selling. We'll play
some crazy audio from the MAVs general manager when we
come back. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back
in or welcome in if you're just tuning in wherever

(01:19:55):
you are. Appreciate you being here. I am Jason Martin
In for the great Chris Plink. This is is the
Chris Blank Show here on Fox Sports Radio. We're live
in the Fox Sports Radio studios. You can usually hear
me with Aaron Torres finishing off your Saturday and opening
up your Sunday. You'll hear me that way again tonight.
So if you enjoy this, hopefully you'll tune into that program.
We have a lot of fun on that show. We

(01:20:17):
opened up and if you missed anything, you can always
podcast everything wherever you get your podcasts of choice. Just
search Fox Sports Radio. You'll find everything there so you
don't have to miss any of the highjinks throughout the day.
Throughout the main shows during a week of course, and
certainly the weekends as well. We talked about Cooper Flag
right off the top, and I mentioned that I'm already
irritated because I'm seeing the grift begin. And I also

(01:20:41):
wanted to say that usually when you hear grifts, sometimes
you immediately start to sort of recoil because you're like, oh,
here comes some ridiculous disagreement kind of take. And it's like, no,
grift is misused to like kind of smear somebody that
says something you disagree with. All right, you're just grifting
because it's got a negative connotation. No, I'm saying grift

(01:21:03):
because you're just manufacturing content out of certain takes that
also breed other content even in other directions. Right, Like,
there's a reason why things are going the way that
they're going. There's a reason why you're talking about things.
And when it comes to Cooper Flag, to take after
the draft was look, man, Dallas can compete for the
West this coming year. It's just like, come on, really,

(01:21:24):
we're going here. Not good for him. There's no reason
to put that kind of expectation on him. Almost no
one in the league does anything remotely like that. Especially
in year one. And yes there's talent, but there's also
aged talent that's injured talent too. There's some solid role
players on the team. And you've got Anthony Davis and Kyrie.

(01:21:45):
Kyrie is out until at least early twenty twenty six,
and Anthony Davis is Andy Davis, Like, what are we
even looking at here? What are we talking about here?
What is Anthony Davis going to be doing? I mean,
there was reason why I had that nickname in La,
that street closed nickname. Hopefully it's not gonna be the case.
Hopefully he's gonna come back and be strong. But I mean,

(01:22:06):
what happened is first night with the MAVs. He looked great.
For it happening, he was out and you didn't see
him again. But another thing about Cooper Flag is that
he went to the Dallas Mavericks, who had a one
point eight percent chance to win the draft lottery following
the Luka Doncic trade that sent the Star to LA

(01:22:31):
for Anthony Davis and raised many many questions as to
how exactly that trade happened and what was going on
in Dallas and what was the motivation there? Was it
Luca oriented or was it. Let's get this team to
Vegas oriented, so we can just kill this team off
for now because we want a casino in Dallas, not

(01:22:52):
gonna let us have one. All this stuff, and the
big villain in all of this was Nico Harrison, general manager,
who seemed like every time he opened his mouth after
this took place, after this trade went down, he said
something that just made the situation worse and just seemed

(01:23:14):
completely wrong for the moment and like he had just
entirely misread the room. Well, he just continues, this is
just where we are. So he has this post draft
press conference this week. Of course, they drafted Cooper Flag.
He had a one point eight percent chance to win

(01:23:34):
the draft lottery, but everybody knew whoever won it, they
won the rights to Cooper Flag. That's the way that
it was, and so they didn't even have to do
too much work at that point. But for whatever reason,
Nico Harrison just can't He continues to say the thing,

(01:23:55):
they get Cooper Flag. I think we have the audio.
Here's here's what Nico Harrison said about the situation Dallas
found itself in where they ended up with the one pick.
Listen to this.

Speaker 7 (01:24:06):
I was extremely surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
All my draft prep up to that point was, you know,
as being in the eleventh position. So that's just but
you know, things happen. Fortune favors the Bold. So exciting,
exciting things fell our way. Fortune favors the Bold. Does

(01:24:32):
it now? Fortune favors the Bold. Exciting things fell our way.
All my draft prep up to that point was us
being in the eleventh position. He also said right after that,
I've seen the fans react to that. Since we got
the number one pick. It feels like they're feeling really
good and optimistic about the future. I'm hoping maybe the

(01:24:56):
maybe this apparently he was talking about them being angry
at him. He's like, I'm hoping, so I'm hoping maybe
they'll be a little less angry. Reading an article at
Sports Illustrated, fans are still really upset. When his face
hit the screen at the American Airlines Center during the
draft watch party, he was booed vociferously. Now you can

(01:25:24):
be excited about Cooper flag, and I think Maths fans
are excited about Cooper flag. But that's not gonna get
me go off the hook here. Fortune favors the Bold.
I just got it wasn't rigged, right, Like we're all
in agreement that it wasn't rigged. I'm saying that as

(01:25:45):
somebody who's not in agreement, Like I'm not saying it
was rigged. I'm saying that you're gonna have a hard
time convincing me that it wasn't rigged. And I know
there are many that will tell you that this is
just absolute trash of an opinion to have, but I

(01:26:05):
just got to tell you how I feel about it,
and it's just when I saw that it was just
of course they are like Dallas is a big time
market in the league, and that team nearly got just
killed off, and there's protests happening in the streets, people
being escorted out of the games for what they're saying
or signs that they're caring about Nico Harrison, the general manager.

(01:26:26):
And this thing just stinks to high Heaven. It happened
that trade happened while Torres and I, Aaron Torres and
I were on the air right here on Fox, and
we thought it was totally phony. We've got Steve de
Seger looking into it. He assumes it's probably phony, like
somebody's hacked shams. Can't be real. It turns out that

(01:26:47):
it's real and all this, So Nico Harrison at this moment, Yeah,
it's gonna make them less angry at me. Nah, No,
it's really not. Like even if Cooper Flagg goes and
has an incredible career, and he very well might, they're
still not going to forget what you did. That that's
not a thing that's gonna happen. And so I'm just

(01:27:08):
saying fortune favors the bold, like because we made these
bold moves, man, fortune shond on us, because fortune favors
the bold. Sh quiet. You don't have to say things,
Nico you really don't like. I know, you're in a
press conference, which maybe that's the thing you should stop doing.
But if it's an obligation, it's an obligation, But it

(01:27:29):
is not an obligation to say anything more than you
have to. All you have to say is, man, we're
super excited to get Cooper into building. And if they
didn't ask a follow up about do you think this
is gonna make the fans a little less mad at you?
Just I'm not even sure what the answer to that is.
You can't just blow it off completely, but you also

(01:27:52):
can't say I hope It makes it a little bit
like like like Nico Harrison, Fortune favors the bold because
Nico did something that most belief was just universally insane
and almost no one agreed with that was being honest
about the situation that that was bold, and somehow he

(01:28:16):
was rewarded by the basketball gods for that. Is that?
Is that what we're saying, Nico was that the was
that the angle that you were taking? How'd that go
for you? Man?

Speaker 7 (01:28:28):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
What what was the win there? What was what were
we trying to say? Just say, hey, man, you know
we we had a we had a season of So
I'm trying to do this in real time. Like what
would I say if somebody said this is gonna make
people less mad at me? Say, hey, you know, I
can't control how people feel about me. My role is
to do what I think is best for the Mavericks

(01:28:50):
organization in the long term. And I'm just excited for
the future because I think Cooper Clagg Cooper Flag has
the goods. I think that he's gonna bring a lot
of excite and enjoy to this building. I don't know
that that's like significantly better than what Nico said, but
it certainly isn't worse because Nico suggested fortune favors the bold,

(01:29:12):
like he was bold, Like, no, no, you weren't bold.
You were dumb, Like you weren't bold, you were or
at least Okay, So, look, you can believe what Nico Harrison.
Let's say everything was on the up and up. There
was no rigging, there was nothing going on behind the scenes.
This trade was totally legitimate, all of that. Okay, So
all the smoke, there was no fire behind that smoke.
Let's just assume that in this hypothetical, because it doesn't

(01:29:34):
matter at this point. The trade happened. Okay. I'm not
saying that he was dumb in terms of like his
own thought process, if we're just saying, okay, he was
genuine in this, and there were some serious qualms in
the organization about Luca's work ethic, his way, how dialed
in he would be, his injuries, you know how, he

(01:29:56):
was not keeping himself in shape, all of those things.
I'm not saying he was dumb for that. I'm saying
he was dumb to think that the fans weren't going
to react the way that they did for him to
act blindsided or seem surprised. And the only reason I
can say that I think that was the case is
because of the way he spoke after the fact, because

(01:30:17):
he clearly did not expect this, because his response to
it was so just like he was blind. He did
not see it coming or nowhere near the level that
it actually came, which is just mind boggling to me.
I would have you would have had to have thought, like,

(01:30:37):
did he not see the banners and stuff all through Dallas?
So I was in Dallas for a conference about it
was probably a month month and a half ago, maybe
a little longer, something like that. And one of the
things in the email that they sent us before we
got on the airplane to go down there, this was
not a sports conference, by the way, was hey, while

(01:30:59):
you're here, don't bring up the Mavericks. It's still a
sore subject. And yes, that was half joking, but it
was also half true. And there were still Luca jerseys
down there while it was there, but there was just
like it was a ghost town and it shouldn't have
been not at that point because we were moving into
the postseason. But the maps had nothing, and we all

(01:31:21):
saw the videos and we saw all that stuff. Nico
had to know that was coming, but he never reacted
with that. Like I actually think that he could have
helped himself a little during this entire process after that trade,
just by saying, hey, you know, I knew this was
going to be unpopular. Luca was super popular, and he

(01:31:42):
did a lot for this team and a lot for
this city. We just had to make a decision, and
we felt like this was the right one for us
in the long term. This was a move that we
felt like could could position us where we wanted to
be in the future. Like you were still going to
take flak, but to be as just kind of arrogant

(01:32:02):
but at the same time sound clueless. That was sort
of the Nico Harrison thing. I think that's what made
it worse when the fans responded the way they did
when the signs were out and all this kind of stuff.
And you had heard a lot of nice things about
Nico Harrison from people that had dealt with him. He
was a pretty nice man, and you know, all this
kind of stuff, and they hated this was happening to him.
And then of course you read some articles that may

(01:32:23):
have said the opposite about how he was conducting himself,
and how he sort of siloed off his people from
guys that had been there in the past, and even
in may have isolated Dirt Novisky from the franchise and
all this. That's not like any of what we've been
talking about inscribing over the last like five six minutes.
That's not bold, that's just ignorant. Like that's just not

(01:32:49):
good business. Fortune does not favor the stupid. It does
not favor the Fortune does not favor the unplanned. It
doesn't favor like somebody that just falls backwards into something.

(01:33:11):
If I go spend my fortune badly, like let's say
I'm rich, I go spend my fortune completely badly, and
I cheat on my wife and all these kinds of things,
right like I do everything, I fall into drugs and
all this other kind of stuff, and then somehow win
the lottery, and then I say, fortune favors the bold. No,

(01:33:37):
the behavior that I exhibited that was not boldness, that
was just like bad. That was just dumb. I would
call Nico Harrison dumb for not reading the room in advance,
because everybody knew that would be the reaction. The only
reason no one said it out loud before the fact
is because no one thought Luca Dutchetts was going to

(01:33:58):
be traded in the first place. So they get Cooper
Flagg and his response is fortune favors the bold. No, man,
that's not it. That's just not it. Was it a
bold move to trade Lukadancic in the way that Jason
Bateman sounded and Dodgeball, Yes, it was. It's a bold move, Cotton.
Let's see how it works out for But it was

(01:34:20):
not bold, and that like, it wasn't bold, like he
was taking some kind of a civil rights stand in
the fifties or something like that. Like, no, man, that
this is not the adjective that I would use to
describe you. It was not bold. And because you did it,
and then to say fortune favors the bold, it's almost like, hm,
really does it? Now? So you made this move and

(01:34:42):
all of a sudden fortune favored you behind closed doors
when no one could actually watch what was happening in
the draft lottery. Again, whatever it is that you want
to say about what happened and didn't happen when that
draft lottery went down, all I'm going to continue to
say is that you're just not gonna convince me that

(01:35:05):
something wasn't right about that one point eight percent with
everything that happened in Dallas since February, and they're the
ones that win the draft lottery, and then when they
draft Cooper Flag Nico Harrison still manages to say the
most tone deaf thing that he could say, which is
fortune favors the bold and maybe this is gonna make
people dislike me a little bit less. I No one's

(01:35:31):
gonna dislike you less, Nico, for doing the thing that
literally any of them would have done if they were
in your shoes with the number one draft pick. That's
the other thing before we get to break. Let's not
forget that maybe this will make them dislike me a
little bit? What because you took Cooper Flag number one?

(01:35:52):
Was there anyone in an NBA job that was not
gonna take Cooper Flag number one if they had the opportunity.
It's not gonna make them like you less because you're
the general manager of the team the year that Cooper
Flagg was the number one draft pick and was available
to your team. Again, that's a no brainer decision. You

(01:36:14):
didn't even have to think that process through. Everyone already
knew before the season began at Duke that he was
going to be the number one pick in the draft.
So I can't then give you credit and then say
maybe they'll The only way they'll make them dislike you
less is they'll think about you less because maybe they'll
win some more games, and so they won't think of
Luka Doncic every two seconds when they're in that building

(01:36:35):
every time they think of the MAVs. They won't think
of what they don't have quite as much. And so
maybe you'll be a little bit more out of sight,
out of mind. But I don't think it's gonna make
them dislike you less. It's just gonna make them think
about you less. And I think there's a difference there.
I know this sounded harsh, but I just heard that.
It's just like, really, fortune favors the bold. That's where
we're going. Not the smartest thing that I heard this week.

(01:36:59):
Also not the thing that irritated me the most this week.
That was said That came from Chasey McGrady. We'll talk
about that when we come back. I'm Jason Martin In
for Chris Plank here on Fox Sports Radio. Hi. This
is Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:37:12):
I'm the producer of the Paul and Tony Fusco Show.
Usually in these promos they asked you to listen to
the show. I'm here to ask you please, don't listen
have the dumbest takes on sports imaginable. Don't listen to
the show so it can get camps.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
Get him fool.

Speaker 4 (01:37:33):
Listen to the Tony Fosco Show on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
He's still moving.

Speaker 3 (01:37:41):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
Welter back Chris Plank Show here Fox Sports Radio Live
in the Fox Sports Radio studios. Chris is out. I'm
Jason Martin in for him. You can hear me with
Aaron Torres on Saturday nights. You'll hear me tonight later,
much later. Hopefully I'm gonna get to sleep. It'll be
four am my time when I'm off air here. So

(01:38:13):
Tracy McGrady said something this week was really interesting because
Tracy McGrady is a really good friend of Kobe Bryant's,
the late Kobe Bryants. He said really good stuff about
him in the past and said that it's absolutely ridiculous
that Kobe is not considered a top five player of
all time. I mean, he's got emotional about Kobe in

(01:38:35):
the past, like, yes, they were rivals, but they were
also great friends, and Tracy had a tremendous amount of
respect for Kobe, which is why what he said this
week was so kind of strange. But it was coming
off the heels of that conversation that Lebron James had

(01:38:56):
with Steve Nash on their podcast where he said, I
don't know why rings are so important.

Speaker 7 (01:39:02):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
Of course he's sitting there with Steve Nash, who didn't
win one. But why is Lebron all of a sudden
talking about this? Any argument, of course is real easy. Okay, Well,
if rings are not really that important, don't know why
your legacy's measured in rings. You're trying to tell me
that Charles Barkley wasn't an all time great. He's making
just real straw man arguments, where Charles Barkley himself has said, look,

(01:39:23):
I know what was great. I know it was a
Hall of Famer. Karl Malone's great. He's a Hall of Famer,
but we're in a different wing than Jordan and guys
like that that won championships because they understood what championships meant.
They understood what they were playing for. And I just
think it was disingenuous from Lebron because I think he
knows what he's playing for. If he's not, then why
is he trying to get every great free agent around him?
Why is he going to Miami in the first place.

(01:39:44):
Why is he coming back to Cleveland to team up
with Kyrie Irving when it fit the bill. Why are
they trying to get Anthony Davis out there in La
all of the things that have happened in Lebron's career,
what's he doing if he's not trying to win rings.
I think it was very transparently Lebron James trying to
kind of move the goalpost and change the discussion because

(01:40:07):
he desperately wants people to think that he was better
than Michael Jordan. And I used to hate that debate
because I always thought, well, I don't think Lebron even
thinks that.

Speaker 7 (01:40:15):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
I actually do still hate the debate, But for him
to say this, it's just dude, It is about championships.
It is about all of those things. The only reason
you would say that now in twenty twenty five is
because you don't think you're going to win another one.
So you need to come up with other metrics. Because

(01:40:35):
you're too thin skinned to let other people define your legacy.
You're going to find a way to sort of kind
of cast yourself in the best possible light. We already
know you're great, man, but this is just a bad look.
It was a horrible look for him. But the ring
culture debate then sparked larger conversations, and Tracy McGrady got
caught up in one on television this week. I think

(01:40:57):
Gilbert I Renez might have been a part of this
conversation as well, and they were talking about Kobe and
again t mag being the big time Kobe fan that
he has been throughout his career. I was pretty surprised
by what he said because Tracy has always kind of
intimated how great he was meaning him. Tracy and I

(01:41:19):
think that he's felt disrespected at times because he didn't
win championships. So we're getting right back into this ring
culture debate. So this is what happens. So what does
he say? About Kobe. He says, replace me with Kobe
with Shaq. You don't think I can carry the Lakers
to a championship. You don't think I can win a championship.

(01:41:41):
That does not sound like Kobe Brant is one of
the top five players in NBA history, unless he's also
saying that he is one of the top five players
in NBA history. So why is he saying this? First off,
replace me with Kobe with Shaq? This is the quote,
replace me with Kobe with Shack. You don't think I
can carry the Lakers to a championship. And he said
more than that, but that's kind of the money quote

(01:42:03):
in this discussion. And before going into this, he said,
what defines greatness? Is it the championship? He says, for me,
we have too many talented players that come to this
league that are championship worthy. Replace me with Kobe with Shack,
I don't win a championship. You don't think I can
carry the Lakers to a championship like I've never had

(01:42:24):
the opportunity, he said. So there's certainly some bitterness about
the chances that he did not have. He played in Orlando,
he played in Toronto first, and he played in Houston,
and he was the top guy in pretty much every
one of those scenarios because he was really good. We

(01:42:46):
know this, and his game was tremendous. Do I think
that if you put Tracy McGrady with Shack that they
win championships. I don't know. Oh, I would tend to
say no, because I think there's more to it than
being a great basketball player. There are a lot of

(01:43:07):
great players that are missing that one thing that some
of the guys have had. And yeah, sometimes talent can
carry you a long way. But the thing about Kobe
that made him so special to me was that killer instinct.
It was that do or die a competitor on the floor,

(01:43:30):
sometimes to a fault. The guy that wouldn't let you know,
a kid beat him in a basketball camp scenario or
even get a point on him, and was kind of
trash talking the kid in front of his parents and stuff.
That was a funny story. Kobe cared a lot. He
was wired in one way, and of course, as he
became more of an elder statesman in the years right

(01:43:51):
before he passed tragically, you know, he was doing a
lot of things for basketball and he was kind of
given back it felt like, but he was also being
very matter of fact about what he thought was lacking
when it came to competitiveness because he was an ultimate competitor.
And so with Shack, by the way, is why they
were so dominant, because they cared a lot, and yes,

(01:44:12):
they had the talent to back it up. You can't
just care and win a championship. But you have to
be able to care plus your talent or you're not
going to achieve what you would have achieved. That's almost
always going to be true. I think Tom Brady wasn't
the most talented quarterback to ever play, but his mindset
was different than just about anybody that's ever played, and

(01:44:34):
he did have a lot of talent to go along
with that. You have to have some in both categories,
and that's where we get to it. It's like, I'm
not gonna like go into deep analysis about whether or
not Tracy McGrady would have won a championship with Shaq.
I will say that in the opportunities that Tracy didn't have,
and yeah, he didn't play with a Shack, there's no

(01:44:55):
no doubt, right. I Mean, he played with Vince Carter
for a little bit in Toronto, that was a different time,
that was early in their careers and at that point
it was the Vins Show, right. But Tracy obviously carved
out a great career for himself, and no question about it,
this is not about his bona fides as a player.
I don't know what kind of competitor Tracy McGrady was.

(01:45:19):
That's not something about him that stands out. It's not
something that I think about when I think about Tracy McGrady.
I don't. It's not that I don't think he was
a competitor. It's just I have no idea. He was
a basketball player, made a lot of money and made
a lot of shots and played hard. He did like
I mean, he was at times he was a walking mismatch.

(01:45:40):
I think I saw in one one article about him
at Yahoo, and he was and he was just like
he was smooth as silk like he did. He did
a He was great to watch, there's no question. But
did he have that it factor that you can't teach,
that it factor that's just in your heart where you
just truly, truly care about every dribble and everything that's

(01:46:03):
going on. And this again is happening around this ring
culture thing where it seems like we have guys that
are trying to say that they are awesome even though
they didn't win championships, when no one ever said they weren't.
Like we all know, Tracy McGrady was a great player,
but it's very clear that he is walking around with
a chip on his shoulder because he thinks he's not

(01:46:25):
seen what he would have been at that point. He said.
This is what he said as well. He said, I
felt like if I was put in that position to
win a championship, I sure would have shown up and
done what I do in the playoffs to elevate my
team to that level. I just never had the chance
to do. So I get diminished because I never won
a championship. My fault. I was never put in that position.

(01:46:48):
This is the Lebron said. This is the Lebron argument
being made by somebody because Barkley actually makes the opposite point.
Barkley saying we're in a different wing of the hall
because we didn't win championships, and here is McGrady saying, no,
I was great. I was great, and yeah I didn't
win rings, but I didn't have Shaq next to me.

(01:47:10):
If you would have given me shack outa won championships.
I don't think he knew this, and I don't necessarily
even think he intended this, because again, he and Kobe
were great friends. That's kind of a slight on Kobe,
and I think Gilbert Arenas in that same conversation, or
at least in his podcast in the last week, intimated
that Kobe at the time he was playing with Shaq,

(01:47:30):
was being seen as the next Pippin, and I don't
think that was true either. I'm not saying that people
didn't see Shaq as the one option for a season
or two there, like he was the most dominant player
in the league, because I mean, I had his size
and everything he was able to do. He was in
the prime of his career. Early after that trade from Orlando,
I don't think anybody looked at Kobe and said, man,

(01:47:52):
that's Scotty Pippen right there. He's a running buddy. Like, No,
we didn't see him as a Robin. Everything about his game,
which of course became me been more clear later when
he started to emulate him, even started to look like
him in a lot of ways. We always saw Kobe
and thought he was Jordan. So now we're saying kind
of odd things about Kobe Bryant, and we're also talking

(01:48:13):
about Rings being kind of overrated. H Yeah. I think
this is all about making sure that Lebron is viewed
the way Lebron wants to be viewed and how rich
Paul wants it viewed when he's done. I don't think
that they like paid Tea back to say anything. I
think t Mac, I think t Mac really did. I

(01:48:35):
think it raised his ire. I think that this whole
thing is just kind of like, I want people to
know how good I was, and a lot of us do, Tracy,
But I think you took a you accidentally kind of
took a shot at your guy, this guy that you
said you think it's insane that he's not seen as

(01:48:55):
a top five player in the league. I think in
that as you can, and I got emotional and started
talking about yourself, which I can understand, you accidentally threw
Kobe Bryant kind of down a notch because you said
if I'd have been with him, I'd have done everything
I could to win a championship too, And I guess

(01:49:16):
that's like, no, I was competitive, I just didn't have
a team around me that could win and hey Man
points for honesty right like that, If he truly believed that,
there's no reason for him not saying I don't need
him to hold that back. He doesn't have to be
tactful at this point. He was in a conversation where
he needed to give his insight and his perspective based

(01:49:36):
on his experience as a player in the NBA. I
just bet and maybe no one's even told him this,
or he didn't even think it through. But I don't
think that he meant to slight Kobe. But he slighted Kobe.
He was saying he could have done the exact same
thing that Kobe had done if he had had a

(01:49:57):
shack next to him, if you had taken Kobe and
put Hi where Chrasey McGrady would. The one thing he
didn't say was if Kobe had been where I was
and I was where he was, Kobe would be the
one that you'd be questioning because he wouldn't have a championship.
He did not say that, but he kind of means
that in its own way, because he's kind of saying

(01:50:18):
I was just as good as Kobe. I just never
had the opportunity to show it. Maybe not a and
certainly it's an opinion that he can hold about himself.
Not sure that's the best look. Also, don't know again
if that was I don't think that he intended it
to be what it turned out to be. But this
discussion is getting worse and worse. But still it's Lebron

(01:50:38):
that's irritating about it. Him saying rings don't matter. After
he's on tape a couple of years ago talking about
winning a championship in Cleveland and suggesting this is not me,
this is him. You can find this on YouTube. I'm
not sure if it was like the barbershop or the
thing that he was doing there, or if it was

(01:50:59):
some other deal, but you can find the clip. He
was saying that he went back and he watched tape
or after they won the championship in Cleveland. He was
watching it during the summer. He was sitting down, he
was thinking about it, and he realized, He's like, man,
you know, in that moment, I realized I was the
best basketball player ever, I was the best player to

(01:51:19):
ever live. That I could do that in Cleveland, that
was special. All this like, dude, what when a championship
which is overrated? When a ring that's overrated. This is
like two years ago he said this, and now he's saying,
I don't know why rings are so important, man, like
all these guys aren't great and all this. Like, dude,
I hate to tell you this, and we're not going

(01:51:40):
to get into the debate because I don't think it's
a fair debate. I think that one of the interesting
things about this stuff coming out of a Kobe right
now is that I do think there's a debate between
Lebron and Kobe. I do not believe in any way,
shape or form that you can actually have an honest
debate about Michael Jordan and Lebron James. I don't. I
don't listen to that second part of the argument, so

(01:52:02):
because I think Jordan's in a completely different tier than
everybody else. But I think that you could talk about
Kobe and Lebron. And I think Lebron right now is
trying to cement his legacy at the very least as
number two, which I think is fair. I just don't
think he's one, but he tried to kind of get there,
and now he's also trying to diminish the importance of rings.

(01:52:22):
Why because that dude that's above him in most people's lists.
The vast majority of people's list has more of those
rings than he does, and more finals MVPs than he does,
and is widely considered that that's one of the biggest
reasons for his greatness is because of the championship success
that he had. So if we can just knock that
down just enough to where we can try to point

(01:52:44):
to other things being a part of how great a
player you actually are, then maybe we can change this
narrative and get a few more people on our side.
But it's meaningless anyway. They're both outstanding players. It just
reveals to me again, doesn't matter if you're Lebron James
or Bronny James or anybody else, there's always somebody you're

(01:53:06):
looking up at and comparing yourself to. This is a
great quote, it really is. It's not mine, but it's
one to live by. Comparison is the thief of joy.
Be content in your own skin, Lebron, You're awesome. That's
gotta be good enough. It sure should be. We'll be
back to finish up the program after this, but before
we do, let me just tell you shortly after the

(01:53:28):
show again, the podcast goes up. Miss any of today's show,
check out that podcast search Fox Sports Radio wherever you
get your podcasts, and also while you're there, follow review
the podcast rate at five stars. Just search wherever you
get your casts, and you'll see today's show posted right
after we get off the air. We'll finish up the
program when we come back out of this break. I

(01:53:50):
am Jason Martin and for Chris Plank. Here on Fox
Sports Radio for the best pregame show every week, and
be sure to tune in Fox Sports Radio's Countdown presented
by bet MGM, every Saturday Sunday morning from nine to
new Eastern six to nine am Pacific, counting you down
to all the biggest games. Tune in Countdown presented by
bet MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on

(01:54:12):
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. I'm Jason Martin
for Chris Plant. Chris be back next week. Congrats to
his thunder, and congrats to my thunder. I had to
get a Fanatics tea shirt. Maybe he was in the building.
Somebody said, why aren't you gonna go down there? I'm like,
because that's I've got two kids and it's Oklahoma it's
a bit of a drive. Can't just up and going.

(01:54:35):
Things change. One thing that doesn't change is me hosting
with Aaron Torres. I'll be doing that as I usually
do tonight on many of these same Fox Sports radio stations.
To stick around for that. We've talked about Cooper Flagg
seventeen different ways during the show. One thing we haven't
talked about is what he said. He said a lot
of really good stuff, like seems to have a good
head on his shoulders, and from what every report has

(01:54:57):
been pretty much throughout, even back in high school and
everything else, he didn't carry himself arrogantly. He carried himself
confidently because he was great. But teammates loved being around him,
adults love being around him. He just seemed to get it,
understand it. And so he talked about not being the

(01:55:18):
A option right on this team because you've already got
Kyrie Irving probably a Hall of Famer and Anthony Davis
probably a Hall of Famer. I say probably, but both
those guys will be in a Hall of Fame, I think,
and so even some solid veteran role players on that
team as well. And he said it was a blessing
to be able to come into that situation and not
be the top option in year one and look for

(01:55:43):
whatever is being said about Cooper Flagg right now, which
I think is a little much, and I don't think
it's going to help him any I think I think
he's gonna be a really good player. I don't see
him being a bust or anything like that. But just
saying that they're going to compete for the West this year.
I've now mentioned twice during the course of this show
and leth these segments that I just find it disingenuous
and I think it's just you're just setting him up

(01:56:05):
to underperform so that you can say, do we over
hype Cooper Flag? But he staid it would be a blessing,
and I was thinking, yeah, I mean, that's a really
mature perspective to have to think that. And it's also
kind of it's showing kind of a humility walking into
that situation, not acting like you're big man on campus.
You know there's other talent there, and saying that you're

(01:56:25):
gonna called himself a sponge. He wants to soak up everything.
Jason Kidd said he likes it, wants to put him
at point guard, see how how he can handle some
quick situations and all this kind of stuff, and there's
still gonna be a learning curve, there's gonna be a
process and all this, which is why I think that
Western Conference Contenders thing is crazy and unnecessary. But here's

(01:56:46):
my other thought about what he said about it's just
a blessing not to be seen as the top option.
So you can believe that it can be true, But
have you informed the media that that's how they need

(01:57:06):
to see it. Have you told the us of this
world that that's how they need to see it? Because
what I don't buy is an argument that you're not
going to be talked about like you're the star of
that team. With Kyrie electing to stay around but not
being there until early twenty six, and with Anthony Davis

(01:57:27):
coming back off the injury. I mean, he's a great player,
we know this, but he's also he's probably going to
miss some time during the course of the season. We'll
just say that nicely. Hopefully not but probably he will.
But even if even if those things weren't sure, even
if those two guys were on the floor, do we
really think the way that Cooper Flagg has been talked about,

(01:57:49):
I would say easily the most talked about prospect entering
the league since Zion Williamson, and one of probably the
top five ish overall right in the in this century.
Maybe in the draft, you're telling me that the media
is actually going to cover him as if he's not

(01:58:09):
the number one option, that they're not going to view
him like, well, he should be scoring thirty a night,
when that might not be his game at all. His
game might be much more well round. In fact, it
is like he plays on both sides of the ball.
He's a good passer, he's a good rebounder. He yes,
he can score, but he's not a guy I think
it's going to be a forty point scorer or even
like a thirty five point scorer on a consistent basis.

(01:58:31):
He's not Luca in that way. He's going to be
a completely different player, and they're going to be a
different team and how they approach. They're going to play
better on the defensive side of the balls, no question
about that, and we'll see how they share the ball
and all that kind. But if his numbers, let's say
he goes out there in year one and he still
has a pretty good year. But he has, like you know,
I don't know, he averages eighteen and eight or something

(01:58:54):
like that, Like is not going to be talked about like, well,
he wasn't going to be the one option this year
or so everything's fine, no way. So what he's saying
is right. And I'm reading these articles on these websites
that are covering it, and they're saying, yeah, he's saying,
it's a blessing not to be the one pick. Yeah,
make sure you tell all your television personalities, make sure

(01:59:15):
you tell all your radio personalities. Make make sure you
tell all the hot take artists. Make sure you tell
them that that's how he views it. Make sure that
that's actually it's how it's perceived. Don't treat him like
he's the one option because he's saying it's a blessing
for him not to be. And I think that he's
probably right about what he's saying, and it's certainly the
smart thing to say. But I don't think that he's

(01:59:36):
going to be covered as if he's not the one option.
And I think there's a significant difference between those two things,
and that could be a problem for him. Again, I
am hopeful that I'm wrong about how this is going
to be seen, but the fact that we're already talking
about how the MAVs should be in the mix for
the Western Conference championship next year tells me that media
is still going to media. Man. I appreciate Chris Plank

(01:59:58):
having me in. I'll be with Aaron Torres tonight. Coming
up next to guys I know, very very well talented guys.
Stick around. Jason fitz buck Rising coming up next. Enjoy
your Saturday

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Fox Sports Radio News

Host

Jonas Knox

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jason Martin talks Cooper Flagg Media Coverage, Ace Bailey’s Entitlement, & MORE!